the evolving mind

According to a simplistic view of human psychology, stress is bad, and high sensitivity to stress is really bad. But with a more educated, scientific outlook we need to ask more questions. What kind of stress? How much stress? How often? For whom?

Thanks to new research, we now know to add this question: In what type of social setting and structure?

Here’s the lead paragraph to the news release:

Children who are especially reactive to stress are more vulnerable to adversity and have more behavior and health problems than their peers. But a new longitudinal study suggests that highly reactive children are also more likely to do well when they’re raised in supportive environments.

Before sharing the results, I must say that I’m unsure of the strength of the actual science behind the conclusions. This is all I learned about it from the article:

The researchers looked at 338 kindergarteners, as well as their teachers and families, to determine how family adversity and biological reactivity contribute to healthy development.

While 338 is an adequate sample size, what the heck does “looked at” mean?

So, with the results consequently taken with a grain of salt, we find that they were this:

[H]ighly reactive children were more likely to have developmental problems . . .

But wait, that’s not the whole story. The second half to the sentence answers an additional important question:

. . . when growing up in adverse, stressful family settings.

Ah, nice. So for the what we have a when. And there’s more! We can now add a big if to the equation.

But contrary to expectation, such children were also more likely to thrive when they were raised in caring, low-stress families because of their sensitivities to the supportive and nurturing qualities of such environments.

This finding brings to mind ADHD children. Somewhat similarly, one could simplistically ask, Is having ADHD a bad thing? Before answering that question in an educated, scientific manner, we’d have to refine it by asking a number of other questions.

As an offhand tangent, this question comes to mind: Asking people if they’d want a person with ADHD on their “team.” The smart person would ask questions about both the person with ADHD and the team. Who else was on the team? And, importantly, what were the team’s goals and preferred methods of operating?

Science. So many questions. So many questions about those questions. I wonder, are those who are good at asking questions better at answering them?

Technorati Links: ADHD, psychology, science

Many believe that Muslims are dangerously removed from reality. 72 virgins for blowing yourself up?!!!

But please. Let’s not play favorites. Religious delusion-LITE is still delusion.

Technorati Links: Christianity, freethought

Homosexuality, where not repressed out of view, occurs in all cultures across the globe. Clearly there is a genetic component to it. From a strict evolutionary perspective, this doesn’t make sense. Like grandparents, homosexuals leave very few offspring and consume resources. There is a cost to a population, so where is the evolutionary benefit?

Similar to thinking about the group-level adaptiveness of grandparents, some evolutionary psychologists have advanced a “kin selection hypothesis.”

What that means is that homosexuality may convey an indirect benefit by enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives. Specifically, the theory holds that homosexual men might enhance their own genetic prospects by being “helpers in the nest.” By acting altruistically toward nieces and nephews, homosexual men would perpetuate the family genes, including some of their own. [article source]

While this is an intriguing idea, it remains an inert idea until supported by indirect evidence, at least. Or, better yet, until put to a direct test. And news of such a test has recently been released.

Paul Vasey and Doug VanderLaan of the University of Lethbridge, Canada tested this idea for the past several years on the Pacific island of Samoa. They chose Samoa because males who prefer men as sexual partners are widely recognized and accepted there as a distinct gender category—called fa’afafine—neither man nor woman. The fa’afafine tend to be effeminate, and exclusively attracted to adult men as sexual partners. This clear demarcation makes it easier to identify a sample for study.

What were the results of the test? (I would call it a “weak” test due to the methods–questionnaires–and data generated–self-reported answers). It seems the Samoan homosexual males did indeed show helping/resource-allocation favoritism toward the offspring of their siblings. They doted on nieces and nephews.

Certainly, in this one case it could be that culture has fashioned a productive role for these men, and it has nothing to do with evolution. But we don’t know that.

This line of research, however, has left me with one important question: Must all gene combinations be adaptive? Assuming that homosexuality is at least partly genetic, it is highly unlikely that there is a single “gay” gene. Or lesbian gene.

