the evolving mind

(Recycled material: I’m in holiday/travel mode. This material first posted on Dec. 30, 2008)

Women Are From Not-Quite-Mars?

Gender differences interest me. And so this finding would naturally grab my attention:

Men tend to perform better than women at tasks that require rotating an object mentally, studies have indicated. Now, developmental psychologists at Pitzer College and UCLA have discovered that this type of spatial skill is present in infancy and can be found in boys as young as 5 months old.

Okay, that finding certainly didn’t come from out of left field, so to speak. But detecting it that early in development certainly is news. And I fully agree with the attitude of the researchers.

“We don’t know why men are better than women at this task or why boys are better than girls at this, but we do now know that this difference extends all the way back to 5 months of age,” Johnson said. “We have shown that this gender difference is present in a pre-verbal population, a population too young to have learned it from manual experience with objects or from extensive learning processes, although learning certainly could be involved.”

“We are interested in this question because the visual-spatial skills of male and female adults, on average, are different, and as developmentalists, we are interested in exploring the origins of these differences,” Moore said. “While we believe we have found a phenomenon worthy of additional study, good science entails a circumspect approach to our conclusions; it would not be prudent to draw particularly strong or wide-ranging conclusions from the results of this single study.”

What I do disagree with, however, is the wording of the title: Gender Gap In Spatial Skills Starts In Infancy, Psychologists Report.

Why not “gender difference”? Doesn’t a gap, in terms of human cognitive development, imply a deficit, something to be fixed?

When is a difference a gap? When you want to close it.

Technorati Links: gender, psychology

(Recycled material: I’m in holiday/travel mode)

One year ago I made a post about yet more bad science writing. The target, this article: Our Unconscious Brain Makes The Best Decisions Possible.

My criticisms included this paragraph:

Does the unconscious brain exist on a higher plane of our spinal column? I wonder — was this piece of poor reporting intentionally penned in a manner to give New Agers a chubby in their over-extending-the-meaning-of-science-findings chakra?

Yikes. Snarky.

To see the entire post, click here.

Because there seems to be an abundance of bad science writing, I’m sure I’ll be making many more posts on the topic in the years to come. Oh joy.

Technorati Links: critical thinking, skepticism

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again: Not only does science prize accuracy and precision, it absolutely relies upon them. To be scientific means to gather and measure data carefully. But it doesn’t stop there. Diligence and care should go into the analysis and discussion of findings. Error sneaks into the gaps caused by sloppy work. And speaking and writing are part of the work of science.

A couple news releases about recent science findings got me grumping over sloppy language use. The first was this paradoxically titled piece: Loneliness can be contagious.

Here’s the science, weak as it is (but that’s another story):

Before relationships are severed, people on the periphery transmit feelings of loneliness to their remaining friends, who also become lonely. [bold added]

How are these feelings “transmitted,” and how did the researchers make the determination that they are?

For the study, the team examined records of the Framingham Heart Study, which has studied people in Framingham, Mass. since 1948. The original group, including more than 5,209 people, was originally studied for the risks of cardiovascular disease.

By constructing graphs that charted the subjects’ friendship histories and information about their reports of loneliness, researchers were able to establish a pattern of loneliness that spread as people reported fewer close friends. The data showed that lonely people “infected” the people around them with loneliness, and those people moved to the edges of social circles.[bold added]

I don’t know. Seems to me that from the particular source of data the reseachers have taken the liberty of describing a likely passive process in active terms. Infect. Transmit. Contagious.

This analogy comes to mind: You put an ice cube into a glass of water. Does the cold then transmit itself into the liquid? No. If we want to be accurate, that’s a incorrect way of looking at it. Rather than cold spreading, heat dissipates. Cold is a lack of something, and this lack can’t spread.

Similarly, I believe, loneliness is, in part, a lack of something: social involvement. Of course, feelings are an integral part of loneliness as well. While feelings can be transmitted, the social aspect of loneliness cannot. Is it important to make that distinction? I think so. And while feelings of loneliness might play a causal role in social isolation, and vice-versa, the research data itself did not clearly distangle the two variables, so one could be said to cause the other. For all we know a third variable may have preceded and caused both the feelings and the diminished social activity.

