Category: Science

Evolution of Music

In the Science section of today’s New York Times, there’s an interesting and (as usual) problematic article about the evolution of human beings’ “ability to enjoy music”. All human cultures seem to value and make music; this is a problem for evolutionary theory, because music “does nothing evident to help survival.” How could it therefore have evolved?…

In the Science section of today’s New York Times, there’s an interesting and (as usual) problematic article about the evolution of human beings’ “ability to enjoy music”. All human cultures seem to value and make music; this is a problem for evolutionary theory, because music “does nothing evident to help survival.” How could it therefore have evolved?…
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Testosterone Worship

Another ludicrous scientific study (via Metafilter) showing that it’s possible to “prove” nearly any pre-established thesis, as long as you extrapolate from a small enough sample and generalize wildly without any sense of context: ” Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, compiled a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists,” and discovered that almost none of them continued to do important work once they got married and had children. Well, it is often said (though I have no idea whether this is more than an anecdotal observation) that scientists, in particular do their best work when they are young. If true, this may have to do with the energy of youth, or with a fresh mind free of preconceptions, or who knows what else. In any case, certain creative endeavors (discoveries in mathematics, perhaps) seem to be done best at a younger age, while others (writing long novels?) seem to be done best by people who are older. As for marriage and children, it is obvious that the higher the age, the larger percentage of people will have been married and have had kids. (Not to mention that, as I am experiencing daily, having a small child consumes a great deal of your time, energy, and attention, unless you are a complete pig who leaves it all to your partner, or so rich, as well as indifferent, that you can hire servants to do all the work for you). But these are mere trifles for Kanazawa. Not only does he take his database of scientists (chosen according to what criteria? we are not told in the newspaper account at least) as representative of the larger category of “creative genius and crime” (!), but he further concludes that the reason for the alleged fall-off in creativity after marriage and having children is that “a single psychological mechanism is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone. After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output, Kanazawa theorises.” I suppose Kanazawa considers the testosterone/creativity link to be so obvious that it does not need to be tested, or even explained. Yet another case of a “social scientist” who wouldn’t understand culture and society if they bit him on the ass.

Another ludicrous scientific study (via Metafilter) showing that it’s possible to “prove” nearly any pre-established thesis, as long as you extrapolate from a small enough sample and generalize wildly without any sense of context: ” Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, compiled a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists,” and discovered that almost none of them continued to do important work once they got married and had children. Well, it is often said (though I have no idea whether this is more than an anecdotal observation) that scientists, in particular do their best work when they are young. If true, this may have to do with the energy of youth, or with a fresh mind free of preconceptions, or who knows what else. In any case, certain creative endeavors (discoveries in mathematics, perhaps) seem to be done best at a younger age, while others (writing long novels?) seem to be done best by people who are older. As for marriage and children, it is obvious that the higher the age, the larger percentage of people will have been married and have had kids. (Not to mention that, as I am experiencing daily, having a small child consumes a great deal of your time, energy, and attention, unless you are a complete pig who leaves it all to your partner, or so rich, as well as indifferent, that you can hire servants to do all the work for you). But these are mere trifles for Kanazawa. Not only does he take his database of scientists (chosen according to what criteria? we are not told in the newspaper account at least) as representative of the larger category of “creative genius and crime” (!), but he further concludes that the reason for the alleged fall-off in creativity after marriage and having children is that “a single psychological mechanism is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone. After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output, Kanazawa theorises.” I suppose Kanazawa considers the testosterone/creativity link to be so obvious that it does not need to be tested, or even explained. I suppose, as well, that he doesn’t think women are capable of high-level creativity. Yet another case of a “social scientist” who wouldn’t understand culture and society if they bit him on the ass.

