June 17, 2015
Metabolism [muh-tab-uh-liz-uhm] is the name given to the chemical reactions which keep an organism alive. A chemical reaction is the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Organisms require myriad reactions to grow, reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. These reactions are catalyzed by enzymes (aided by reusable proteins that change the rate of chemical reactions).
Most of the structures that make up animals, plants, and microbes are made from three basic classes of molecule: amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), carbohydrates (sugars), and lipids (fats). As these molecules are vital for life, metabolic reactions either focus on making these molecules during the construction of cells and tissues (anabolism), or by breaking them down and using them as a source of energy, by their digestion (catabolism). Continue reading →
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June 16, 2015
The Lowline, formally known as the Delancey Underground, is a proposal for the world’s first underground park. The subterranean public space would be located under the eastbound roadway of Delancey Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (adjacent to the Essex Street station).
Co-founders James Ramsey and Dan Barasch have suggested natural light would be directed below ground using fiber optics—described in the proposed plan as ‘remote skylights’—to provide an area in which trees and grass could be grown beneath the city streets. Continue reading →
Posted in Technology, World |
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June 13, 2015
Tokenism [toh-kuh-niz-uhm] is the policy and practice of making a perfunctory gesture towards the inclusion of members of minority groups. The effort of including a token employee to a workforce usually is intended to create the appearance of social inclusiveness and diversity (racial, religious, sexual, etc.), and so deflect accusations of discrimination.
Employment tokenism misrepresents the person possessing inferior intellect, job skills, and work capacity, relative to the other workers of the group, as well as a superficial personality that is sufficiently bland and inoffensive to not affront the sensibility of superiority inherent to white privilege. Alternatively, the differences of the token person might be over-emphasized and made either exotic or glamorous, or both, which are extraordinary conditions that maintain the Otherness that isolates the token worker from the group. Continue reading →
Posted in Money, Politics, World |
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June 12, 2015
Ambiguity Tolerance is a psychological construct which describes the relationship that individuals have with ambiguous stimuli or events (situations where familiar cues are either lacking, overwhelming, or misleading). Individuals view these stimuli in a neutral and open way or as a threat.
Psychologist Stanley Budner defined ambiguity intolerance as ‘the tendency to perceive (i.e. interpret) ambiguous situations as sources of threat…’ and its counterpart, tolerance of ambiguity, as ‘the tendency to perceive ambiguous situations as desirable.’ Continue reading →
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June 11, 2015
Greedy reductionism [ri-duhk-shuh-niz-uhm] is a term coined by cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, in his 1995 book ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea,’ to refer to a kind of erroneous reductionism. Whereas ‘good’ reductionism means explaining a thing in terms of what it reduces to (for example, its parts and their interactions), greedy reductionism occurs when ‘in their eagerness for a bargain, in their zeal to explain too much too fast, scientists and philosophers … underestimate the complexities, trying to skip whole layers or levels of theory in their rush to fasten everything securely and neatly to the foundation.’
Using the terminology of ‘cranes’ (legitimate, mechanistic explanations) and ‘skyhooks’ (essentially, fake—e.g. supernaturalistic—explanations), Dennett states: ‘Good reductionists suppose that all Design can be explained without skyhooks; greedy reductionists suppose it can all be explained without cranes.’ Continue reading →
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June 10, 2015
Benevolent prejudice is a superficially positive type of prejudice, opinions formed before becoming aware of relevant facts, (e.g. ‘Asians are good at math,’ ‘African Americans are athletic,’ ‘Jews are good with money’).
Though this type of prejudice associates supposedly good things with certain groups, it still has the result of keeping the group members in inferior positions in society. Benevolent prejudices can help justify any hostile prejudices a person has toward a particular group and act as a wedge keeping outsiders from assimilating into the mainstream. Continue reading →
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June 9, 2015
Illusory [ih-loo-suh-ree] correlation [kawr-uh-ley-shuhn] is the phenomenon of perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists. A common example of this phenomenon would be when people form false associations between membership in a statistical minority group and rare (typically negative) behaviors as variables that are novel or salient tend to capture the attention. This is one way stereotypes form and endure, which can lead people to expect certain groups and traits to fit together, and then to overestimate the frequency with which these correlations actually occur.