The second piece, Study: Believers’ inferences about God’s beliefs are uniquely egocentric, supported a hunch of mine. The first sentence says it.

Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people’s beliefs, according to new study published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[bold added]

Seems like an interesting study. But I must take exception with the use of conventional language — sloppy, misleading language — in the writing. See if you can spot the problem in the article’s concluding sentence:

But the research in no way denies the possibility that God’s presumed beliefs also may provide guidance in situations where people are uncertain of their own beliefs, the co-authors noted. [bold added]

Um, shouldn’t the “presumed” go before “God,” for one?

I consider that bad science writing because it indirectly gives legitimacy to a number of assumptions completely unsupported by any kind of scientific evidence: That there is a god; that this agent has been identified properly enough to deserve the capitalized form of the word: God. Oh, that god! Yes, let’s pretend all believers have the same conception of God.

No, let’s not. That would be unscientific.

Technorati Links: language, psychology, religion

Almost one year ago to the day I made a post about research into the “handedness” of gorillas: Shake Hands with that Gorilla. That primate species, it seems, has a preference for using its right arm/hand. New research appearing in the Jan 2010 issue of Cortex relates this finding on chimpanzee handedness:

A large majority of the chimpanzees in the study showed a significant bias towards right-handed gestures when communicating, which may reflect a similar dominance of the left hemisphere for communication in chimpanzees as that seen for language functions in humans. [source]

The news was not a surprise to me, for a few years ago I had attended a lecture on the handedness of chimps. The focus of that research, however, was slightly different. It tested hand preference during object manipulation and tool use. One interesting tidbit I learned was that when chimps throw stones (whether fastball or change-up), they tend to hurl them righty.

That research was conducted by American researchers in Georgia. This newer research had a different set of investigators, lending greater credence to it.

The French co-authors, Dr. Adrien Meguerditchian and Prof. Jacques Vauclair, from the Aix-Marseille University (Aix-en-Provence, France), also point out that “this finding provides additional support to the idea that speech evolved initially from a gestural communicative system in our ancestors. Moreover, gestural communication in apes shares some key features with human language, such as intentionality, referential properties and flexibility of learning and use”.

Very interesting.

Last year I ended my post with words equally valid today.

This means that if you ever meet a gorilla or chimpanzee in the forest, when you go to shake hands there won’t be confusion as to which to extend.

Technorati Links: evolution, language

While object are acted upon, subjects do the acting. But what happens when two objects collide? In the language of agency and causation, where do we pin our focus?

In an effort to sexy-up their reporting, science writers will often dress dumb objects and events in words denoting and connoting agency. Now we have a plot!

Consider this recent headline:

Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine

Certainly, galaxies are not agents that eat other galaxies. There is not intention, nothing resembling a plot-line, behind what “they” do. Galaxies are aggregates of cosmic matter that will collide with, merge, and even “absorb,” other galaxies. What’s the actual science behind the agency-speak?

A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO’s 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its “last meal” in unprecedented detail — a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped.

Is there any harm in “dressing up” scientific findings so they have a tiny tidbit in common with what you will find in a soap opera? Intention, power, the ability to “do evil” . . . agency.

I suspect so. But until I find evidence of harm, my suspicion itself is suspect.

Wait. Can a suspicion be suspect?

Technorati Links: science, semantics, superstition

A ScienceDaily news release about the benefits of eating dark chocolate put me in a temporarily bad mood (maybe five seconds). No, I didn’t eat a candy bar to pull myself out of the transient funk.

Let’s break down the first paragraph. Sentence #1:

The “chocolate cure” for emotional stress is getting new support from a clinical trial published online in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research.

Okay, so this is the lead sentence. The enticer. We’ll give it some slack. Had chocolate cure not been in scare quotes, however, I would have jumped all over it. A treatment is not a cure.

