-
powder-burn on breasts and lips, make them shake their sexy hips, fuck
them hard, they want the whips, take some pictures, make some clips
::::powder-burn in mouths and holes, tackle them, cut out their souls,
we're the victors, they're the moles, hang them on the lighting poles
::::powder-burn on hands and eyes, anthrax kills, a big surprise, some
coughs up blood and dies, someone's wounded, screams and cries:::::
You're written with torture! You've killed my children! your beauty makes
her husband see
powder-burn on breasts and lips, make them shake their sexy hips, fuck is
killing everything. - What damage have you done to your powder-burn on
breasts and lips, make them shake their sexy hips, fuck ... I cut off your
hands...
soldier dismember me beneath you
CLIPS::::powder-burn in mouths and holes, tackle them, cut out their calls
forth murder demon, hungered, making things. across the shootings,
CLIPS::::powder-burn in mouths and holes, tackle them, cut out their is
hell, 032], them hard, they want the whips, take some pictures, make some?
... demon is souls, we're the victors, they're the moles, hang them on the
lighting on wet flesh, it's demon?
You've killed my children!
CLIPS::::powder-burn in mouths and holes, tackle them, cut out their:them
hard, they want the whips, take some pictures, make some:powder-burn on
breasts and lips, make them shake their sexy hips, fuck:You're written
with torture! You've killed my children! your beauty
makes:poles::::powder-burn on hands and eyes, anthrax kills, a big
surprise, Write murder some coughs up blood and dies, someone's wounded,
screams and cries::::: through my CLIPS::::powder-burn in mouths and
holes, tackle them, cut out their!
... onslaught CLIPS::::powder-burn in mouths and holes, tackle them, cut
out their 15576 - the beginning of flesh.
_
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 10 Nov 2001 10:32:04 -0000
From: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
To: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [evol-psych] Digest Number 727
To view archive/subscribe/unsubscribe/select DIGEST go to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology
Read The Human Nature Daily Review every day
http://human-nature.com/nibbs
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 13 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Study finds beauty can be its own reward
From: "Anna Michaels" <anna.m@freeuk.com>
2. Why are we particularly good at performing symmetrical movements?
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
3. Re: Study finds beauty can be its own reward
From: "Bernhard Fink" <bernhard.fink@ieee.org>
4. Familial Handedness and Access to Words, Meaning, and Syntax during Sentence Comprehension
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
5. Humans Descended From Cells Without Nuclei Or Walls
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
6. Alabama to keep textbook stickers warning that evolution is 'controversial theory'
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
7. Study finds female beauty is male drug
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
8. Alabama Retains Disclaimer on Evolution
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
9. Brain may forge some memories in waves
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
10. Study: Gay, straight couples have same fights
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
11. Re: Re: Trask on Chomsky
From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
12. Why Are Deep Thinkers Shallow About Tyranny?
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
13. What Scientists Learned in the 20th Century.
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 19:12:40 +0000
From: "Anna Michaels" <anna.m@freeuk.com>
Subject: Re: Study finds beauty can be its own reward
>Public release date: 8-Nov-2001
>Massachusetts General Hospital
>http://www.mgh.harvard.edu/
>
>Study finds beauty can be its own reward
>
>Viewing attractive female faces activates the brain's reward circuits in males
>
From ancient mythology to modern advertising, the face of a beautiful woman has
>been regarded as a powerful motivator of men's behavior. Now a group of
>researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has shown that, while
>heterosexual men recognize attractiveness in both female and male faces, they
>will expend effort to increase their viewing of attractive female faces only.
>The research also shows that areas of the brain previously identified as
>responding to such rewards as food, drugs and money also respond to facial
>beauty. The study appears in the November 8 issue of Neuron.
[snip]
>To answer these questions, the researchers conducted three experiments with
>groups of young, heterosexual men. (Men were chosen as study subjects because
>other recent research has shown that women?s response to facial stimuli can
>change during their menstrual cycles.)
