the evolving mind

I do my share of criticizing what I see as poor science (more often, poor science reporting in the form of an exaggeration of the meaning of results). But in order to point out what is lesser, a person should know the better. And perhaps point it out from time to time.

Psychology is a difficult field of study because, for a start, it is often impossible to define and measure your variables simply and directly. Recent research into the symptoms of schizophrenia has impressed me in a good way.

In Decoding Funny Faces To Detect Mental Illness I read -

Prof. Hendler’s findings, published recently in the journal Human Brain Mapping, showed that when presented with photographs of emotional faces with “bizarre” characteristics, the brains of schizophrenic patients were much less reactive than established norms.

This is no survey, no statistical finding. Hendler conducted an experiment with clearly defined variables and made a finding . . . one that could result in the ability to better predict a person developing schizophrenia before they hit the typical age of onset (18-30 years old). Cool.

The bizarre faces (a sample visible on the link above) consisted of faces with inverted mouths and eyes — two body parts the normal human brain keys into for important information. In a little more detail we read -

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Science can be difficult. Toss in some math and many people’s brains tend to shut down.

One of the latest findings in the evolutionary sciences perplexes me. But in a good way, as a brain-teasing puzzle might. Researchers have found steroids in sedimentary rock dating back 635 million years. The steroids are evidence of animal life, namely sponges, that existed 100 million years before the so-called Cambrian explosion of life-forms.

Huh. Wow. Cool. The steroids (think growth hormones in humans) were produced by the sponges and preserved in the rock. And scientists connected the dots.

Sure, for those who doubt evolution, go ahead and conclude that thousands upon thousand of scientists, when connecting their dots, are deluding themselves. Sure, some connections may be more tenuous than others. But if you fail to see the myriads of more obvious ones, that is your blindness, your failure to connect dots — whether the failure is in motive or ability or both.

I once heard a creationist argue that while he had his god, “God,” the evolutionists have their god, “time.” Time is the supernatural element we insert into our equations to magically fix what is actually broken.

That’s a nifty ploy. But it’s bogus. When I put a tin of muffins in the oven for 25 minutes, it is not the 25 minutes that does the cooking, it is the heat . . . over that span of time.  The 25 minutes explains/describes how flat batter is transformed into a risen muffin non-instantaneously.  And time actually does play an essential role.  That role is about quantity — in this case, of the vast amount of energetic molecular interations needed to bake a muffin .

Granted, numbers like 635 million are extremely difficult to grasp. Allow me to try to illustrate how big that number is in terms of muffins. Blueberry, corn, or even oat-bran (if you must), your choice.

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Grass and flagstone in the spitting rain.

Assuming for the moment the the photo above could be considered art, what would the “meaning” of the image consist of? Small spikes of action potential in the brain: emotional, cognitive . . . ? And if it had no meaning — even if meaningfulness is the mere pull on our feelings for reasons unknown to our intellect — could we still call it art?

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Roughly one in ten children husbands raise are not their own.

It seems that tidbit of information is mistaken. And I am guilty of passing it along. Fortunately, I did so in spontaneous chatter and not as something chalked onto a blackboard.

Still. I was wrong. Fortunately, I have learned of the mistake and will repeat it no more. Can I get an Amen! for education?!

In Y Chromosome And Surname Study Challenges Infidelity ‘Myth’, I learned -

“People often quote a figure of one in ten for the number of people born illegitimately,” says Professor Jobling. “Our study shows that this is likely to be an exaggeration. The real figure is more likely to be less that one in twenty-five.”

The authors of the study dug up some good, hard data, that their conclusion is based upon.

Am I sad to have been wrong? Not really. Mostly I’m glad to learn what is “more right.” A continuing education keeps you on the exciting, cutting edge of knowledge. Makes me wish that the millions of people who read the Bible every week would seek new sources of information. They, too, might learn something.

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Have you ever tried to guess how many jelly beans there are in a jar? Okay, that task can be quite challenging. Nonetheless, it seems that primates are adept at making quick, rough-estimate counts.

In the study reported in Pre-verbal Number Sense Common To Monkeys, Babies, College Kids, we read this lead-off claim -

Basic arithmetic and “number sense” appear to be part of the shared evolutionary past of many primates; it’s the use of language to explain abstractions that apparently takes human math to a higher level.

What, the astute reader will wonder, do they mean by “basic arithmetic.” Reading further we learn that it might be a stretch to call that.

Most of the experiments involve computer touch-screens and sets of brightly colored dots.

After seeing the same number of objects repeated in different-looking sets, infants recognize the novelty of a new number of objects. So do macaques. And both college kids and macaques can do a rough sort of math by summing sets of objects without actually counting them. Their speed and accuracy are about the same, in fact.