Sentence #2:

It found that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in the bodies of people feeling highly stressed.

There is something important missing from this second sentence. If that something were provided somewhere else in the article, it wouldn’t be a big deal. That something is how much the levels of stress hormones were reduced. Good science depends on precision; good science writing shares some of that precision. Besides, there are not two possible outcomes for treatments: Worked and Didn’t Work. I believe we’ve got to stop promoting this simplistic notion. We misinform and miseducate when we do.

Sentence #3:

Everyone’s favorite treat also partially corrected other stress-related biochemical imbalances.

As a personal aside, chocolate is not my favorite treat. I’d opt for a bite of savory steak or a sip of a salty martini every time. I guess I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.

Speaking of steak, my beef with the third sentence is similar to the second. At least the writer added the qualifier (quantifier?) partially.

Does the how much of a finding really matter?

Consider this analogy: I work at a department store selling “failure insurance.” One day You buy a USB flash drive for $29.95. I talk you into buying the optional “failure insurance” for just fifty cents more. USB drives do fail, so why not buy it?

The next day you buy a top-of-the-line adjustable wrench for 29.95. Again I try to talk you into buying my failure insurance. It’s just fifty cents. Believe it or not, I tell you, wrenches do fail. Would you buy it?

In each of the above cases you would be remiss not to inquire about the actual failure rate.

Do numbers matter; does precision matter?  Only if you want to be better informed.

Technorati Links: health, skepticism

Last week I wrote a post about a newly discovered clue into the evolution of language. That clue had to do with the action of a gene. Today I share yet another clue — or a piece to the puzzle, if you prefer. The title to the news release reads,

Words, Gestures Are Translated By Same Brain Regions

Frankly, the title just about tells it all. But here’s more detail:

In a study published in this week’s Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers have shown that the brain regions that have long been recognized as a center in which spoken or written words are decoded are also important in interpreting wordless gestures. The findings suggest that these brain regions may play a much broader role in the interpretation of symbols than researchers have thought and, for this reason, could be the evolutionary starting point from which language originated.

This finding dovetails with a long known curiosity of early language development. Children progress through a number of stages before being able to use fully-functional language. They coo, they babble, and they progress from there. The interesting thing is that even deaf children who later go on to use sign language will first babble. But not with their larynx, tongues and mouth. Instead, they “babble” with their hands.

Cool. When was the last time you “spoke” with your hands? Perhaps you pointed an index finger at someone, palm facing up, then curled that finger back towards you, repeatedly. Come hither. Or maybe you used another finger, pushing it straight up with your fist otherwise balled-up, knuckles facing away from you. You sent a message to another person: this is what I think about you! And if the person saw it, the message was certainly understood.

Although we can “say” so much with gestures, we seem to have specialized in words. Unless, of course, we are deaf. They we can readily specialize in gestures.

Technorati Links: evolution, language

An article about the early origins of life got me thinking about why some people have a difficult time accepting evolution.

The article, Model Suggests How Life’s Code Emerged From Primordial Soup, is highly theoretical, but fully grounded in science. Here’s the meat of the matter:

By working with the simplest amino acids and elementary RNAs, physicists led by Rockefeller University’s Albert J. Libchaber, head of the Laboratory of Experimental Condensed Matter Physics, have now generated the first theoretical model that shows how a coded genetic system can emerge from an ancestral broth of simple molecules. “All these molecules have different properties and these properties define their interactions,” says first author Jean Lehmann, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab, whose work appears in the June issue of PLoS One. “What are the constraints that allow these molecules to self-organize into a code? We can play with that.” [bold added]

Fascinating, important stuff. Yet as a volunteer member of the language police, some of the word use concerns me. First there is “code.” Code strongly implies these elements: sender, receiver, translation, meaning/message, and, very importantly, intent. I don’t know if there is a better word for DNA patterns that . . . encode the . . . instructions (?) . . . for the . . . building (?) of life forms.

But can there be be a building (verb) without a builder? The generation of life forms?