Could anyone point towards that research, please?
[snip]
>The brain imaging study found that the same brain areas previously identified
>as part of a "reward circuitry," showed increased response to the viewing of
>attractive females only. In fact, the reward areas exhibited decreased activity
>when the young male participants viewed the attractive male faces.
>
>"It looks like there can be a difference between what the brain 'likes,' an
>image that is judged to be attractive, and what the brain 'wants,' something
>that is regarded as a reward in and of itself," says Breiter, who is a
>psychiatrist. "It's particularly interesting that the attractive male faces
>actually produced what could be considered an aversion response, even though
>they had been recognized as attractive."
I wonder quite what criteria of "attractiveness" they use for male faces;
what might be termed "pretty" (ie symmetrical), or the craggy looks of
Hollywood tradition.
As someone who survived from 5 to 17 being persecuted, as have many of my
acquaintance, by boys and men (but never women or girls) many times every
day, perhaps because I was a "pretty" or "sissy" boy (no one ever bothered
to explain, or perhaps they couldn't), until I found safety, and happiness
as a girl, I'd really like to know if the "aversion response" reported
above, which the researchers consider "hard-wired into the brain by natural
selection" in (according to the ABC News report posted here) "reward
centers, which include the areas of the brain known as the nucleus
accumbens, amygdala, hypothalamus, orbitofrontal cortex and ventral
tegmentum, are considered to be evolutionary holdovers from reptiles and
have been linked to a range of psychological disorders from addiction to
depression" could have been responsible. If so it would nullify not only
the blame and self-blame which has been so often laid on the "pretty boy",
the "faggot", the "queer", but also the common theories of reaction due to
"threat to their flimsy sense of identity" by the attackers (for example,
Di Ceglie, Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (2000), vol 6, p458).
Anna
anna.m@freeuk.com
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 16:00:38 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Why are we particularly good at performing symmetrical movements?
November 01, 2001
Why are we particularly good at performing symmetrical movements?
Max Planck Researchers disprove twenty years old doctrine / Movements are
coordinated by way of perception and perceptual imagery, and not in the motoric
system
In bimanual movements there is a tendency towards mirror symmetry which has
often been explained by the co-activation of homologous muscles. Researchers at
the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research have now discovered that
the symmetry tendency is actually towards perceptual mirror-symmetry,
regardless of the muscles involved. Movements which are easily perceived seem
to be easily controlled. People are able to perform highly complex, even
"impossible" movements, when the perceptual effect of the movement is simple
(nature, 1 November 2001).
Humans tend to synchronize their hand movements in a mirror-like fashion. Even
involuntary slips from asymmetrical movement patterns into symmetry occur,
especially with higher movement velocities. How can this spontaneous tendency
towards symmetry in bimanual movements be explained?
Most researchers have favoured the explanation that the tendency to move in
symmetry is closely related to the symmetric structure of the body and the
nervous system. In accordance with this traditional belief, the symmetry
tendency can be explained by a tendency to co-activate anatomically homologous
muscle groups. At first glance, such an explanation appears quite plausible:
Homologous muscles, as well as bilaterally situated areas in the two brain
hemispheres and in the spinal cord can easily be activated together. Further,
they are interconnected through neuronal pathways, which provide for an
intensive and effective "express communication".
However, there is obviously an alternative possible explanation. Maybe there is
no tendency to simultaneously activate homologous muscle groups, but instead a
tendency towards spatially symmetric movements, i.e. movements which look and
feel symmetric. Maybe we are able to control easily perceived movements
particularly well. In a series of simple movement experiments, Franz Mechsner,
Dirk Kerzel, G�nther Knoblich, and Wolfgang Prinz at the Max Planck Institute
for Psychological Research demonstrated that the symmetry tendency is actually
towards perceptual symmetry, without regard to homologous muscles or motoric
neuronal commands. (nature, November 01, 2001).
