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Javier E

America Is Flunking Math - Persuasion - 1 views

www.persuasion.community/...ica-is-flunking-math-education

STEM math education math education anti-racism Critical Theory research Science bias

shared by Javier E on 17 May 21 - No Cached
  • One can argue that the preeminence of each civilization was, in part, due to their sophisticated understanding and use of mathematics. This is particularly clear in the case of the West, which forged ahead in the 17th century with the discovery of calculus, one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.
  • The United States became the dominant force in the mathematical sciences in the wake of World War II, largely due to the disastrous genocidal policies of the Third Reich. The Nazis’ obsession with purging German science of what it viewed as nefarious Jewish influence led to a massive exodus of Jewish mathematicians and scientists to America
  • Indeed, academic institutions in the United States have thrived largely because of their ability to attract talented individuals from around the world.
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  • The quality of mathematics research in the United States today is the envy of the scientific world. This is a direct result of the openness and inclusivity of the profession.
  • Can Americans maintain this unmatched excellence in the future? There are worrisome signs that suggest not.
  • The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development compares mathematical proficiency among 15-year-olds by country worldwide. According to its 2018 report, America ranked 37th while China, America’s main competitor for world leadership, came in first.
  • This is despite the fact that the United States is the fifth-highest spender per pupil among the 37 developed OECD nations
  • This massive failure of our K-12 education system trickles through the STEM pipeline.
  • At the undergraduate level, too few American students are prepared for higher-level mathematics courses. These students are then unprepared for rigorous graduate-level work
  • According to our own experiences at the universities where we teach, an overwhelming majority of American students with strong math backgrounds are either foreign-born or first-generation students who have additional support from their education-conscious families. At all levels, STEM disciplines are more and more dependent on a constant flow of foreign talent.
  • There are many reasons for this failure, but the way that we educate and prepare teachers is particularly influential. The vast majority of K-12 math teachers are graduates of teacher-preparation programs that teach very little substantive mathematics
  • This has led to a constant stream of ill-advised and dumbed-down reforms. One of the latest fads is anti-racist mathematics. Promoted in several states, the bizarre doctrine threatens to further degrade the teaching of mathematics.
  • Another major concern is the twisted interpretation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
  • Under the banner of DEI, universities are abandoning the use of standardized tests like the SAT and GRE in admissions, and cities are considering scrapping academic tracking and various gifted programs in schools, which they deem “inequitable.”
  • such programs are particularly effective, when properly implemented, at discovering and encouraging talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
  • The new 2021 Mathematics Framework, currently under consideration by California’s Department of Education, does away “with all tracking, acceleration, gifted programs, or any instruction that involves clustering by individual differences, without expressing any awareness of the impact these drastic alterations would have in preparing STEM-ready candidates.”
  • These measures will not only hinder the progress of the generations of our future STEM workforce but also contribute to structural inequalities, as they are uniquely detrimental to students whose parents cannot send them to private schools or effective enrichment programs.
  • These are just a few examples of an unprecedented fervor for revolutionary change in the name of Critical Race Theory (CRT), a doctrine that views the world as a fierce battleground for the narratives of various identity groups.
  • This will only lead to a further widening of racial disparities in educational outcomes while lowering American children’s rankings in education internationally.
  • Ill-conceived DEI policies, often informed by CRT, and the declining standards of K-12 math education feed each other in a vicious circle
  • Regarding minorities, in particular, public K-12 education all too often produces students unprepared to compete, thus leading to large disparities in admissions at universities, graduate programs, and faculty positions. This disparity is then condemned as a manifestation of structural racism, resulting in administrative measures to lower the evaluation criteria. Lowering standards at all levels leads eventually to even worse outcomes and larger disparities, and so on in a downward spiral.
  • A case in point is the recent report by the American Mathematical Society that accuses the entire mathematics community, with the thinnest of specific evidence, of systemic racial discrimination. A major justification put forward for such a grave accusation is the lack of sufficient representation of Black mathematicians in the professio
  • the report, while raising awareness of several ugly facts from the long-ago past, makes little effort to address the real reasons for this, mainly the catastrophic failure of the K-12 mathematical educational system.
  • The National Science Foundation, a federal institution meant to support fundamental research, is now diverting some of its limited funding to various DEI initiatives of questionable benefit.
  • Meanwhile, other countries, especially China, are doing precisely the opposite, following the model of our past dedication to objective measures of excellence. How long before we will see a reverse exodus, away from the United States?
  • The present crisis can still be reversed by focusing on a few concrete actions:
  • Improve schools in urban areas and inner-city neighborhoods by following the most promising education programs. These programs demonstrate that inner-city children benefit if they are challenged by high standards and a nurturing environment.
  • Follow the lead of other highly successful rigorous programs such as BASIS schools and Math for America, which focus on rigorous STEM curricula, combined with 21st-century teaching methods, and recruit talented teachers to help them build on their STEM knowledge and teaching methods.
  • Increase, rather than eliminate, tailored instruction, both for accelerated and remedial math courses.
  • Reject the soft bigotry of low expectations, that Black children cannot do well in competitive mathematics programs and need dumbed-down ethnocentric versions of mathematics.
  • Uphold the objective selection process based on merit at all levels of education and research.
caelengrubb

