Updates

In which we revisit some earlier posts and see what's new. This is partly because now that classes are over, I have time to catch up on old issues of the New Yorker and New Scientist, leading to some blog bits.

Crows
Last July, I wrote about the intelligence of crows and scrub-jays. In March, "hacker and writer" Joshua Klein spoke at TedTalks about crows and how he taught them to use a specially-created crow vending machine.


As Klein leads up to the vending machine (truly amazing), he shows some fascinating videos which nicely illustrate how crows learn, specifically a shot of a crow bending a wire to pick up food in a lab, and another shot of a crow using cars to crack her nuts -- then waiting for the light to change so she can collect the nut bits in safety. I won't spoil the vending machine story for you, as it's really fascinating.

Politics, Emotion, and ... Genes?
I've written occasionally about politics and the brain, and I read an article in an early February issue of New Scientist about some studies that suggest "political positions are substantially determined by biology." Jim Giles summarizes recent studies in various journals, and the findings are startling: twin studies suggest that political orientation is genetic (American Political Science Review, 2005); there may be a connection between fear of death, art preference, and one's political leaning (American Psychologist, 2003), and "there is probably a set of genes that influences openness, which in turn may influence political orientation" (Journal of Research in Personality, YEAR). Giles cautions, however, that "there is no shortage of critics who question the whole idea of linking politics with biology." For more, check out the article, or read some of the articles that Giles summarizes.

The Pirahã
I summarized a New Yorker article about the Pirahã about a year ago; in January, New Scientist interviewed the linguist Daniel Everett, who, along with his family, are the only non-Pirahã who speak that language. If you're interested in the story of the language of the Pirahã, and what it says for language acquisition (including a conflict with Noam Chomsky), the interview is a good read.

For More Information

• Klein, Joshua. The Amazing Intelligence of Crows. TedTalks, March 2008.
  
• Giles, Jim. "Born That Way." New Scientist, Feb. 2, 2008. Not available for free online, but full-text may be available @your library, in Academic Search Premier and other databases.
  
• Alford, John, Carolyn Funk, and John R. Hibbing. Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted? (pdf) American Political Science Review. Vol. 99(2), May 2005, 153-167.
  
• Jost, John T. The End of the End of Ideology (abstract). American Psychologist. Vol 61(7), Oct 2006, 651-670. Full-text may be available @ your library in PsycARTICLES.
• "Heritabilities of Common and Measure-Specific Components of the Big Five Personality Factors" Journal of Research in Personality, vol 32 (4), April 1998, p. 431. Not available for free online, but full-text may be available @your library, in ScienceDirect.
• Else, Liz and Lucy Middleton. "Interview: Daniel Everett." New Scientist Jan 19, 2008, p42-45. Subtitle: "Out on a limb over language: linguist Daniel Everett went to Brazil as a young Christian missionary to work with the Piraha indigenous people. Instead of converting them, he told Liz Else and Lucy Middleton, he lost his faith and his family, and provoked a major intellectual row." Not available for free online, but full-text may be available @ your library, in Academic OneFile.

Database of Political Ads

There's a cool database of political ads online at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/politicalads/

The Washington Post has collected (links to) over 500 ads in the database, and this is the description of the resources:

The database includes political advertisements funded by campaigns, parties, committees, and independent advocacy groups. Most of the ads are tied to specific U.S. House, U.S. Senate, or gubernatorial races throughout the country. Some of the ads are more general "issue" or advocacy ads not tied to a particular race or candidate. You can search for ads based on the criteria listed below.

They are categorized by campaign, person, content, tone, characters, etc. Some of you may be especially interested in this group of emotional ads.

It's a nice idea in theory, but of the 5 ads I tried to watch, only 2 worked. Still, if you're interested in politics & communication, you might want to check this out.

Science Political

Heard a good interview on last week's ScienceFriday about science & the presidential elections. In The Call for A Science Debate, Ira talks to Shawn Lawrence Otto, the organizer of Science Debate 2008 about Otto's effort to generate a presidential debate about science. Here's what ScienceDebate says about itself:

"Science Debate 2008 is a grassroots initiative spearheaded by a growing number of scientists and other concerned citizens. The signatories to our "Call for a Presidential Debate on Science & Technology" include Nobel laureates and other leading scientists, presidents of universities, congresspersons of both major political parties, business leaders, religious leaders, former presidential science advisors, the editors of America's major science journals, writers, and the current and several past presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among many others."

Otto especially wants folks to sign their online petition to support their efforts (see who else has signed ... it's a pretty impressive list ...). They're also interested in possible questions for the candidates. Here's what I said:

One question I'd have for the candidates is how would they improve science education? It's important to have more scientists (especially women and under-represented "minorities"), but as a lay person interested in science, I think it's also important to have more people interested in science generally. How would candidates ensure that happens?

Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock has been writing about this for a while, (see his posts tagged politics), including a six-part series on questions he'd ask the candidates (his preface: "To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate.")

I usually try to stay away from politics in my public life, but this seems like an important issue for science lovers (scientists and lay folks alike) to consider when planning a vote.

For More Information

• The Call for A Science Debate, ScienceFriday, January 11th, 2008.
• ScienceDebate2008.com
  

Politics & the Brain

Some interesting news / articles lately about the political brain. Here are some tidbits, in the order in which I heard them:

• This week's All in the Mind covered the political brain: "As Australians stand in front of the cardboard voting booth next week what's going on in our minds? In choosing the future direction of the nation -- do we weigh up policies and promises with a rational mind, or are we emoting with our pencils? And new research has sent the left and right of the scientific community on a political bender with the idea that we're neurologically wired to support our team. All in the Mind probes your political brain." All in the Mind also provides a nice set of citations to articles by scientists featured in the show, including Drew Weston's recent book: The Political Brain: the Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.
• This week's Science Friday also covered the political brain: "What happens in your brain when you think about politics? We'll talk with a researcher using brain imaging techniques to map out voters' innermost feelings about the current crop of candidates. The researchers used fMRI imaging to examine brain activity in 20 'likely voters' as they looked at pictures of the candidates and watched clips from speeches. But can maps of activity in the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, or insula really translate into action in the polling booth?"
• The Science Friday article was influenced by a New York Times op-ed piece last week entitled This Is Your Brain on Politics in which Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman, Jonas Kaplan, and others report on their fMRI work on political decision making by swing voters.

All of the studies reported here have their supporters & their critics.
For More Info

• The Political Brain, All in the Mind, November 17, 2007.
• Politics & the Brain, Science Friday, November 16, 2007.
  
• Iacoboni, Marco, Joshua Freedman, Jonas Kaplan, et al. This Is Your Brain on Politics :[Op-Ed]. New York Times, November 11, 2007. p. 14.
  
• Politics & the Brain, a response: Letter to the Editor, New York Times, November 14, 2007.
  
• Kaplan, J., Freedman, J., & Iacoboni, M. (2007). "Us versus Them: Political Attitudes and Party Affiliation Influence Neural Response to Faces of Presidential Candidates." Neuropsychologia, 45(1), 55-64. (available @ your library)
  
• Weston, Drew (2007) The Political Brain: the Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. New York: PublicAffairs.

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