the evolving mind

I took this photo in a small Sicilian church. Relative to the rest of the church, the altar was quite large and ornate.

What are altars all about? Here’s the etymology of the term:

O.E., from L. altare (pl. altaria), probably originally meaning “burnt offerings” (cf. L. adolere “to worship, to offer sacrifice, to honor by burning sacrifices to”), but infl. by L. altus “high.” [source]

Today millions of people will go to their “high place.” The place where transcendant forces are supposedly manifest. Will they make sacrifices to their most high being? Their ancestors likely did.

Historically speaking, altars got splattered with blood. While the talk of body and blood sacrifice is purely metaphorical today, does that make the ideology any more lofty? In my opinion — to the contrary.

Technorati Links: freethought, religion

My right-hand man.…
Seated at the right hand of the father.

That the right hand, and things near it, is conventionally equated with good, and the left with bad/sinister, is a curious phenomenon. It just got more fascinating. In a news release titled, Right-handed and left-handed people do not see the same bright side of things, I learned of a set ingenious experiments conducted at Stanford University by Daniel Casasanto. They boiled down to subjects placing items in either a box at their left hand, or one at their right. Without knowing that the purpose was to sort the things they perceived as bad from those they perceived as good, most right-handed subjects (with left hemisphere dominance) placed the good items in the box to their right. Can you guess where the lefties (right hemisphere dominance) put the items?

Yes, to the left.

In all tasks, right-handers tended to evaluate the object on the right better, while left-handers favoured the one on the left.

The author of the recent study speculates why this is so:

“these results demonstrate that perceptuomotor experiences, in this case the greater ease and fluidity of interaction with one or another side of space, are sufficient to generate stable associations between specific dimensions, such as space, and concepts of a high degree of abstraction, such as kindness, intelligence or honesty.”

You might say that a righty (thanks to left-hemisphere dominance) is more at ease with things to her right, and associates that ease with goodness. The opposite is true for lefties.

So there you have it. What does it all mean? For one, the god of the bible must have a left-hemisphere dominant brain, for he favors his right. For another, one aspect of human moral judgments is influenced by brain lateralization. Which is likely fully innate.

As for the 10% of the population that consists of lefties, if you want to “get on their good side” (their at-ease side), don’t be a right-hand man. Go left.

I particularly liked this statement from the article -

These data provide one of the first clear demonstrations that sensory-motor experience can exert a powerful influence on the conceptualization of even our most abstract ideas.

There is so much to “human nature.” While an understanding of this complexity may not put us at ease, understanding is good.

Technorati Links: culture, handedness, psychology

Well, I don’t know about the words. As for actually being gay or atheist — I see nothing wrong with either. My stance isn’t an ideological one, by the way; I’ve searched for empirical evidence and, guess what? Morally speaking, gays and atheists are as good and as bad as heterosexuals and Christians, etc.

While I am not gay, I am an atheist.

As for my heterosexuality, it certainly wasn’t a lifestyle choice. The thought of getting closer to women excites deep regions of my brain. It’s simply not under the control of my conscious intellect. On the other hand, the thought of getting closer to, and say, kissing another dude — minus any learned homo-averse reactions — is about as appealing as the thought of eating a big spoonful of sand. My deep brain just “doesn’t get it.” Intellectually, however, I can understand how others have different deep brains than I do. So to speak.

But yes, I’m an atheist. If I must be classified. So I probably have a greater incentive to find nothing wrong with it. But again, I’ve done hours and days and weeks of research into the matter, and please, show me how being an atheist leads to “bad.” Atheist = bad is a bogus equation, unsupported by anything other than ignorant prejudice.

Okay, rant over. If you care to mingle with more non-theists and non-heterosexuals, I recommend clicking over to The Gaytheists. There you will find, Carnival of the Liberals #101: The Loopy Cough Medicine Edition.

Technorati Links: atheism, sexuality

Any idea what substance (above) was digitally photographed with a cheapo microscope? Hints: x60 magnification; the title; and I bought the stuff at a health food store. Answer below the fold.

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Technorati Links: puzzle

Not all research is created equal. Consider the following bit of research as an illustration.

The headline: Attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings may reduce depression symptoms.

Gotta give recognition and kudos for the use of the word “may.”

The methodology -

The researchers analyzed data from Project MATCH, a federally funded trial comparing three treatment approaches for alcohol use disorder in more than 1,700 participants. While participants in that study were randomly assigned to a specific treatment plan, all were able to attend AA meetings as well. Among the data gathered at several points during Project MATCH’s 15-month study period were participants’ alcohol consumption, the number of AA meetings attended, and recent symptoms of depression.

Good number of subjects. Three treatment plans with random assignment in each — good. But wait. All were able to attend AA meetings? This means AA attendance was voluntary, and, uh-oh, a giant, confounding variable has entered the building. Say hello to possible volunteer bias and the action of other, hidden variables. Because the study conclusion is about the effectiveness of AA, that is a huge problem.

The results -

Those participants who attended more AA meetings had significantly greater reductions in their depression symptoms, along with less frequent and less intensive drinking.

Positive results. But what do they mean? Can we state outright or even suggest that it was the attending of AA meetings, variable one, that caused a change to variable two, depressive symptoms? Actually, we can’t. Not with a reasonable degree of certainty.

Here’s why. This was no controlled experiment, with the attendance of AA meetings the independent variable. Attendance was voluntary, rather than manipulated. Which is a huge difference. When you manipulate a variable (group 1 attends x times a week, group 2 attends y times a week, group 3 doesn’t attend at all . . . ) you can test that variable’s effect open another variable or variables.