As more are vaccinated, it makes economic sense to gradually open the economy, study fi... - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...210322174957.htm

shared by caelengrubb on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • A University of New Mexico research team conducted a data analysis that has found that as a larger portion of the population gets vaccinated against COVID-19, it becomes economically advantageous to start relaxing social distancing measures and open businesses.
  • The study looked at data from four metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) within the United States: Seattle, New York City, Los Angeles and Houston from January 21 to July 8, 2020. The four cities were chosen because they have had divergent trends with the virus (Seattle and New York City were early hotspots, while Los Angeles and Houston peaked in the summer).
  • "Our work is quantitative, so it can hopefully offer some evidence that shows the vaccines are going to allow us to loosen social distancing measures, including opening businesses," he said. "It provides a measure of hope as we go forward and increase the percentage of citizens who are vaccinated."
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  • Sorrentino said the study defined economic impact by the extent that a city's economy was closed -- businesses like restaurants, gyms, salons and airports that would lose business without people's physical presence.
  • The study took into account both the costs associated with quarantining (which requires supervision costs as well as costs due to lowered productivity) as well as social distancing (which incurs costs only due to productivity).
  • "But our model shows that even before we achieve herd immunity, we can relax social distancing compared to the situation prior to immunization."
  • The analysis looked at Seattle, beginning on December 14, 2020, when the vaccine was first being administered. Even with this limited data, the effect of vaccinations was dramatic, impacting the so-called "optimal control solution."
  • While the optimal interventions would vary depending on a number of factors, we always saw that a gradual relaxation of social distancing was possible after roughly 10% of the population got vaccinated," he said.
  • After just 20 days, the trend was becoming clear when comparing with the case in which the effects of vaccinations were not incorporated in the model.
  • Sorrentino emphasizes also that everyone should continue to follow the current policy and health guidelines, and that the relaxing of social distancing should adhere to these guidelines and be gradual. And of course, that guidance may change, based on the rates of spread of the virus and the variants.
blythewallick