Consider this hypothetical: homosexuality results when A, B, and C genes occur together. The combination is not strictly adaptive because homosexuals tend to leave fewer offspring, if any. But perhaps the combinations of A and B, A and C, and B and C are adaptive. Maybe even highly so. And so the genes have not been trimmed out of existence via natural selection.

Additionally, we must remember that “gay” and “lesbian” are intellectual categories. Human sexual orientation likely comes in many forms or degrees. Similar to the personality attribute of extroversion/introversion, there is not just fully “extroverted” and fully “introverted.” There are 101 degrees of this element of social orientation. I imagine the same is true for sexual orientation.

If extreme introverts don’t leave as many offspring, one could ask why introversion continues to persist? Which is silly. That’s a taking a narrow view of things. As usual, it is likely much more complicated than that.

Technorati Links: evolution, homosexuality

Saturn. And?

And I’m hungry. It’s time for lunch. Is there vegetation suitable for a salad on Saturn? How many calories in that ring? In the least, you should be able to make one heck of a salsa with it.

Or maybe not.

[photo thanks to NASA]

Technorati Links: cosmos

Oh-oh. New research has surfaced that is tailor made for conservatives to abuse. Conveniently, they need read no further than the headline.

Youth who self-identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual at higher suicide risk, say Montreal researchers

You know what it means, don’t you?! Deep down inside, gays and lesbians know they are sinning sinners, and this is why they hate themselves.

Wrong. How is it wrong? Let’s read the first paragraph, at least.

Mental health professionals have long-known that gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) teens face significantly elevated risks of mental health problems, including suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts. However, a group of McGill University researchers in Montreal has now come to the conclusion that self-identity is the crucial risk-factor, rather than actual sexual behaviours. Their results were published in February in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. [bold added]

Well, that’s not much of a help. And it actually contains an error itself. An error of omission. How so?

If you study psychological development you learn that personal identity develops in a social context. Not only are relationships a huge part of our identities, but a person’s identity is fashioned relative to their social context. They compare and contrast themselves with others. How are they alike, how are they different. And while being different in some regards can have positive mental health consequences (being better or the best at some valued ability or skill, etc.), being different from others can have negative mental health consequences (being the only black person in a white southern school, etc.).

The actual data itself is pretty interesting.

The researchers administered a detailed, anonymous questionnaire to nearly 1,900 students in 14 Montreal-area high schools, and found that those teens who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, or who were unsure of their sexual identity, were indeed at higher risk for suicidal ideation and attempts. However, teens who had same-sex attractions or sexual experiences – but thought of themselves as heterosexual – were at no greater risk than the population at large. Perhaps surprisingly, but consistent with previous studies, the majority of teens with same-sex sexual attraction or experience considered themselves to be heterosexual.

Yes, it really does appear that the self-identity part is key. It’s not until deep into the article, however — a place where conservatives are less likely to venture (or will find it easier to ignore) that what I see as the second crucial element is brought to light. Co-author Dr. Richard Montoro explains,

“The main message is that it’s the interface between individuals and society that causes students who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual the most distress.” [bold added]

Yes, it’s the interface. Both elements count. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine a hypothetical society in which homosexuality is popular and highly valued, with the minority heterosexuals are viewed as different, odd, and so heterosexuals may feel unworthy and alone. My guess is that in such a circumstance — given that particular interface — the heterosexual individuals who self-identify as heterosexual would be the ones with the higher risk for suicide.

So to conservatives who abuse this research I say, “Congratulations. You have shown to the world you are part of the problem.”

Technorati Links: homosexuality, psychology

Many religious folk feel their beliefs are under attack. The supposed war on Christmas being one example. But if non-believers are waging a war, what is under attack is not people but cows. Sacred cows.

Are cows sacred? Only in the minds of believers. It is thought that makes cows sacred. So in reality, the target of the warfare is a type of thinking. Thinking that elevates something to a cherished, “you must honor and never critique” sacred status .

Those who cherish the Christian part of the Christmas holiday may feel that others are disrespecting their holy day. Yet the day is only holy in their minds. Asking others to change their thinking because it conflicts with their own is pure arrogance.