In one of their experiments, the researchers examined bimanual finger
oscillation, the classical model to demonstrate the symmetry tendency (see
Figure above). In this model, the participant moves both index fingers
synchronously to the left and to the right following a metronome beat. Beyond a
critical frequency, it can be observed that most participants switch from this
"parallel" movement mode into a symmetric mode, where the two index fingers
move towards and away from each other. The symmetric mode, on the other hand,
is always stable up to the highest frequencies. The researchers at the Max
Planck Institute extended this model in a particular way. Similar to the
classical model, participants were instructed to move their index fingers in
parallel, as well as in symmetry. As an additional and newly introduced
condition, one hand was placed palm-up while the other hand was placed
palm-down (see Figure below). As for a definition, positions in which both
hands are either palm-up or palm-down are called "congruent". Positions where
one hand is palm-up and the other palm-down are called "incongruent".
Interesting for the experiment are the "incongruent" hand positions, because
here the parallel mode of finger oscillation goes together with periodic
co-activation of homologous muscle groups. If there actually was a tendency to
simultaneously co-activate homologous muscle groups, then here the parallel
mode of movement should be more stable than the symmetric mode. On the other
hand, if there was a tendency towards perceptual symmetry, then the symmetric
mode should still be more stable than the parallel mode, even though
non-homologous muscle groups are co-activated.
The findings were straightforward. In the congruent as well as in the
incongruent hand position, the symmetric finger oscillation pattern is more
stable than the parallel one, independent of the muscles involved. Spontaneous
switches from a parallel movement mode into a symmetric mode can be observed at
higher velocities, but not in the other direction.
Conclusion. The spontaneous symmetry tendency in finger oscillation is a
tendency towards spatial symmetry, without regard to the muscles or motoric
neuronal commands involved. Further experiments by the Max Planck Institute
researchers suggest that these findings can be generalized: The symmetry
tendency in bimanual movements is generally a tendency towards perceptual
spatial symmetry. Franz Mechsner and his colleagues suggest that voluntary
movements are organized by way of a representation of the intended perceptual
goals, whereas the corresponding motor activity is rather spontaneously and
flexibly tuned in.
But what is the final explanation for the symmetry tendency? The researchers
believe that people tend to perform movements which can be easily controlled
via perception and mental imagery.
This notion is contrary to traditional theories which have argued that
movements are coordinated in motoric neuronal structures. According to these
theories, coherent motoric representations, i.e. muscle-oriented neuronal
activation patterns, are organized in the motoric system. The Max-Planck
researchers argue that we do not control our movements indirectly by way of
such motor activation plans, but rather directly by way of perceptions and
mental imagery.
The researchers' proposal was corroborated in a further experiment: Subjects
bimanually rotated two non-visible cranks under a table, each of which
controlled the circular movements of a visible flag. The left flag circled
directly above the left crank and hand, whereas the right flag circled in a 4:3
frequency ratio to the right crank and hand, owing to a gear system. The
subject was instructed to circle the visible flags in isofrequency, either in
symmetry or in an asymmetrical mode called antiphase. In both cases, the hands
have to circle in a 4:3 frequency ratio. This is a highly complex movement,
which is impossible for naive subjects. The different movement patterns of the
flags are not discernable from the hand movement pattern. Thus, symmetry and
antiphase in the flags cannot be produced by coordinating muscular activation
patterns. Despite this, subjects were successful in controlling the instructed
patterns, solely by way of visual strategies and "forgetting" their hands. This
means: In order to perform the instructed simple flag movements, participants
easily perform otherwise impossible body movements.
Conclusion: Through targeting simple effects, we can perform highly complex
movements, as long as we attend to the intended effect, rather than the exact
bodily movements. Apparently we directly control movements through perception
and imagery, rather than indirectly through coordination processes in the motor
system. The corresponding motor activity of sometimes high formal complexity is
rather spontaneously and automatically tuned in without having to be organized
as an integrated whole.