Be Humble, and Proudly, Psychologists Say - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...y-humility-pride-behavior.html

science psychology research brain science

shared by blythewallick on 23 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Humility is not the boldest of personality traits, but it’s an important one, studies find. And it’s hard to fake.
  • In a paper published in the latest issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a team of researchers reviewed studies of a once-widespread personal trait, one “characterized by an ability to accurately acknowledge one’s limitations and abilities, and an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented rather than self-focused.” Humility.
  • The word “humble” travels so often now as a verb that embodying its gentler spirit, the adjective, can be an invitation to online trolling, professional invisibility or worse. Oscar Wilde wrote that, before he found humility, he spent two years behind bars experiencing “anguish that wept aloud” and “misery that could find no voice” — which sounds more like defeat than victory.
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  • Humility is a relative newcomer to social and personality psychology, at least as a trait or behavior to be studied on its own. It arrived as part of the effort, beginning in the 1990s, to build a “positive” psychology: a more complete understanding of sustaining qualities such as pride, forgiveness, grit and contentment.
  • In another, ongoing study, Dr. Krumrei Mancuso had 587 American adults complete questionnaires intended to measure levels of intellectual humility. The participants rated how much they agreed with various statements, including “I feel small when others disagree with me on topics that are close to my heart,” and “For the most part, others have more to learn from me than I have to learn from them.” Those who scored highly on humility — not that they’d boast about it — also scored lower on measures of political and ideological polarization, whether conservative or liberal.
  • “These kinds of findings may account for the fact that people high in intellectual humility are not easily manipulated with regard to their views,” Dr. Krumrei Mancuso said. The findings, she added, may also “help us understand how humility can be associated with holding convictions.”
  • Now that humility is attracting some research attention, Dr. Van Tongeren said, there are a number of open questions, including whether it can somehow be taught, or perhaps integrated into psychotherapy. “One of the thorny issues is that the people who are the most open and willing cultivate humility might be the ones who need it the least,” he said. “And vice versa: Those most in need could be the most resistant.”
  • Between 10 and 15 percent of adults score highly on measures of humility, depending on the rating scale used. That’s at least 25 million humble people in this country alone.
blythewallick

How Do Personality Traits Influence Values and Well-Being? | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...nfluence-values-and-well-being

science psychology research brain science

shared by blythewallick on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Personality traits are characteristics that relate to the factory settings of our motivational system.
  • Values are factors that drive what we find to be important. Research by Schwartz and his colleagues suggests that there is a universal set of values.
  • Researchers are interested in understanding how these two sources of stability in a person over time are inter-related and whether changes in one factor (like personality) create changes in another (like values). This question was addressed in a paper in the August 2019 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
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  • The advantage of having many different waves of data from the same people is that it enables researchers to speculate on whether changes in one characteristic cause changes in another. This can be done by asking whether changes at one time in one factor predict another more strongly than the reverse
  • irst, as we might expect, people’s personality characteristics and values are fairly stable. People’s responses to both the personality inventory and the values scale did not change much over time. However, the responses to the personality inventory changed less than the responses to the values survey.
  • Overall, some personality characteristics and some values are related. Agreeableness was correlated with the value of being prosocial (that is, wanting to engage in positive actions for society). Conscientiousness was correlated with conformity (which reflects that conscientious people tend to want to follow rules including societal rules). Extraversion was related to the value of enjoyment. Openness correlated with the value of self-direction. There were no strong correlations between neuroticism and any of the values.
  • In addition, personality traits appeared to influence a variety of measures of well-being. People high in agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness tended to show higher measures of well-being while being high in neuroticism was linked to decreased measures of well-being.
  • First, in an era in which key findings fail to replicate, this study solidifies the relationship between personality characteristics and values that have been observed before. It also demonstrates that both personality characteristics and values change slowly.
  • Second, this work suggests that changes in personality characteristics (which reflect people’s underlying motivation) have a bigger impact on values than changes in values have on people’s personality characteristics.
  • Third, this work suggests that both personality characteristics and values are related to people’s sense of well-being. However, personality characteristics seem to have a broad impact. Changes in personality can precede changes in well-being, but it appears that changes in well-being may actually have an impact on people’s values.
Javier E