My thinking trumps yours because I feel really really strongly about mine.

If there is a cultural battle occurring, I see the real issue as that of free speech. And this is what I believe: if you can’t tolerate the public criticism of your religion, keep it out of the public square. To insist that all other thinkers play by the rules of your thought is frankly egocentric and dictatorial.

What to do? One way to protect free speech is to exercise it. Especially when is is unwelcome.

But that’s just my thinking. Feel free to express your own.

[cartoon thanks to atheistcartoons.com]

Technorati Links: free speech, freethought, Islam

A huge pet peeve of mine is stupid writing. The most common form I notice is headlines with “clever” wordplay, but if you watch local news you will be flooded with the same kind of prose. Trite puns here, silly metaphors there, and clichés coming at you like chocolates down an assembly line toward a harried Lucille Ball . . . I don’t watch local news and a big reason is the lame writing.

After the break, a real alligator story with teeth . . . . Local humane society worker saves furry friends from sad end . . . .

Egads.

My peeve has motivated me to start a series of awards I’ll call not the Tonys but “the Groanys.” The criteria for nomination: science writing so pathetic it makes you groan, boom, it’s in the running for the year-end awards that will be determined by reader vote.

If you encounter anything Groany-worthy, please feel free to nominate it by sending it my way. I’m going to stick to science writing because that’s what I read the most, and because that’s where I find the use of dumb writing most egregious.

THE GROANYS: RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE IN STUPID SCIENCE WRITING SINCE FEBRUARY, 2010

The get things going, here is the first nomination . . . . drum roll please . . . this headline discovered yesterday over at ScienceDaily:

‘Zen’ Bats Hit Their Target by Not Aiming at It

Groan. Zen bats?! Oh please. Those bats are so enlightened, the fly by cosmic intuition. What, did the writer think that if you add “Zen” to anything it automatically makes it more mysterious and interesting?

And actually, the title is misleading: the bats do indeed aim. But what they do — that info buried down in the prose beneath the bogus intro, in the real science part — is alternately aim their echolocation “sound beam” to one side of their target and then the other. This helps them to better gauge “change in the relative position of the target to the bat.”

What the hell does Zen have to do with that? It seems quite advanced and strategic to me. Is that Zen? Here’s the Google dictionary definition of the term:

Zen or Zen Buddhism is a form of the Buddhist religion that concentrates on meditation rather than on studying religious writings.

And this element from Wikipedia:

Zen emphasizes experiential prajña-, particularly as realized in the form of meditation, in the attainment of enlightenment. As such, it de-emphasizes theoretical knowledge in favor of direct, experiential realization through meditation and dharma practice.

Hmm. Maybe the bats do their meditating while hanging upside down. But not in a full-lotus position. And maybe they contemplate the meaning of this koan: What is the sound of one wing flapping?

Such a shame. Interesting science news belittled with a stupid headline. What can you do but groan?

Nominate it for an award! Officially recognize the stupidity and draw attention to it.

Care to join me in celebrating lame writing in the sciences?

Technorati Links: science writing

Yesterday serotonin, today dopamine. New research suggests a relationship between dopamine and social status.

Okay, let’s clarify. First, dopamine is a neurotransmitter that could be described as a natural “reward” chemical in the brain. When dopamine levels are increased in the brain, subjects might describe their state with words like “aroused,” “eager,” “excited,” “interested.” Drugs such as caffeine and cocaine will increase dopamine levels.

Maybe reward isn’t the best word. Low-levels of dopamine has been implicated in addictive behavior. By gambling, for example, it is believed that subjects get shots of dopamine increase. Anticipated reward might be a better term. Increasing dopamine levels can help with the lethargic, apathetic component of depression. The depressed person may feel “it doesn’t matter,” and thus lack motivation. “Get out of bed, why? Leave the house, why?” Anticipating a positive outcome is strong motivator.