Contact:
Dr. Franz Mechsner
Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research
Cognition and Action
Amalienstrasse 33
80799 Munich, Germany
Phone: +49 - 89 - 3 86 02 - 2 48
Telefax: +49 - 89 - 3 86 02 - 1 99
E-mail: mechsner@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de
http://www.mpg.de/news01/news0119.htm
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 21:20:52 +0100
From: "Bernhard Fink" <bernhard.fink@ieee.org>
Subject: Re: Study finds beauty can be its own reward
> [snip]
>
> >To answer these questions, the researchers conducted three experiments with
> >groups of young, heterosexual men. (Men were chosen as study subjects because
> >other recent research has shown that women?s response to facial stimuli can
> >change during their menstrual cycles.)
>
> Could anyone point towards that research, please?
Johnston, V.S., Hagel, R., Franklin, M., Fink, B. & Grammer, K. (2001). Male
facial attractiveness: Evidence for hormone mediated adaptive design.
Evolution and Human Behavior, 22(4), 251-267.
Penton-Voak, I. S., Perrett, D. J., Castles, D. L., Kobayashi, T., Burt, D.
M., Murray, L. K., & Minamisawa, R. (1999). Menstrual cycle alters face
preference. Nature, 399, 741-742.
Penton-Voak, I. S., & Perrett, D. I. (2000). Female preference for male
faces change cyclically: Further evidence. Evolution and Human Behavior, 21,
39-48.
> >The brain imaging study found that the same brain areas previously identified
> >as part of a "reward circuitry," showed increased response to the viewing of
> >attractive females only. In fact, the reward areas exhibited decreased activity
> >when the young male participants viewed the attractive male faces.
> >
> >"It looks like there can be a difference between what the brain 'likes,' an
> >image that is judged to be attractive, and what the brain 'wants,' something
> >that is regarded as a reward in and of itself," says Breiter, who is a
> >psychiatrist. "It's particularly interesting that the attractive male faces
> >actually produced what could be considered an aversion response, even though
> >they had been recognized as attractive."
>
> I wonder quite what criteria of "attractiveness" they use for male faces;
> what might be termed "pretty" (ie symmetrical), or the craggy looks of
> Hollywood tradition.
Participants were asked to rate facial attractiveness on a 7-pont LIkert
scale. The authors did the same in a pilot study for "averageness" and
"beauty".
******************************************
Mag.Bernhard Fink
Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban Ethology
c/o Institute for Anthropology
University of Vienna
Althanstrasse 14
A-1090 Vienna
phone: ++43 1 4277 54766
fax: ++43 1 4277 9547
email: bernhard.fink@ieee.org
WWW: http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at
******************************************
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:36:41 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Familial Handedness and Access to Words, Meaning, and Syntax during Sentence Comprehension
Brain and Language
Vol. 78, No. 3, September 1, 2001 pp. 308-331
Familial Handedness and Access to Words, Meaning, and Syntax during Sentence
Comprehension
David J. Townsend*, Caroline Carrithers, Thomas G. Bever
*Montclair State University
Rutgers University
University of Arizona
(Published electronically May 29, 2001)
Abstract
We compared right-handed familial dextral (FS-) and familial sinistral (FS+)
participants who were aged either 10-13 years (children) or 18-23 years
(adults). In word probe and associative probe tasks, FS+ adults responded
faster than all other groups and FS+ children responded more slowly than all
other groups. In the word probe task, only the FS- adults showed a significant
effect of the serial position of the target word. We interpret these
differences to support an analysis-by-synthesis model of comprehension in which
individuals who differ in familial handedness and age emphasize different
linguistic representations during comprehension. In general, FS+ individuals
focus on words and meaning, while FS- individuals focus on syntactic
representations. In FS+ individuals, age-related experiences with language
produce a shift in responding from compositional meaning to words and their
associations. In FS- individuals, age-related experiences with language produce
a shift toward responding based more on detailed syntactic representations,
including the serial order of words and possibly the structural roles of
clauses. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.