Implicit Bias Training Isn't Improving Corporate Diversity - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...-improving-corporate-diversity

training bias effectiveness racism diversity

shared by Javier E on 05 Aug 20 - No Cached
  • despite the growing adoption of unconscious bias training, there is no convincing scientific evidence that it works
  • In fact, much of the academic evidence on implicit bias interventions highlights their weakness as a method for boosting diversity and inclusion. Instructions to suppress stereotypes often have the opposite effect, and prejudice reduction programs are much more effective when people are already open-minded, altruistic, and concerned about their prejudices to begin with.
  • This is because the main problem with stereotypes is not that people are unaware of them, but that they agree with them (even when they don’t admit it to others). In other words, most people have conscious biases.
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  • Moreover, to the extent that people have unconscious biases, there is no clear-cut way to measure them
  • The main tool for measuring unconscious bias, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), has been in use for twenty years but is highly contested.
  • meta-analytic reviews have concluded that IAT scores — in other words, unconscious biases — are very weak predictors of actual behavior.
  • The vast majority of people labeled “racist” by these tests behave the same as the vast majority of people labelled “non-racist.” Do we really want to tell people who behave in non-racist ways that they are unconsciously racists, or, conversely, tell people who behave in racist ways that they aren’t, deep down, racists at all?
  • Instead of worrying what people think of something or someone deep down, we should focus on ways to eliminate the toxic or prejudiced behaviors we can see. That alone will drive a great deal of progress.
  • Scientific evidence suggests that the relationship between attitudes and behaviors is much weaker than one might expect.
  • Even if we lived in a world in which humans always acted in accordance with their beliefs, there would remain better ways to promote diversity than by policing people’s thoughts.
  • Organizations should focus less on extinguishing their employees’ unconscious thoughts, and more on nurturing ethical, benevolent, and inclusive behaviors.
  • This means focusing less on employees’ attitudes, and more on organizational policies and systems, as these play the key role creating the conditions that entice employees (and leaders) to behave in more or less inclusive ways.
  • This gets to the underlying flaw with unconscious bias trainings: behaviors, not thoughts, should be the target of diversity and inclusion interventions.
  • Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is chief talent scientist at Manpower Group and a professor at University College London and Columbia University.
Javier E

The Real Reason You and Your Neighbor Make Different Covid-19 Risk Decisions - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-19-risk-decisions-11632063600

risk assessment rationality psychology knowledge

shared by Javier E on 20 Sep 21 - No Cached
  • Personality traits that are shaped by genetics and early life experiences strongly influence our Covid-19-related decisions, studies from the U.S. and Japan have found.
  • In a study of more than 400 U.S. adults, Dr. Byrne and her colleagues found that how people perceive risks, whether they make risky decisions, and their preference for immediate or delayed rewards were the largest predictors of whether they followed public-health guidelines when it came to wearing masks and social distancing.
  • These factors accounted for 55% of the difference in people’s behaviors—more than people’s political affiliation, level of education or age.
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  • Dr. Byrne and her colleagues measured risky decision-making by presenting people with a gambling scenario. They could choose between two bets: One offered a guaranteed amount of money, while the other offered the possibility of a larger amount of money but also the possibility of receiving no cash. A different exercise measured people’s preference for immediate versus delayed rewards: Participants could choose a certain amount of money now, or a larger amount later.
  • Study subjects also reported Covid-19 precautions they had taken in their daily lives, including masking and social distancing.
  • with Covid-19, people don’t feel sick immediately after an exposure so the benefits of wearing a mask, social distancing or getting vaccinated aren’t immediately apparent. “You don’t see the lives you potentially save,” she says
  • “People generally are more motivated by immediate gratification or immediate benefits rather than long-term benefits, even when the long-term benefits are much greater,
  • Research has also found being extroverted or introverted affects how people make decisions about Covid-19 precautions. A recent study of more than 8,500 people in Japan published in the journal PLOS One in October 2020 found that those who scored high on a scale of extraversion were 7% less likely to wear masks in public and avoid large gatherings, among other precautions.
  • The study also found that people who scored high on a measure of conscientiousness—valuing hard work and achievement—were 31% more likely to follow Covid-19 public-health precautions.
  • Scientists believe that a person’s propensity to take risks is partly genetic and partly the result of early life experiences
  • Certain negative childhood experiences including physical, emotional or sexual abuse, parental divorce, or living with someone who was depressed or abused drugs or alcohol are linked to risky behavior in adulthood like smoking and drinking heavily, other research has found.
  • Studies of twins have generally found that about 30% of the difference in individual risk tolerance is genetic
  • And scientists have discovered that the brains of people who are more willing to take risks look different than those of people who are more cautious.
  • ambling task had differences in the structure and function of the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in detecting threats, and the prefrontal cortex, a region involved in executive
  • Even people who have the same information and a similar perception of the risks may make different decisions because of the ways they interpret the information. When public-health officials talk about breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals being rare, for example, “rare means different things” to different people
Javier E