Mystique of the Y Chromosome

Scientists have recently discovered a mechanism for genetic repair used by the Y chromosome in human males. The Y chromosome does not have a partner chromosome to pair with, and recombine with during meiosis. Recombination is one of the ways that chromosomes compensate for mutations, transcription errors, and other potentially lethal alterations; so, without the opportunity to recombine, the Y chromosome would seem extremely vulnerable, and indeed this has often been used to explain why it is so much smaller than the X chromosome, or any of the other paired chromosomes in human cells. But it turns out the Y chromosome has a way of compensating for this difficulty. Large areas of the chromosome are palindromic, that is to say, they read the same in either direction. This means that the chromosome is able to, and in fact does, fold over and recombine with itself. This explains why, although the Y chromosome has far less genes than the X or any of the other, it does in fact have something like 78 active genes, which is more than anyone expected. This discovery is interesting, although scarcely earth-shattering. But the scientists who made it cannot resist the temptation to blow it up into something far more significant than it really is: “Men and women differ by 1 to 2 percent of their genomes, Dr. Page said, which is the same as the difference between a man and a male chimpanzee or between a woman and a female chimpanzee…We all recite the mantra that we are 99 percent identical and take political comfort in it, Dr. Page said. But the reality is that the genetic difference between males and females absolutely dwarfs all other differences in the human genome.” Can Dr. Page be serious? Even if his calculations of the numbers of genes involved is correct (which I doubt), all this shows is that not all genes are equally important, or equally active. While interspecies gene comparisons can give us a sense of how closely related two species are, they do not give us any indication of how “similar” or “dissimilar” those two species are, in any meaningful sense of those words. To say that human males are as similar to chimpanzee males as they are to human females is nonsense, if only because human beings and chimpanzees cannot interbreed and produce fertile (or any) offspring. The second half of Dr. Page’s comment–with its cliched invocation of opposing “political correctness”–suggests that he is overinterpreting his results in accordance with an agenda that has nothing to do with science. All in all, I’m reminded of a witticism my brother once uttered: “Isn’t it strange that I have 98.5% of my genes in common with a chimpanzee, but only 50% of my genes in common with my own son?”

Scientists have recently discovered a mechanism for genetic repair used by the Y chromosome in human males. The Y chromosome does not have a partner chromosome to pair with, and recombine with during meiosis. Recombination is one of the ways that chromosomes compensate for mutations, transcription errors, and other potentially lethal alterations; so, without the opportunity to recombine, the Y chromosome would seem extremely vulnerable, and indeed this has often been used to explain why it is so much smaller than the X chromosome, or any of the other paired chromosomes in human cells. But it turns out the Y chromosome has a way of compensating for this difficulty. Large areas of the chromosome are palindromic, that is to say, they read the same in either direction. This means that the chromosome is able to, and in fact does, fold over and recombine with itself. This explains why, although the Y chromosome has far less genes than the X or any of the other, it does in fact have something like 78 active genes, which is more than anyone expected. This discovery is interesting, although scarcely earth-shattering. But the scientists who made it cannot resist the temptation to blow it up into something far more significant than it really is: “Men and women differ by 1 to 2 percent of their genomes, Dr. Page said, which is the same as the difference between a man and a male chimpanzee or between a woman and a female chimpanzee…We all recite the mantra that we are 99 percent identical and take political comfort in it, Dr. Page said. But the reality is that the genetic difference between males and females absolutely dwarfs all other differences in the human genome.” Can Dr. Page be serious? Even if his calculations of the numbers of genes involved is correct (which I doubt), all this shows is that not all genes are equally important, or equally active. While interspecies gene comparisons can give us a sense of how closely related two species are, they do not give us any indication of how “similar” or “dissimilar” those two species are, in any meaningful sense of those words. To say that human males are as similar to chimpanzee males as they are to human females is nonsense, if only because human beings and chimpanzees cannot interbreed and produce fertile (or any) offspring. The second half of Dr. Page’s comment–with its cliched invocation of opposing “political correctness”–suggests that he is overinterpreting his results in accordance with an agenda that has nothing to do with science. All in all, I’m reminded of a witticism my brother once uttered: “Isn’t it strange that I have 98.5% of my genes in common with a chimpanzee, but only 50% of my genes in common with my own son?”

Nexus

Mark Buchanan’s Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks is an excellent piece of science writing; it’s the best introduction I have found so far to the recent developments in network theory: discoveries about how networks are structured to permit no more than “six degrees of separation” between any point and any other point, and how “tipping points” develop, at which small changes have very large consequences. These theories are extending our understanding of how patterns work: how the same forms of emergent order can be found in ecosystems, in economies, in neural structures in the brain, and so on. The material is different in each case, but the mathematics is the same. I find these developments exciting, while at the same time I remain a bit skeptical, feeling that such results can easily be oversold….

Mark Buchanan’s Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks is an excellent piece of science writing; it’s the best introduction I have found so far to the recent developments in network theory: discoveries about how networks are structured to permit no more than “six degrees of separation” between any point and any other point, and how “tipping points” develop, at which small changes have very large consequences. These theories are extending our understanding of how patterns work: how the same forms of emergent order can be found in ecosystems, in economies, in neural structures in the brain, and so on. The material is different in each case, but the mathematics is the same. I find these developments exciting, while at the same time I remain a bit skeptical, feeling that such results can easily be oversold….
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Antonio Damasio

Antonio R. Damasio is a neurobiologist, and one of the scientists whose work has seemed most provocative and interesting to me recently. I just finished reading is new book, Looking for Spinoza…