In the news of the research found over at Eurekalert, I learned that it was not the actual levels of circulating dopamine that was discovered to be related to social status, but the dopamine receptor density in the brains of the subjects. Interesting. In yesterday’s post about serotonin, I mentioned that neurotransmitter levels alone don’t tell the whole story. There can be many conditions, including much circulating neurotransmitter, but few receptors, as well as little circulating neurotransmitter and many receptors. Etc.

What about the social status part? Unfortunately, the article didn’t mention how that was measured. My guess: some sort of questionnaire. The neurotransmitter receptor density part was measured with PET scans.

The result -

[I]ncreased social status and increased social support correlated with the density of dopamine D2/D3 receptors in the striatum, a region of the brain that plays a central role in reward and motivation, where dopamine plays a critical role in both of these behavioral processes.

The lead author, a Dr. Martinez, offered an explanation for the results -

“We showed that low levels of dopamine receptors were associated with low social status and that high levels of dopamine receptors were associated with higher social status. The same type of association was seen with the volunteer’s reports of social support they experience from their friends, family, or significant other.”

That certainly is food for thought. Of course, the important word to highlight is correlated/associated. The study result was a found relationship. Is it a causal relationship, with the number of dopamine receptors causing greater social involvement and striving and eventual success? We don’t know. Nonetheless, an intriguing bit of research. And I absolutely loved the concluding paragraph:

These findings are particularly exciting because they put human neurobiology into a social context, and we humans are fundamentally social creatures. It is in these social contexts that the biological effects on behavior obtain their real meaning.

Our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are not guided by the whispering of angels; their genesis is not in a metaphysically meaningful quantum fluctuation. No, that’s not what science tells us. For those who are listening, we are learning that the mechanisms that generate our psychological selves — as intricate and complicated as they are — reside in the natural world. A very rich world that the increasingly powerful tools and methods of science is revealing to us, bit by fascinating bit.

Technorati Links: social psychology, status

Where’s the crocoduck? Where’s Homo webbed-feet?

Chapter 6 (“Missing Link? What Do You Mean, ‘Missing’?”) and chapter 7 (“Missing Persons? Missing No Longer”) of Dawkins’ latest book (The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution) tackle the myth of . . . you guessed it: the flagship gap otherwise known as the SS Missing Link.

That boat don’t float. I found a few of Dawkins’ points particularly illuminating, including these two.

1) Biological transitions are never immediate (hardly never?), often occurring over many thousands of years, with innumerable, subtle “intermediate stages” between what we recognize as before and as after. Whether opponents to evolution demand to see “a monkey give birth to a human” (that actually happens every day, at least in the colloquial) or a fossil of a half-carrot, half-bird, or some seemingly more reasonable demand, they are confusing snapshots of the moving picture of evolution for endstates. And revealing an ignorance of how evolution works.

On page 203 Dawkins writes:

“Nobody seriously believes there are two kinds of people, children and adults, with ‘no intermediates’. Obviously we all understand that the whole period of growing up is one long exercise in intermediacy.”

Consider a family photograph album with a number of missing pages. Are we supposed to believe that the son from page 1 “magically” transformed into the man on page 31, the daughter on 2 to the woman on 32? (Was that a sexist numbering?) Crazy! Or maybe not.

It is as if creationists, when examining the photographic record, demand, “Where are the photos of the baby boy with a full beard? Where’s the infant girl with double-Ds and pubic hair? Where are the missing transitional forms that strike me as obviously transitional!”

This sentence from the book is a real kicker.

“The changes that take place within an individual’s lifetime, as it grows up, are in any case much more dramatic than the changes we see as we compare adults in successive generations.” p. 205

Oh, snap!

Evolution is a messy affair. The well-educated and rational don’t expect to see a clear, distinct step by distinct step progression from simpler to more complex forms. (E.g. Step one, boy without a beard, step two, boy with a moustache, step three, boy with beard and moustache.)

2. Evolution is no ladder with representational species as rungs and a designated endpoint.

Although it may feel right to project a meaning onto evolution; it is mistaken. Manifesting extreme species-centrism, many people portray life as progression up the ladder of biological forms — slime, fish, rodents, monkeys, apes, and surprise! our kind — as a sort of preordained progression.