Data on inbred nobles support a leader-driven theory of history | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...eader-driven-theory-of-history

history leadership genetics research

shared by Javier E on 01 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • a recent working paper by Nico Voigtländer and Sebastian Ottinger of the University of California at Los Angeles argues that leaders’ impact can indeed be isolated—thanks to the genomes of kings like Charles.
  • In theory, each round of inbreeding should have made monarchs slightly stupider—and thus worse at their jobs. This yields a natural experiment. Assuming that countries’ propensity for incest did not vary based on their political fortunes, the periods in which they had highly inbred (and probably dim-witted) leaders occurred at random intervals.
  • The authors analysed 331 European monarchs between 990 and 1800. They first calculated how inbred each ruler was, and then assessed countries’ success during their reigns using two measures: historians’ subjective scores, and the change in land area controlled by each monarch. The authors only compared each ruler against their own country’s historical averages.
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  • The change in their land areas tended to be about 24 percentage points greater under their least inbred rulers than under their most inbred ones.
  • Sure enough, Spain’s tailspin under Charles was predictable. Countries tended to endure their darkest periods under their most inbred monarchs, and enjoy golden ages during the reigns of their most genetically diverse leaders.
  • the study’s finding—rulers who preside over setbacks tend to be relatively unintelligent—has timeless implications.
  • Javier E on 01 Jan 22
     
    The authors analysed 331 European monarchs between 990 and 1800. They first calculated how inbred each ruler was, and then assessed countries' success during their reigns using two measures: historians' subjective scores, and the change in land area controlled by each monarch. The authors only compared each ruler against their own country's historical averages.
Javier E

Climate Change Data Deluge Has Scientists Scrambling for Solutions - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...ling-for-solutions-11638720016

climate change data technology research

shared by Javier E on 06 Dec 21 - No Cached
  • For decades, scientists working to predict changes in the climate relied mostly on calculations involving simple laws of physics and chemistry but little data from the real world. But with temperatures world-wide continuing to rise—and with data-collection techniques and technologies continuing to advance—scientists now rely on meticulous measurements of temperatures, ocean currents, soil moisture, air quality, cloud cover and hundreds of other phenomena on Earth and in its atmosphere.
  • “Now we can truly do climate studies because now we have observations to precisely say how weather trends have changed and are changing,
  • “When you are trying to develop long-term environmental records, including climate records, consistent measurement is incredibly valuable,” says Kevin Murphy, who as NASA’s chief science data officer oversees an archive of Earth observation data used by 3.9 million people last year. “It’s irreplaceable data.”
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  • Over the next decade, officials managing the main U.S. repositories of climate-related information expect their archives’ total volume to grow from about 83 petabytes today to more than 650 petabytes.
  • One petabyte of digital memory can hold thousands of feature-length movies, with 650 enough to hold the contents of the Library of Congress 30 times over.
  • All that information, though, is more than conventional data storage can handle and more than any human mind can readily assimilate,
  • To accommodate it all, the federal workers tasked with managing the data are moving it into the cloud, which offers almost unlimited memory storage while eliminating the need for scientists to maintain their own on-site archive
  • archive managers are devising new analytical techniques and adapting a standard format for the data no matter who collected it and who wants to study it.
  • In essence, they are reinventing climate science from the ground up.
  • “We are in the midst of a technology evolution,
  • As of last September, government agencies and private companies had about 900 Earth-orbiting satellites gathering data about our planet, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. That is almost three times as many as were aloft in 2008. More are being readied for launch.
  • ASA’s $1 billion Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission will measure Earth’s lakes, rivers and oceans in the first detailed global survey of the planet’s surface water.
  • That is a drop in the data bucket compared with the space agency’s $1.5 billion Nisar radar imaging satellite, which is scheduled for launch in January 2023. Its sensors will detect movements of the planet’s land, ice sheets and sea ice as small as 0.4 inches, transmitting 80 terabytes of data every day.
  • With current data handling systems and typical internet connections, it would take a climate researcher about a year to download just four days’ worth of Nisar dat
  • NASA and NOAA are working with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Corp. to move their climate databases into the cloud.
  • Earlier this year, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time used data on past climate behavior to gauge the reliability of climate models for policy makers.
patricajohnson51

