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thinkahol *

5 Things That Internet Porn Reveals About Our Brains | Sex & the Brain | DISCOVER Magazine - 0 views

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    With its expansive range and unprecedented potential for anonymity, (the Internet gives voice to our deepest urges and most uninhibited thoughts. Inspired by the wealth of unfettered expression available online, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, who met as Ph.D. candidates at Boston University, began plumbing a few chosen search engines (including Dogpile and AOL) to create the world's largest experiment in sexuality in 2009. Quietly tapping into a billion Web searches, they explored the private activities of more than 100 million men and women around the world. The result is the first large-scale scientific examination of human sexuality in more than half a century, since biologist Alfred Kinsey famously interviewed more than 18,000 middle-class Caucasians about their sexual behavior and published the Kinsey reports in 1948 and 1953. Building on the work of Kinsey, neuroscientists have long made the case that male and female sexuality exist on different planes. But like Kinsey himself, they have been hampered by the dubious reliability of self-reports of sexual behavior and preferences as well as by small sample sizes. That is where the Internet comes in. By accessing raw data from Web searches and employing the help of Alexa-a company that measures Web traffic and publishes a list of the million most popular sites in the world-Ogas and Gaddam shine a light on hidden desire, a quirky realm of lust, fetish, and kink that, like the far side of the moon, has barely been glimpsed. Here is a sampling of their fascinating results, selected from their book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts.
Todd Suomela

U of M: Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior: Faculty: Mark E. Borrello - 0 views

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    I'm a historian of biology with interests in evolutionary theory, genetics, behavior and the environment. My work explores the varied interpretations and applications of evolutionary theory from the late19th century to the present. My dissertation, "Vero
Todd Suomela

Sociology and History: Shapin on the Merton Thesis « Ether Wave Propaganda - 1 views

  • Shapin observed that the link Merton drew between Puritanism and seventeenth-century English science was a matter of happenstance rather than determinism. According to Merton, science requires certain “values” and “sentiments” allowing intellectual individualism, and fostering not only an interest in the transcendent, but also secular improvement. It so happened that these values and sentiments were to be found in Puritan asceticism and sense of social obligation, which thus provided a social context in which science could develop. Definitively, this was not to say that Puritanism provided a unique source of these values and sentiments, or that science did not have other roots. It was obviously possible for science to develop in Catholic contexts as well, despite the less hospitable value system of Catholicism. The confluence of values simply seemed to promise some insight into the growth of science in a particular time and place.
  • Robert K. Merton’s “functionalist” sociology viewed “science” as a kind of Weberian ideal type — a form of thought that is identifiable by its peculiar, philosophically-defined characteristics. Merton’s sociology of science held that this thought could also be identified with social behaviors, characterized by a set of “norms”, which made the thought possible. The Merton Thesis (which slightly predates Merton’s enumeration of science’s norms) holds that the rise of science in early-modern England could be linked to the social behaviors valued by the Puritanism of that milieu. This was the subject of Merton’s PhD thesis and his 1938 book Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England.
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    Great link. Thanks
thinkahol *

Rachel Botsman: The case for collaborative consumption | Video on TED.com - 0 views

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    At TEDxSydney, Rachel Botsman says we're "wired to share" -- and shows how websites like Zipcar and Swaptree are changing the rules of human behavior.
thinkahol *

'Biotic' video games: Play with microorganisms | Health Tech - CNET News - 0 views

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    Stanford develops Biotic Pinball, POND PONG, and a soccer game called Ciliaball, in which a player's actions influence the behavior of living microorganisms in real time. Read this blog post by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Health Tech.
thinkahol *

Social networking's good and bad impacts on kids | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    Social media present risks and benefits to children but parents who try to secretly monitor their kids' activities online are wasting their time, says Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D., professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Rosen identifies potential adverse effects of social media, including: Teens who use Facebook more often show more narcissistic tendencies, while young adults who have a strong Facebook presence show more signs of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania, and aggressive tendencies. Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, especially preteens and teenagers, by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders, and making them more susceptible to future health problems. Facebook can be distracting and can negatively impact learning. Studies found that middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period achieved lower grades. Rosen says new research has also found positive influences linked to social networking, including: Young adults who spend more time on Facebook are better at showing "virtual empathy" to their online friends. Online social networking can help introverted adolescents learn how to socialize. Social networking can provide tools for teaching in compelling ways that engage young students. "If you feel that you have to use some sort of computer program to surreptitiously monitor your child's social networking, you are wasting your time. Your child will find a workaround in a matter of minutes," he says. "You have to start talking about appropriate technology use early and often and build trust, so that when there is a problem, whether it is being bullied or seeing a disturbing image, your child will talk to you about it." Ref.: Larry D. Rosen, Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids, 2011; 119th Annua
Todd Suomela

Norms, "Ideology", and the Move against "Functionalist" Sociology « Ether Wav... - 1 views

  • However, at the same time, another critique questioned the basic validity of that framework. This critique shared the SSK critique’s interest in describing actual scientific work, but, like Mertonian sociology, it focused on scientists’ and others’ sense of the essence of scientific culture without directly addressing knowledge-production processes. This critique held that, because “functionalist” ideal-type systems of scientific behavior could not actually be found in their pure form, such systems did not meaningfully exist. Legitimate sociology had to be obtained inductively from the empirical record, as studied by historians and ethnologists.
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    Very interesting summary of debates on SSK and Mertonian science studies during the mid-20c. Describes the move away from functional, ideal-type, descriptions a la Merton to more historically specific microhistories a la Daston.
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