So those ancient fish with a proclivity for crawling in the mud at water’s edge, they did their part in providing the scaffolding that led to me. Thanks fish!

If nature had a motto, it might be, “what works, works.” Sounds tautological, but it’s true. In a sense, it is only tautological when we expect a greater meaning, a purpose.

So no, evolution is not about life progressing steadily up a ladder, progressively moving toward the godly ideal: which coincidentally is human-like. Talk about tragically narrow-minded.

How’s this for a startling and humbling evolutionary fact:

“A horse’s foot is simpler than a human foot (it has only a single digit instead of five, for example), but the human foot is more primitive (the ancestor that we share with horses had five digits, as we do, so the horse has changed more.” p. 157

Similarly, within a genus of species, forms have evolved with eyes only to later lose them to one degree or another (such as in the case of cave-dwelling fish and reptiles). What kind of ladder is that?

I came away from this section of Dawkins’ book with the insight that the idea of a missing link is a substantially bogus concept. First, because change is gradual and of degree, and second due to the expectation of inevitable advance.

I’ll end with a quote I particularly enjoyed.

“Think about the first specimen of Homo habilis to be born. Her parents were Australopithicus. She belonged to a different genus from her parents? That’s just dopey! Yes it certainly is. But it is not reality that’s at fault, it’s our human insistence on shoving everything into a named category.” p. 195

Words. Though they are fantastic tools, they do have limits.

Technorati Links: creationism, evolution, ID

What does SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) have to do with serotonin? In new research the neurotransmitter has been identified as a possible culprit in the deadly disorder.

Neurotransmitters, for those unfamiliar, transmit messages across the junctions (synapses) between neurons. There are a number of different neurotransmitters, and these can act on some areas of the brain more than others.

In the study, Low production of serotonin in the brainstem a likely cause for SIDS, it was determined that low serotonin activity may play a role. Yes, it does certainly seem that this neurotransmitter is all the rage lately, being implicated in depression, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, irritable bowel syndrome, and poor fashion sense (just kidding about that last one). Yet serotonin is truly a work-horse molecule, and each person’s brain is different.

One thing being clarified lately is that there is more to serotonin than simple levels. The chemical doesn’t appear out of nowhere and then do its work on nothing. Essential parts of the equation to recognize are the synaptic vesicles that collect/store/release the neurotransmitter on the “sending side” of the synapse, and the receptors, which work on the receiving side of the nerve junction to complete the signal transmission.

In fact, it is thought that SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors — they keep more of the stuff circulating in the synapses) may take time to work because it is not just the level of serotonin the the synapses that is important, but the quantity and activity of vesicles and receptors as well. Research suggests that when exposed to increased levels of serotonin, neuronal growth/changes occur that likely results in a greater number of receptors.

All individuals, besides having different levels of circulating serotonin, likely have differing amounts of serotonin vesicles and receptors in different parts of their brain. Thus the possibility that one SSRI-level-influencing drug, such as Zoloft, can treat a number of disorders.

And now we get to SIDS. For years the cause of this tragic phenomenon has been a mystery. What causes some infant to die suddenly during sleep? Low birth weight, second-hand smoke, parents placing infants on their stomachs’ to sleep…?

SIDS has puzzled doctors and families for decades, but once the medical community recognized that a baby’s position while sleeping affects the risk for SIDS, national awareness campaigns sprouted to persuade parents to place babies to sleep on their backs. However, such campaigns haven’t completely solved the problem, prompting ongoing research to find a biological component to SIDS. [bold mine]

And that biological component could be the creation, transmission, and reception of serotonin. In the brainstem, which is the area of the brain that controls sleep. A promising lead -

[R]esearchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have linked sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with low production of serotonin in the brainstem, based on a comparison of brainstem samples from infants dying of SIDS compared to brainstems of infants dying from other, known causes. [bold mine]

Of course, the above research is suggestive and not definitive. (The headline writer gets half a nod for including likely before cause.) But it’s certainly something. Progress. Even if it proves to be a dead-end, at least another avenue has been explored.

Technorati Links: psychology, serotonin