Tackling the Challenges of Network Administration: A Comprehensive Guide - 7 views

Thanks for the insights! Very informative post on tackling network administration challenges. I definitely needed this for my college assignments.

#writemynetworkadministrationassignment #networkadministration #collegeassignments #students technology research social media education

started by karenmcgregor on 16 Nov 23 1 follow-up, last by patricajohnson51 on 06 Dec 23
Javier E

The Psychopath Makeover - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 0 views

chronicle.com/...135160

psychopathy psychology brain science reading historical development

shared by Javier E on 10 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The eminent criminal psychologist and creator of the widely used Psychopathy Checklist paused before answering. "I think, in general, yes, society is becoming more psychopathic," he said. "I mean, there's stuff going on nowadays that we wouldn't have seen 20, even 10 years ago. Kids are becoming anesthetized to normal sexual behavior by early exposure to pornography on the Internet. Rent-a-friend sites are getting more popular on the Web, because folks are either too busy or too techy to make real ones. ... The recent hike in female criminality is particularly revealing. And don't even get me started on Wall Street."
  • in a survey that has so far tested 14,000 volunteers, Sara Konrath and her team at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has found that college students' self-reported empathy levels (as measured by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, a standardized questionnaire containing such items as "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me" and "I try to look at everybody's side of a disagreement before I make a decision") have been in steady decline over the past three decades—since the inauguration of the scale, in fact, back in 1979. A particularly pronounced slump has been observed over the past 10 years. "College kids today are about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago," Konrath reports.
  • Imagining, it would seem, really does make it so. Whenever we read a story, our level of engagement is such that we "mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative," according to one of the researchers, Nicole Speer. Our brains then interweave these newly encountered situations with knowledge and experience gleaned from our own lives to create an organic mosaic of dynamic mental syntheses.
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  • during this same period, students' self-reported narcissism levels have shot through the roof. "Many people see the current group of college students, sometimes called 'Generation Me,' " Konrath continues, "as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident, and individualistic in recent history."
  • Reading a book carves brand-new neural pathways into the ancient cortical bedrock of our brains. It transforms the way we see the world—makes us, as Nicholas Carr puts it in his recent essay, "The Dreams of Readers," "more alert to the inner lives of others." We become vampires without being bitten—in other words, more empathic. Books make us see in a way that casual immersion in the Internet, and the quicksilver virtual world it offers, doesn't.
  • if society really is becoming more psychopathic, it's not all doom and gloom. In the right context, certain psychopathic characteristics can actually be very constructive. A neurosurgeon I spoke with (who rated high on the psychopathic spectrum) described the mind-set he enters before taking on a difficult operation as "an intoxication that sharpens rather than dulls the senses." In fact, in any kind of crisis, the most effective individuals are often those who stay calm—who are able to respond to the exigencies of the moment while at the same time maintaining the requisite degree of detachment.
  • mental toughness isn't the only characteristic that Special Forces soldiers have in common with psychopaths. There's also fearlessness.
  • I ask Andy whether he ever felt any regret over anything he'd done. Over the lives he'd taken on his numerous secret missions around the world. "No," he replies matter-of-factly, his arctic-blue eyes showing not the slightest trace of emotion. "You seriously don't think twice about it. When you're in a hostile situation, the primary objective is to pull the trigger before the other guy pulls the trigger. And when you pull it, you move on. Simple as that. Why stand there, dwelling on what you've done? Go down that route and chances are the last thing that goes through your head will be a bullet from an M16. "The regiment's motto is 'Who Dares Wins.' But sometimes it can be shortened to 'F--- It.' "
  • one of the things that we know about psychopaths is that the light switches of their brains aren't wired up in quite the same way as the rest of ours are—and that one area particularly affected is the amygdala, a peanut-size structure located right at the center of the circuit board. The amygdala is the brain's emotion-control tower. It polices our emotional airspace and is responsible for the way we feel about things. But in psychopaths, a section of this airspace, the part that corresponds to fear, is empty.
