-
Beyond the Brain
The New York Times: It’s a pattern as old as time. Somebody makes an important scientific breakthrough, which explains a piece of the world. But then people get caught up in the excitement of this breakthrough and try to use it to explain everything. This is what’s happening right now with neuroscience. The field is obviously incredibly important and exciting. From personal experience, I can tell you that you get captivated by it and sometimes go off to extremes, as if understanding the brain is the solution to understanding all thought and behavior. ... The first basic problem is that regions of the brain handle a wide variety of different tasks. As Sally Satel and Scott O.
-
Don’t Hurt That Robot! How Morality Muddles Perception of a Mind
LiveScience: Although people can't directly experience the consciousness of another, they take for granted that other people have minds — that others can think, remember, experience pleasure and feel pain. People, however, don't typically attribute such minds to robots, corpses and other beings with no apparent consciousness, except if these beings are put in harm's way, new research suggests. In a series of experiments by Harvard University researchers, people were more likely to ascribe the characteristics of an active mind to non-conscious beings when they were intentionally victimized than when they were unharmed.
-
You’re Probably Not as Conservative as You Think
Pacific Standard: Conservatism the brand seems to be faring better than conservatism the philosophy. That’s the conclusion of new research that finds a serious disconnect between the way people under 30 identify themselves politically, and their actual stands on the issues.
-
Don’t let retirement stress marriage: Plan to be busy
USA Today: Author and former financial planner Frank Maselli tells a story of a man who retired and went home to spend his days with his wife. It didn't take long for him to become a major intrusion in his wife's world. He told her the way she did everything was wrong, even the garden she had tended for 25 years. "She had to kick him out of the house," he said. "She made him get involved with a charity group and start going to the gym." It's a huge adjustment to shift from spending two or three hours a night to spending all day together, says author and psychologist Robert Bornstein. "It happens all at once.
-
Food aversions: why they occur and how you can tackle them
The Guardian: Like favourite childhood scars, food aversions are deeply personal, often come with a backstory, and are ripe for comparing with others. This is classic ice-breaking conversation territory in the west, where there is no shortage of foods to happily loathe without risk of malnutrition. When I was little, being the only one in nursery who didn't partake in the free milk (yuck!) made me feel special. Taking refuge under my aunt's dining table, during a particularly smelly cheese course, gained me so much attention that the event has become family lore. ... Part of the fun of food-aversions chat is trying to explain them.
-
Peer Pressure for Teens Paves the Path to Adulthood
The Wall Street Journal: New studies on peer pressure suggest that teens—who often seem to follow each other like lemmings—may do so because their brains derive more pleasure from social acceptance than adult brains, and not because teens are less capable of making rational decisions. And scientists say facing the influence of friends represents an important developmental step for teens on their way to becoming independent-thinking adults.