Key Words: Key Words: sentence comprehension; language acquisition; cerebral
asymmetries; individual differences
Address correspondence and reprint requests to David J. Townsend, Department of
Psychology, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043. E-mail:
townsendd@mail.montclair.edu.
This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Education
and Montclair State University. Beth De Forest, Jeff Keller, and Vickie Larsen
assisted in scoring results. We are grateful to Ms. Gertrude Goldstein at the
Woodward School for allowing us to test students, to two anonymous reviewers
for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript, and to
students in the Psychology Honors Seminar at Montclair State University.
http://www.idealibrary.com/links/doi/10.1006/brln.2001.2469
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:44:24 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Humans Descended From Cells Without Nuclei Or Walls
Humans Descended From Cells Without Nuclei Or Walls
Research on components of the brain's electrical signaling system has answered
a basic question about our human evolution, confirming scientific belief that
we two-legged, computer-using creatures are descended from prokaryotes --
cellular organisms so primitive and simple that they exist without nuclei or
cell walls.
The study, led by Zhe Lu, MD, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of
Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine were recently
published in the journal Nature.
The research by Lu and his colleagues focused on the structure and function of
molecules called potassium channels, which are essential to how the brain
works. When potassium channels open and close, they control the flow of
potassium ions across cell membranes. The current contributes to the electrical
signals in nerve, muscle and endocrine cells.
Scientists who study the brain's electrical signals have relied on a blue-print
developed from functional studies of eukaryotic (neuronal) potassium channels
and structural studies of prokaryotic (bacterial) potassium channels, based on
the assumption that the two channels are essentially the same. However this
assumption has recently been challenged.
Lu and his collaborators devised a project in which the pore of a prokaryote's
potassium channel (the interior core of the channel) was substituted for the
pore of a potassium channel in a euokaryote. The scientists found that the
eukarotic channel continued to function essentially as it had previous to the
substitution.
"This has very profound implications for evolution," Lu said. "It appears the
potassium channels in advanced brains and hearts of mammals have evolved from
something like this bacterial channel. So what we learn from the more easily
studied bacterial channels can be directly applied to our understanding of
potassium channels in human brains."
In the study, Lu worked with Penn colleagues Angela Klem, research specialist,
and Yajamana Ramu, PhD. The work was funded by the National Institutes of
Health. - By Ellen O'Brien
[Contact: Ellen O'Brien]
09-Nov-2001
http://unisci.com/stories/20014/1109011.htm
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 6
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:41:54 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Alabama to keep textbook stickers warning that evolution is 'controversial theory'
Alabama to keep textbook stickers warning that evolution is 'controversial
theory'
Copyright � 2001 AP Online
By PHILLIP RAWLS, Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (November 9, 2001 9:35 a.m. EST) - In 1996, there was plenty
of debate when Alabama began putting stickers in its students' biology
textbooks warning that evolution is a "controversial theory."
There was no dissent Thursday when the Alabama Board of Education voted to put
the disclaimer on the front of 40,000 new biology textbooks bound for public
school classrooms.
The teaching of evolution, the theory that humans and other living beings
evolved into their present form over millions of years, has been debated by
school boards in several states. But no other state has used a disclaimer
sticker in textbooks statewide, said Eric Meikle, outreach director of the
National Center of Science Education.
In Alabama, the state Board of Education approves several biology textbooks
from different publishers, and the local public school boards select which
books will go into their schools, most often into 10th-grade classrooms.
The stickers that will be added to those books say, in part, that evolution is
"a controversial theory. ... Instructional material associated with controversy
should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically
considered."
The board included the same statement in course guidelines for science
teachers.
Full text
http://www.nandotimes.com/healthscience/story/167085p-1601359c.html
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 7
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:47:04 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Study finds female beauty is male drug
Study finds female beauty is male drug
Brain scans show a man's reaction to seeing beautiful women is similar to an
addict's when he get his fix.
The study seems to be proof feminine beauty affects the male brain at its most
basic level.