  • Turn down the signals to the amygdala, of course, and you're well on the way to giving someone a psychopath makeover. Indeed, Liane Young and her team in Boston have since kicked things up a notch and demonstrated that applying TMS to the right temporoparietal junction—a neural ZIP code within that neighborhood—has significant effects not just on lying ability but also on moral-reasoning ability: in particular, ascribing intentionality to others' actions.
  • at an undisclosed moment sometime within the next 60 seconds, the image you see at the present time will change, and images of a different nature will appear on the screen. These images will be violent. And nauseating. And of a graphic and disturbing nature. "As you view these images, changes in your heart rate, skin conductance, and EEG activity will be monitored and compared with the resting levels that are currently being recorded
  • "OK," says Nick. "Let's get the show on the road." He disappears behind us, leaving Andy and me merrily soaking up the incontinence ad. Results reveal later that, at this point, as we wait for something to happen, our physiological output readings are actually pretty similar. Our pulse rates are significantly higher than our normal resting levels, in anticipation of what's to come. But with the change of scene, an override switch flips somewhere in Andy's brain. And the ice-cold Special Forces soldier suddenly swings into action. As vivid, florid images of dismemberment, mutilation, torture, and execution flash up on the screen in front of us (so vivid, in fact, that Andy later confesses to actually being able to "smell" the blood: a "kind of sickly-sweet smell that you never, ever forget"), accompanied not by the ambient spa music of before but by blaring sirens and hissing white noise, his physiological readings start slipping into reverse. His pulse rate begins to slow. His GSR begins to drop, his EEG to quickly and dramatically attenuate. In fact, by the time the show is over, all three of Andy's physiological output measures are pooling below his baseline.
  • Nick has seen nothing like it. "It's almost as if he was gearing himself up for the challenge," he says. "And then, when the challenge eventually presented itself, his brain suddenly responded by injecting liquid nitrogen into his veins. Suddenly implemented a blanket neural cull of all surplus feral emotion. Suddenly locked down into a hypnotically deep code red of extreme and ruthless focus." He shakes his head, nonplused. "If I hadn't recorded those readings myself, I'm not sure I would have believed them," he continues. "OK, I've never tested Special Forces before. And maybe you'd expect a slight attenuation in response. But this guy was in total and utter control of the situation. So tuned in, it looked like he'd completely tuned out."
  • My physiological output readings, in contrast, went through the roof. Exactly like Andy's, they were well above baseline as I'd waited for the carnage to commence. But that's where the similarity ended. Rather than go down in the heat of battle, in the midst of the blood and guts, mine had appreciated exponentially. "At least it shows that the equipment is working properly," comments Nick. "And that you're a normal human being."
  • TMS can't penetrate far enough into the brain to reach the emotion and moral-reasoning precincts directly. But by damping down or turning up the regions of the cerebral cortex that have links with such areas, it can simulate the effects of deeper, more incursive influence.
  • Before the experiment, I'd been curious about the time scale: how long it would take me to begin to feel the rush. Now I had the answer: about 10 to 15 minutes. The same amount of time, I guess, that it would take most people to get a buzz out of a beer or a glass of wine.
  • The effects aren't entirely dissimilar. An easy, airy confidence. A transcendental loosening of inhibition. The inchoate stirrings of a subjective moral swagger: the encroaching, and somehow strangely spiritual, realization that hell, who gives a s---, anyway? There is, however, one notable exception. One glaring, unmistakable difference between this and the effects of alcohol. That's the lack of attendant sluggishness. The enhancement of attentional acuity and sharpness. An insuperable feeling of heightened, polished awareness. Sure, my conscience certainly feels like it's on ice, and my anxieties drowned with a half-dozen shots of transcranial magnetic Jack Daniel's. But, at the same time, my whole way of being feels as if it's been sumptuously spring-cleaned with light. My soul, or whatever you want to call it, immersed in a spiritual dishwasher.
  • So this, I think to myself, is how it feels to be a psychopath. To cruise through life knowing that no matter what you say or do, guilt, remorse, shame, pity, fear—all those familiar, everyday warning signals that might normally light up on your psychological dashboard—no longer trouble you.
  • I suddenly get a flash of insight. We talk about gender. We talk about class. We talk about color. And intelligence. And creed. But the most fundamental difference between one individual and another must surely be that of the presence, or absence, of conscience. Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels good. But what if it's as tough as old boots? What if one's conscience has an infinite, unlimited pain threshold and doesn't bat an eye when others are screaming in agony?
Javier E