Antonio R. Damasio is a neurobiologist, and one of the scientists whose work has seemed most provocative and interesting to me recently. I just finished reading is new book, Looking for Spinoza…
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The Value of “Diversity”

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a new study that casts doubt upon “academic research that asserts the educational benefits of diversity.” According to this new study, “students of all ethnic backgrounds feel that as minority enrollment grows, the quality of their education diminishes and incidents of discrimination increase.” If “diversity” doesn’t improve the quality of education, then one of the main arguments for affirmative action has been refuted. Or so the study suggests. But (as Jerry Springer used to say) there’s more to this story…

An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (paid registration needed to access text–sorry) reports on a new study that casts doubt upon “academic research that asserts the educational benefits of diversity.” According to this new study, “students of all ethnic backgrounds feel that as minority enrollment grows, the quality of their education diminishes and incidents of discrimination increase.” If “diversity” doesn’t improve the quality of education, then one of the main arguments for affirmative action has been refuted. Or so the study suggests. But (as Jerry Springer used to say) there’s more to this story…
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Neuroeconomics

“Looking Inside the Brains of the Stingy” is an account of the new field of neuroeconomics: the “science” of using brain scans (MRI) to see what sort of neural activity is correlated with economic decisions. (Via McKenzie Wark on nettime). Neural stimulation and hormone levels are supposed to ‘explain’ why people do not always act in accordance with the dictates of “rational choice” economics. “Neuroscientists do experiments like looking at which parts of the brain are active when someone looks at photographs and decides which faces are trustworthy.” Researchers pursuing this line of examination have found, for instance, that trying to make a financial deal with somebody who is perceived as a cheapskate “stimulates the part of the brain associated with disgust.” When people act generously, on the other hand, levels of oxytocin (the feel-good hormone) in the blood seem to go up. What startling discoveries! This kind of survey is almost the perfect reductio ad absurdum of the cognitive/rationalist worldview, or of what Edward O. Wilson calls consilience: the attempt to give scientific rigor to the ‘soft’ disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. I doubt that the most inventive satirist could come up with anything better.

“Looking Inside the Brains of the Stingy” is an account of the new field of neuroeconomics: the “science” of using brain scans (MRI) to see what sort of neural activity is correlated with economic decisions. (Via McKenzie Wark on nettime). Neural stimulation and hormone levels are supposed to ‘explain’ why people do not always act in accordance with the dictates of “rational choice” economics. “Neuroscientists do experiments like looking at which parts of the brain are active when someone looks at photographs and decides which faces are trustworthy.” Researchers pursuing this line of examination have found, for instance, that trying to make a financial deal with somebody who is perceived as a cheapskate “stimulates the part of the brain associated with disgust.” When people act generously, on the other hand, levels of oxytocin (the feel-good hormone) in the blood seem to go up. What startling discoveries! This kind of survey is almost the perfect reductio ad absurdum of the cognitive/rationalist worldview, or of what Edward O. Wilson calls consilience: the attempt to give scientific rigor to the ‘soft’ disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. I doubt that the most inventive satirist could come up with anything better.

More on the Science Wars

John Brockman’s latest broadside rephrases the argument for a scientific culture that replaces what have traditionally been called the humanities, outdated in an age of evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. Sigh. Here we go again…

John Brockman’s latest broadside rephrases the argument for a scientific culture that replaces what have traditionally been called the humanities, outdated in an age of evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. Sigh. Here we go again…
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The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell’s book _The Tipping Point_ is in many ways popular science writing at its best. The book is lucid and intelligent, and it gives concrete examples for its arguments–without being condescendingly simple-minded about those examples in the ways popular science books often are. The subject matter of the book is both fascinating and important: how the logic of epidemic contagion applies to social phenomena, often causing things to develop in ways that are nonlinear, and hence deeply counterintuitive. All in all, a worthwhile read. And yet I find myself having complex reservations about the arguments of The Tipping Point— though my problems are less with Gladwell himself, than with (I guess) the zeitgeist…

Malcolm Gladwell’s book _The Tipping Point_ is in many ways popular science writing at its best. The book is lucid and intelligent, and it gives concrete examples for its arguments–without being condescendingly simple-minded about those examples in the ways popular science books often are. The subject matter of the book is both fascinating and important: how the logic of epidemic contagion applies to social phenomena, often causing things to develop in ways that are nonlinear, and hence deeply counterintuitive. All in all, a worthwhile read. And yet I find myself having complex reservations about the arguments of The Tipping Point— though my problems are less with Gladwell himself, than with (I guess) the zeitgeist…
Continue reading “The Tipping Point”