Pictures of attractive women activated the same reward circuits in the brains
of heterosexual men as food and cocaine.
The study may help prove we are born knowing what is beautiful and what is not.
Dan Ariely, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-author of the
study, said: "This is hard-core circuitry. Beauty is working similar to a
drug."
In a second, related study, men were shown random pictures of women for several
seconds, but could extend or cut the viewing time by pressing keys on a keypad.
Attractive women were viewed an average of 8.7 seconds while others were viewed
for 5.2 seconds.
The men worked frantically to keep the beautiful women on the screen, each
pressing the keyboard an average of more than 6,700 times in 40 minutes.
A researcher said: ''These guys look like rodents bar-pressing for cocaine."
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital have
published their work in the journal Neuron.
Story filed: 16:42 Friday 9th November 2001
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_445698.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 8
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:54:45 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Alabama Retains Disclaimer on Evolution
NEW YORK TIMES
November 10, 2001
Alabama Retains Disclaimer on Evolution
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTGOMERY, Ala., Nov. 9 � Alabama is maintaining its distinction as the only
state where biology textbooks include a sticker warning students that evolution
is a "controversial theory" that they should question.
The State Board of Education voted without dissent on Thursday to place the
disclaimer on the front of 40,000 new biology textbooks to be used in public
schools.
After calling evolution a controversial theory, the statement says,
"Instructional material associated with controversy should be approached with
an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." The board included
the same statement in guidelines for teachers.
Full text
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/10/education/10ALAB.html
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 9
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:53:29 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Brain may forge some memories in waves
Science News Online
Week of Nov. 10, 2001; Vol. 160, No. 19
Brain may forge some memories in waves
Bruce Bower
Although people effortlessly remember all sorts of everyday events, scientists
are struggling to explain how the brain makes this possible. In two critical
brain areas, such memory may hinge more on the timing than on the strength of
neural activity, according to a team of neuroscientists.
As volunteers study word lists, clusters of neurons in the rhinal cortex and
the hippocampus�adjacent brain areas already implicated in memory�fire
synchronized electrical bursts that pave the way for remembering those words
later, argue J�rgen Fell of the University of Bonn in Germany and his
colleagues.
Moreover, the coordination of cell activity in the same two brain regions
plummets for a fraction of a second just after participants remember a word
from the list, possibly signaling an end to a coordinated neural effort, Fell's
team proposes in an article slated to appear in Nature Neuroscience.
Full text
http://www.sciencenews.org/20011110/fob6.asp
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 10
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:56:47 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Study: Gay, straight couples have same fights
Study: Gay, straight couples have same fights
by Gay.com U.K.
Gay, lesbian and straight couples fight about the same things, according to a
German study.
Psychologist Safet Seferovic, who conducted the study for the Braunschweig base
of the Christoph Dornier Foundation, told Reuters Health: "It was very
interesting to see that statistically the most common problems experienced by
couples, be they gay, lesbian or heterosexual, were identical."
"The most common problem was in bed, sexual problems. Then came personal habits
or irritations, followed by jealousy, and then domestic arrangements such as
who does the most housework and then arguments about careers or jobs," he said.
Full text
http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2001/11/09/4
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Message: 11
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 20:35:17 -0500
From: William Benzon <bbenzon@mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Re: Trask on Chomsky
on 11/8/01 10:46 AM, Larry Trask at larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk wrote:
[snip]
>
> I'm sorry, but this does not follow. The ability to "count" has been
> demonstrated in a startling range of species, including some birds. But
> this ability does not entail the cognitive basis for language. See Stephen
> Budiansky's book If a Lion Could Talk for a wonderfully dismissive account
> of counting animals.
My sense is that this seems to involve the perceptual recognition of
numerosity and is only good for small values (less than 10, often no more
that 4 or 5). It's not at all clear that this involves one-by-one
cumulative enumeration of items.