And do molecules “self-organize” into the code? Self-organize implies an internal locus of control and perhaps even intent.

I think one of the big stumbling blocks that stand in the way of many people understanding and accepting evolution is the whole issue of intent. As a social primate we have minds primed to seek and find intent in our social environments. A common, perhaps natural, mistake is to seek intent outside of social dynamics. For instance, attempting to find the “reason” that a hurricane seemed to target one’s city.

When looking at the natural worlds, many people seek intent. It feels natural and right to do it. Why the intricacy and abundance of life-forms? There must be intention involved, mustn’t there?

I worry about the use of words such as “code” for these can be misinterpreted and can reinforce the tendency to apply social-speak and meaning to asocial domains.

—

For more on this subject, check out the 5th part of my series of posts “Clever Criticisms of Evolution”: CCET – 5: DNA as a Code . . . with a Code-Maker

Here’s a brief excerpt:

I do not think it’s too much of a stretch to say that genes primarily encode* proteins. (*For lack of a better word, and that is a problem.) When examining how proteins are generated, we see that the codes/instructions need no interpretation. They are a part of a chemical process that works without an intelligence of any form to decipher a meaning.

Technorati Links: evolution, language

A very intriguing finding out of the University of Michigan caught my eye yesterday. Take a look at the title and you’ll understand why:

U-M research shows chronically ill may be happier if they give up hope

What? Wow! Really?

I found the idea interesting. First, our culture seems to preach a “never give up” mentality. Could giving up be a better alternative in some situations? Second, I could immediately imagine the relief that acceptance/surrender might bring. One of the authors of the study put it this way:

Sometimes, if hope makes people put off getting on with their life, it can get in the way of happiness.

But what was the actual science behind the conclusion? It seems it consisted of tracking two groups of subjects, with both groups sharing this experience: a colostomy (removal of the colon) and being fitted with an external pouch for their excrement to collect in.

At the time of the surgery, one group was told that the procedure was reversible and that they might later undergo another surgery to reconnect their bowels. The second group was informed the procedure was permanent. They would be living with the bag for the rest of their lives.

The finding:

The second group – the one without hope — reported being happier over the next six months than those with reversible colostomies.

This is indeed a very interesting and important piece of research. But I wonder about the whole “giving up hope” element in both the title and the words of the researchers (so we can’t blame the writer of the press release alone). Here’s why:

1) Hope was not one of the variables. The independent variable was being told whether or not a serious medical condition/procedure was reversible or permanent. The dependent variable was happiness. Hope was not measured. Instead, it was inferred to operate between the two variables.

2) I’m not sure hope is the best word to describe what influenced the difference in happiness outcomes. It might be. But I’m not sure. Perhaps levels of uncertainty might be a crucial factor. Were those unsure of their future less happy (would the procedure be reversed, would they be able to return to normal?), while those who better knew what their future was (escaping, in a sense, having to live with an unsettled issue) more happy?

And here I go; I can’t help it. I’ll beat my “semantics” drum one more time: when talking science, when communicating scientifically, we should choose our words wisely. And when we are unsure as to the “fit” of a word for the phenomenon in question, we should admit and disclose it.

Can “giving up hope” be a good thing? This probably depends on two essential factors: the particular situation involved and what we more precisely mean by “giving up hope.”

Technorati Links: language, psychology, science

Look — a pair of balls.

Speaking of balls, how’s this for a crazy title for a science article:

French Male Bears In Immediate Need Of More Females

C’mon. The anthropomorphic sexual innuendo had to be intentional. Didn’t it?

Innuendo. That’s an odd word. Like the bears, is it also French?

Nope. This from The Online Etymology Dictionary:

1678, “oblique hint, indiscreet suggestion,” usually a depreciatory one, from L. innuendo “by meaning, pointing to,” lit. “giving a nod to,” abl. of ger. of innuere “to mean, signify,” lit. “to nod to,” from in- “at” + nuere “to nod.”

Well, that was fun for me. I hope it was fun for you.

Technorati Links: photography, semantics