Furthermore, even if the research wasn’t of the experimental variety, it still could have been controlled better. Right up front we’ve got one massive control that is missing. Huge. Recall that the claim is that attending AA meetings may reduce (is at least associated with — that much we can state with confidence) depressive symptoms. But is the qualifier of AA before the meetings warranted? Do those specific type of meetings work? We don’t know. For there was no control group of subjects given the option to voluntarily attend some other sort of regularly occurring social event/meeting. It may well be that regularly participating in any social event reduces depressive symptoms, and the AA part has absolutely nothing to do it. Which is my suspicion.

My greatest critique of this research, and the vast majority of research into the alleged benefits of religious involvement, is the complete lack a secular control. Until a secular control is employed, we don’t know whether the particular ideology of a group is the actual vehicle that brings change, or if it is merely a superficial label placed over the more mundane truth.

Technorati Links: AA, psychology, research design

Don’t mean to be pushy, but the 129th Skeptics’ Circle is out over at the SkepVet blog. You might want to check it out. But no pressure.

DO IT!

But only if you want to.

Technorati Links: blogs

In his poem, Auguries of Innocence, William Blake wrote:

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

I don’t know about a grain of sand, but there definitely is a world in a drop of rain water. Dust from far-away Africa, acidic by-products of industrial pollution, many species of bacteria . . . .

As observers of the universe, human beings are quite large. The smallest details are invisible to us. We’re also quite small. The most distant details are beyond us. Fortunately, the tools of science can help us gain an understanding of the universe. . . whether or not we label that understanding as poetry.

Technorati Links: photography, poetry, science

Since hitting mid-life I have done some thinking about how I want to age. Age? Do I have to?

Hair starting to go gray . . . needing reading glasses of increasing strength . . . muscles that respond to work-outs less like they are pep rally sessions for growth, more like they are a form of torture . . . a metabolism that seems much more capable of converting food into not energy, but mass. So no, I won’t have a second piece of pie. In fact, I better skip that first.

How do I want to age? Well, to continue being happy tops the list. Maybe “content” is a better term. That one I have quite a bit of control over. For me, making progress on projects gives me quite a bit of satisfaction. Heck, I even do quite a bit of work on weekends. Pure leisure seems a bit pointless to me. Fortunately, my projects do not involve heavy lifting. I should be able to persist at them until very late in life.

Active? I have some control over this, too. If I keep active now, chances are better I can remain relatively active. But my muscles and, more so, my joints may have some say about just how active that will be.

And . . . fat? But I’m not fat now, and for the first few decades of life I was on the opposite end of the spectrum. A bean pole, if anything. But that bean pole has added some padding over this past decade. Not a lot, but enough to notice. It’s been unintentional, and has occurred despite some effort to prevent it.

Maybe I’ll do less to prevent it in the coming years. Intentionally.

Huh!? Let myself get (relatively) fat? Though my social self recoils at the thought (and my self-concept will likely say, upon looking in a full-body mirror, “Who dat heavier dude?”) it could actually be good for me.

But wait, fat is bad, right? Maybe not. At least not always. Again we are discovering that black-and-white thinking misses a more nuanced reality. New research suggests that being overweight during your seventh decade and beyond is actually good for your health. All other things being equal, of course.

Here’s the results of research published yesterday in the Journal of The American Geriatrics Society:

The study began in 1996 and recruited 4,677 men and 4,563 women. The participants were followed for ten years or until their death, whichever was sooner, and factors such as lifestyle, demographics, and health were measured. The research uncovered that mortality risk was lowest for participants with a BMI classified as overweight, with the risk of death reduced by 13% compared with normal weight participants. The benefits were only seen in the overweight category not in those people who are obese. [source, bold added]

Wow. That’s interesting. But no, I’m not going to buy a dozen donuts anytime soon. Question is, will I ever feel differently about the appearance of excess weight? As a member of our thin-obsessed culture, shaking that bias isn’t going to be easy. If the research holds up, however, perhaps my future focus should change from shedding pounds to dropping an unhealthy bias.

Technorati Links: aging, mid-life

What in the world!?

It’s a crater. On a moon. Not THE Moon. On the Martian moon Phobos.

Cool. Amazing.

Who needs drugs when you have astronomy?

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos, NASA

When reading yesterday’s science news, I encountered a sentence that almost made me not LOL, but COL (cheer out loud). Here it is:

The authors caution that because they studied only a small number of people, further research is necessary….

Booyah! Now that’s science and good science writing.

The research in question was on the use of deep brain stimulation as a treatment for depression. What made the research unique is the brain area stimulated:

Physicians publishing a new report in Biological Psychiatry now describe findings related to the stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, a brain region the size of a hazelnut associated with reward and motivation that is implicated in processing pleasurable stimuli, sometimes referred to as the “pleasure center” of the brain….

Bewernick and colleagues administered DBS treatment in ten patients with severe long-term depression who had not responded to multiple other antidepressant treatments, including psychotherapy, drug treatments and electroconvulsive treatment. After one year of DBS, all patients showed some improvement, and half of them experienced significant improvement in their symptoms of depression, astonishing considering they had not responded to any prior antidepressant treatment. [source]

Notice the specific terminology and the use of quotes around pleasure center.

As for the nonsense, that hit my desk earlier in the week, in an article titled, Psychodynamic psychotherapy brings lasting benefits, new study finds.

The article led with this:

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is effective for a wide range of mental health symptoms, including depression, anxiety, panic and stress-related physical ailments, and the benefits of the therapy grow after treatment has ended, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Okay. Psychodynamic therapy is another effective treatment, at least according to this analysis. But BOOM, then I hit this piece of BS -

Psychodynamic therapy focuses on the psychological roots of emotional suffering.

Why is it BS? Two reasons. First, it suggests that 1) there is one set of roots to emotional suffering, and 2) psychodynamic therapy works by focusing on it.

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Technorati Links: mental health, psychotherapy