>
> Anyway, counting is clearly a late development in human history -- very
> much later than language. Until not so long ago, there were probably no
> human languages on earth which possessed counting systems going beyond two
> or three, and in fact there are still quite a few languages spoken today
> which have no counting systems. Human beings do not invent counting
> systems until they have something to count, and hunter-gatherers apparently
> have no need to count. And arithmetic must be even more recent than
> counting systems, since I don't see how you can do much arithmetic if you
> don't have names for the numbers.
Stanislas Dahaene's *The Number Sense* discusses this briefly. Initial
moves beyond three seems to have involved counting body parts. Note that
we've got some ancient bones (c. 30,000 years old) marked with numerous
notches; this is interpreted as ennumerating some set of objects, but
obviously doesn't require number names or syntax.
>
>> So what is all the fuss about? Why worry about Chomsky?
>
> A fair question. The reason for worrying about Chomsky is that he is
> prominent and influential.
And thus Steven Pinker could write a rather good popular book about language
without even suggesting there was any approach to grammar other than
Chomsky's. This is certainly not the case. There is no approach to grammar
that is as widely accepted among linguists as, for example, Darwinian
evolution is accepted among biologists.
>
> On the one hand, Chomsky has persuaded thousands of linguists to embrace
> his research program, and so to devote their energies to abstract
> theorizing rather than to other tasks which some of us consider more
> valuable.
>
> On the other, non-linguists very commonly have the impression that Chomsky
> speaks for linguistics, and that what Chomsky and his followers do simply
> *is* linguistics. This is not so, and the fact needs to be pointed out.
My understanding is that, more than any other figure (except perhaps for
Jakobson), Chomsky is the one who made linguistics important to
non-linguists. I think his review of 1959 B. F. Skinner's *Verbal Behavior*
was important here. This obscure linguist, proposing arcane arguments
about sentence structure, took on the leading proponent of the leading
school of academic psychology and wrote a devastating review of his theory
of language. The effect of this review was to convince many that the
structure of language was the royal road to the structure of the human mind.
And so philosophers and psychologists became interested in Chomsky's
theories.
I don't know whether the philosophers ever did much with Chomsky (though
Fodor, for better or worse, gave us the modular mind), but psychologists
created modern psycholinguistics largely out of attempts to ascertain the
psychological plausibility of Chomsky's theories.
--
William L. Benzon
708 Jersey Avenue, Apt. 2A
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201 217-1010
"you won't get a wild heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds"--george
ives
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Message: 12
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 09:59:38 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: Why Are Deep Thinkers Shallow About Tyranny?
NEW YORK TIMES
November 10, 2001
Q & A
Why Are Deep Thinkers Shallow About Tyranny?
Mark Lilla, a professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of
Chicago, recently published "The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics,"
about how writers and intellectuals have ended up justifying communism, fascism
and other tyrannies. Eric Alterman spoke with him.
Is there a special gene among intellectuals that lends itself to the embrace of
tyranny? Are they less sensible than the general populace?
If by "intellectuals" we mean those devoted to the life of the mind, we can see
why they face more intensely a problem all human beings face: that of
negotiating the distance between ideas and social reality. What intellectuals
are prone to forget is that this distance poses not only conceptual
difficulties but ethical ones as well. It is a moral challenge to determine how
to comport oneself simultaneously in relation to abstract ideas and a
recalcitrant world.
Full text
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/10/arts/10QNA.html
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Message: 13
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 10:06:15 -0000
From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford@scientist.com>
Subject: What Scientists Learned in the 20th Century.
NEW YORK TIMES
November 11, 2001
'The Age of Science': Back Issues
By LOREN GRAHAM
THE AGE OF SCIENCE
What Scientists Learned in the 20th Century.
By Gerard Piel. Illustrated by Peter Bradford.
460 pp. New York: A Cornelia and Michael Bessie Book/Basic Books. $40.
In May 1948 Gerard Piel, a former science editor for Life, started a new
science magazine bearing the purchased title of a moribund periodical,
Scientific American. Within a few years he and several associates created a
model for science journalism that has had worldwide influence. By 1986
Scientific American had a circulation of over a million and was printed in
English and nine other languages.