The term ‘Illusory correlation’ was originally coined in 1967 by psychologists Loren Chapman and Jean Chapman to describe people’s tendencies to overestimate relationships between two groups when distinctive and unusual information is presented. The concept was used to question claims about objective knowledge in clinical psychology through the Chapmans’ refutation of many clinicians’ widely used Wheeler signs for homosexuality in Rorschach tests. Continue reading →
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June 8, 2015
In the design of experiments in statistics, the lady tasting tea is a famous randomized experiment devised by English statisticia Ronald A. Fisher and reported in his book ‘The Design of Experiments’ (1935). The experiment is the original exposition of Fisher’s notion of a ‘null hypothesis’ (what you expect to happen before you run an experiment, i.e. nothing). Fisher’s description is less than ten pages in length and is notable for its simplicity and completeness regarding terminology, calculations, and design of the experiment. The example is loosely based on an event from his life. The lady in question was biologist Muriel Bristol.
Bristol claimed to be able to tell whether the tea or the milk was added first to her daily cup of tea. Fisher proposed to give her eight cups, four of each variety, in random order. One could then ask what the probability was for her getting the number she got correct, but just by chance. She got all eight cups correct. In popular science, David Salsburg published a book entitled ‘The Lady Tasting Tea,’ which describes Fisher’s experiment and ideas on randomization.
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June 3, 2015
Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal or endstate, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual’s path to accomplishment, and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include ‘perseverance,’ ‘hardiness,’ ‘resilience,’ ‘ambition,’ ‘need for achievement,’ and ‘conscientiousness.’ These constructs can be conceptualized as individual differences related to the accomplishment of work rather than latent ability.
This distinction was brought into focus in 1907 when American psychologist William James challenged the field to further investigate how certain individuals are capable of accessing richer trait reservoirs enabling them to accomplish more than the average person, but the construct dates back at least to Victorian polymath Francis Galton, and the ideals of persistence and tenacity have been understood as a virtue at least since Aristotle. Although the last decade has seen a noticeable increase in research focused on achievement-oriented traits, there continues to be difficulty in aligning specific traits and outcomes. Continue reading →
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June 1, 2015
NeuroRacer is a video game designed by a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco led by cognitive neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley as a way to help with mental cognition.
It was designed as an intervention for ‘top-down modulation deficits in older adults.’ A study on 60-85 year olds showed that the multitasking nature of the game caused improvements in tasks outside of the game involving working memory and sustained attention.
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May 30, 2015
‘The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True’ is a 2011 book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, with illustrations by Dave McKean. It is a science book aimed primarily at children and young adults. He addresses topics that range from his most familiar territory, evolutionary biology and speciation (how the tree of life creates new branches), to physical phenomena such as atomic theory, optics, planetary motion, gravitation, stellar evolution (the life cycle of stars), spectroscopy (the study of the interactions of matter and electromagnetic radiation), and plate tectonics, as well as speculation on exobiology (alien life).
Most chapters begin with quick retellings of historical creation myths that emerged as attempts to explain the origin of particular observed phenomena. These myths are chosen from all across the world including Babylonian, Judeo-Christian, Aztec, Maori, Ancient Egyptian, Australian Aboriginal, Nordic, Hellenic, Chinese, Japanese, and other traditions, including contemporary alien abduction mythology. Continue reading →
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May 27, 2015
The term Lourdes [loordz] effect was coined by Belgian philosopher and skeptic Etienne Vermeersch to describe the observation that supernatural powers never manifest themselves in a completely unambiguous fashion. According to Vermeersch, should the miraculous power of Lourdes actually exist there would be no reason to think that it would be more difficult for the Virgin Mary or God to reattach a severed arm than to cure paralysis or blindness.
The accounts and photos of, for instance, the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti lack reliability and clarity due to a similar effect. Vermeersch uses this term to mock what he calls the selective and uncritical approach to miracles, or the frivolous attribution of supernatural gifts to human beings.
Posted in Humor, Philosophy, Science |
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