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David McGavock

A People's History of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 2 views

en.wikipedia.org/...s_History_of_the_United_States

history people's Howard zinn United States

shared by David McGavock on 30 Dec 10 - Cached
  • David McGavock on 30 Dec 10
     
    "A People's History of the United States - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A People's History of the United States Author Howard Zinn Country United States Publisher Harper & Row; HarperCollins Publication date 1980 (1st edition); 2003 (most recent edition) Pages 729 pp (2003 edition) ISBN see Current editions section A People's History of the United States is a 1980 non-fiction book by late American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn seeks to present American history through the eyes of the common people rather than political and economic elites. A People's History has become a major success and was a runner-up in 1980 for the National Book Award. It has been adopted for reading in some high schools and colleges across the United States and has been frequently revised, with the most recent edition covering events through 2005. In 2003, Zinn was awarded the Prix des Amis du Monde Diplomatique for the French version of this book, Une histoire populaire des Etats-Unis.[1] Over one million copies have been sold."
  • David McGavock on 30 Dec 10
     
    Howard Zinn writes history from an alternative perspective - an important and essential skill if we intend to think critically.
David McGavock

Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defending your rights in the digital world - 1 views

www.eff.org

privacy freedom electronic Digital activism

shared by David McGavock on 04 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • David McGavock on 04 Aug 12
     
    About EFF From the Internet to the iPod, technologies are transforming our society and empowering us as speakers, citizens, creators, and consumers. When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. EFF broke new ground when it was founded in 1990-well before the Internet was on most people's radar-and continues to confront cutting-edge issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today. From the beginning, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights.
David McGavock

Molly Crockett: Beware neuro-bunk | Video on TED.com - 0 views

www.ted.com/...rockett_beware_neuro_bunk.html

shared by David McGavock on 28 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • the insula, a region they say is linked to feelings of love and compassion. So they concluded that because they saw activation in the insula, this meant the subjects loved their iPhones. Now there's just one problem with this line of reasoning, and that's that the insula does a lot. Sure, it is involved in positive emotions like love and compassion, but it's also involved in tons of other processes, like memory, language, attention, even anger, disgust and pain.
  • You've probably heard of it. So, Dr. Love bases his argument on studies showing that when you boost people's oxytocin, this increases their trust, empathy and cooperation. So he's calling oxytocin "the moral molecule."
  • Trial or no trial, these claims are front and center on their label right next to a picture of a brain. And it turns out that pictures of brains have special properties. A couple of researchers asked a few hundred people to read a scientific article. For half the people, the article included a brain image, and for the other half, it was the same article but it didn't have a brain image. At the end — you see where this is going — people were asked whether they agreed with the conclusions of the article. So this is how much people agree with the conclusions with no image. And this is how much they agree with the same article that did include a brain image. So the take-home message here is, do you want to sell it? Put a brain on it.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • So what I'm going to do is show you how to spot a couple of classic moves, dead giveaways, really, for what's variously been called neuro-bunk, neuro-bollocks, or, my personal favorite, neuro-flapdoodle.
  • Now these studies are scientifically valid, and they've been replicated, but they're not the whole story. Other studies have shown that boosting oxytocin increases envy. It increases gloating. Oxytocin can bias people to favor their own group at the expense of other groups. And in some cases, oxytocin can even decrease cooperation.
  • We haven't found a "buy" button inside the brain, we can't tell whether someone is lying or in love just by looking at their brain scans, and we can't turn sinners into saints with hormones. Maybe someday we will, but until then, we have to be careful that we don't let overblown claims detract resources and attention away from the real science that's playing a much longer game.
  • Ask the tough questions. Ask to see the evidence. Ask for the part of the story that's not being told. The answers shouldn't be simple, because the brain isn't simple. But that's not stopping us from trying to figure it out anyway.
  • David McGavock on 28 Dec 12
     
     Ask the tough questions. Ask to see the evidence. Ask for the part of the story that's not being told. The answers shouldn't be simple, because the brain isn't simple. But that's not stopping us from trying to figure it out anyway.
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