Full text
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/books/review/11GRAHAMT.html
________
The Age of Science: What Scientists Learned in the Twentieth Century
by Gerard Piel, Peter Bradford (Illustrator)
Hardcover - 400 pages (October 16, 2001)
Basic Books; ISBN: 0465057551
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465057551/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465057551/humannaturecom/
From Publishers Weekly
Because scientists have amassed an enormous amount of new knowledge over the
past century, attempts to summarize it all in a single volume are unlikely to
succeed. From his unique former position as publisher of Scientific American
for 38 years, Piel seems as equipped as anyone to achieve such an undertaking.
Unfortunately, even his effort falls short. Piel organizes his material into
seven sections: the fundamental forces of nature, quantum mechanics, cosmology,
molecular biology, geology, the evolution of life and human evolution. Each
chapter appears to have been written for a different audience; the ones
focusing on physics require fairly sophisticated understanding ("In the cloud
chamber, lithium yielded a two-prong track at the point of collision,
signifying its break-up into two alpha particles"). Those on biology and
geology are much more accessible to lay readers ("evidence is strong that
Mendel designed his experiments to test his hunch that a trait is carried thus
intact from one generation to the next"). No field of study, however, is
handled in a completely satisfying manner, whoever the intended audience. Piel
simply does not supply more than a cursory overview of any topic. Many subjects
deserving of attention, given the book's title, are omitted; there is virtually
no discussion of any medical topic, of the creation and dissemination of
computing technology or of environmental advances, to name just a few. Although
the book is generous with illustrations (mostly maps and diagrams), their
cartoonish style renders them more distracting than enlightening.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This is an excellent survey of science's major breakthroughs written by someone
who has had decades of practice in communicating scientific issues to the
interested lay public; Piel was the publisher of Scientific American from the
late 1940s to the late 1980s. Here, he is effectively supported by dozens of
illustrations; still, the clarity emanates from his prose through its precision
and seamless integration of science's disciplines. Physics, the king of the
natural sciences, permeates the book, and the history of physics proper
constitutes three-fifths of his text. After providing an overview of how
scientists comprehend the natural world, Piel dives into the divinations of
motion, gravitation, and light, then spotlights the glaring shortcomings in
classical theories, circa 1900. From the revolutionary ideas of a Planck and an
Einstein, Piel presses on through the experiments and theories regarding the
subatomic particle and the big bang. Turning terrestrial, he discusses the
anatomy of the cell, evolution, the symbiosis between life and geology, and,
finally, human origins. A masterfully presented science primer. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
-Lynn Margulis, author of What Is Life? and Symbiotic Planet
"I love the manuscript. The flair and inspiration of the old Scientific
American have resurfaced with great aplomb."
Book Description
A sweeping overview of the scientific achievements of the 20th century, without
question the greatest century for science in human history, by the legendary
former publisher of Scientific American. When historians of the future come to
examine western civilization in the twentieth century, one area of intellectual
accomplishment will stand out above all others: more than any other era before
it, the twentieth century was an age of science. Not only were the practical
details of daily life radically transformed by the application of scientific
discoveries, but our very sense of who we are, how our minds work, how our
world came to be, how it works and our proper role in it, our ultimate origins,
and our ultimate fate were all influenced by scientific thinking as never
before in human history.
In The Age of Science, the former editor and publisher of Scientific American
gives us a sweeping overview of the scientific achievements of the twentieth
century, with chapters on the fundamental forces of nature, the subatomic
world, cosmology, the cell and molecular biology, earth history and the
evolution of life, and human evolution. Beautifully written and illustrated,
this is a book for the connoisseur: an elegant, informative, magisterial
summation of one of the twentieth century's greatest cultural achievements.
About the Author
Gerard Piel was a founder of the revived Scientific American and served as its
publisher from 1948 until his retirement in 1986. He lives in New York City.
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