Does the above qualify as “doing math.” Maybe. Definitely as the roughest sort. But a more precise word would be better. Is there one?

The author’s explanation of why primates are natural born bean-counters is worth sharing.

“There are all sorts of reasons why number would be useful for nonhuman animals in the wild. In foraging situations animals need to make decisions about how long to stay in a given patch of food and when to move on,” Brannon says. “Territorial animals may need to assess the number of individuals in their own group relative to competing groups to decide whether to stand their ground or retreat.”

Explanations like the above bring a very important question to mind: are the explanations “science,” or something else? Okay, the explanations we draw from a finding are part of the scientific process, and a strong motivation for why we do science, but the more science-y part of any science is the raw, un-spun results. Yes?

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What is it? (Hint: magnification is 200x.) Look below the fold for 2 more photos and the identity.

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Big males show other tendencies for producing loud noises, such as the habit of pushing over huge dead trees as they move through the forest, thereby registering their whereabouts with loud and dramatic crashes.
- Dale Peterson & Richard Wrangham (30)

When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. (Exodus 20:18)

Big noises are intimidating. That is why we have expressions such as “the drums of war.” Big noises such as drumming and trumpeting send an impressive audio signal: I/we are coming; beware of the power, you might want to run.

In many cases, primates will not sneak up on their opponents, but advertise their approach. As Jane Goodall documented when observing chimps, “Many of the components of the charging display-slapping and stamping, swaying of vegetation, rock throwing-produce characteristic sounds, which serve to enhance the intimidating effect of the charging display.” (31)

It seems the general theme could be described as “wining through intimidation.” An intimidated foe is more likely to flee before, during, and/or after a violent encounter.

Can we trace the origin of human war drumming to primate relatives? I think so. We share many social instincts. In fact, chimpanzees will themselves drum. “Some other sound signals should be mentioned. The most important is the drumming display, when the chimpanzee leaps up and pounds with hands and feet against the buttress of a large tree. This produces a sound that can carry over long distances (across a valley, for example). Drumming, like the charging display, is primarily a male activity. It is typically accompanied by pant-hoots and is frequent when the chimpanzees are traveling in large mixed parties.” (32)

While chimpanzees drum, baboons will trumpet. With their throats.

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[This is the 4th part in a 4-part series. Intro here.]

While age certainly brings the opportunity to join the Association for the Advancement of Retired People, does it also bring wisdom? Equipped with the belief, “with age comes wisdom,” a person could find data in the form of personal observations supporting this belief, even if hits were as infrequent as finding a penny on the pavement.

When you don’t count opposing and alternative cases — the misses — the hits shine. Any time an older person — and if that comprises any individual over the age of 50, we’re swinging one gigantic net — acts in a manner that could be viewed as wise, a mental flash goes off. But how are we to notice and weigh possibly disconfirming evidence? Why would we throw the geriatric driver who backs into a shopping cart, pulls forward three feet, then backs directly into it again, into the same net that holds the instances our grandparents gave us comforting advice? Why would we throw the twenty-five year old who buys a less expensive car and puts the money saved into her IRA — certainly an exercise of sound judgment — in there as well?

Like the idea of a mid-life crisis, the age-brings-wisdom proposition is given a flying start through the use of loosely defined terms. Just what is wisdom? If wisdom is a mere synonym for knowledge, then sure, with age comes increased knowledge. The longer you live, the more you can learn. But if wisdom is something possibly related but distinctly different, and
I think most people would agree it is, then what is it?

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Our brains do not process information as if it were a series of numbers to progress along and sum. Most of the action likely occurs beyond awareness. And there is a surprising variety of “inputs:” memory, emotion, intellectual concepts, sensorimotor “concepts,” sights, sounds, and even smells (you are more likely to decide to buy something it gives off a heavenly aroma).

Interior decorators have long based color schemes on the “mood” they want to create. Recent research suggests that certain colors may actually influence cognitive functioning.

Between 2007 and 2008, the researchers tracked more than 600 participants’ performance on six cognitive tasks that required either detail-orientation or creativity. Most experiments were conducted on computers, with a screen that was red, blue or white.

Red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks such as memory retrieval and proofreading by as much as 31 per cent compared to blue. Conversely, for creative tasks such as brainstorming, blue environmental cues prompted participants to produce twice as many creative outputs as when under the red colour condition.

The author of the study, Juliet Zhu, provides an explanation for the measured affect of color. Her reasoning is interesting, but I think it lack’s a crucial component.

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Little more than a week after Florida’s cold snap, we’ve got new growth on some trees. Personally, I’d wait a little longer, but the trees wouldn’t listen to reason.

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