The Way to Produce a Person - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-way-to-produce-a-person.html

morality consequences role model plastic brain

shared by Javier E on 05 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • the brain is a malleable organ. Every time you do an activity, or have a thought, you are changing a piece of yourself into something slightly different than it was before. Every hour you spend with others, you become more like the people around you.
  • Gradually, you become a different person. If there is a large gap between your daily conduct and your core commitment, you will become more like your daily activities and less attached to your original commitment. You will become more hedge fund, less malaria.
  • I would worry about turning yourself into a means rather than an end. If you go to Wall Street mostly to make money for charity, you may turn yourself into a machine for the redistribution of wealth. You may turn yourself into a fiscal policy.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • a human life is not just a means to produce outcomes, it is an end in itself. When we evaluate our friends, we don’t just measure the consequences of their lives. We measure who they intrinsically are. We don’t merely want to know if they have done good. We want to know if they are good.
  • We live in a relentlessly commercial culture, so it’s natural that many people would organize their lives in utilitarian and consequentialist terms. But it’s possible to get carried away with this kind of thinking — to have logic but no wisdom
Javier E

The Philosophy of Data - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ks-the-philosophy-of-data.html

data analysis trend

shared by Javier E on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • the rising philosophy of the day, I’d say it is data-ism.
  • We now have the ability to gather huge amounts of data. This ability seems to carry with it certain cultural assumptions — that everything that can be measured should be measured; that data is a transparent and reliable lens that allows us to filter out emotionalism and ideology; that data will help us do remarkable things — like foretell the future.
  • In what situations should we rely on intuitive pattern recognition and in which situations should we ignore intuition and follow the data?
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • two things data does really well.
  • it’s really good at exposing when our intuitive view of reality is wrong
  • data can illuminate patterns of behavior we haven’t yet noticed
Grace Carey

News at Tipitaka Network - 0 views

www.tipitaka.net/...news.php

dogmatism falsification religion ignorance bias faith dual-causation logic Quantum-Physics measurement Reality Heisenberg uncertainty 5-senses perception

shared by Grace Carey on 27 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Grace Carey on 27 Jan 13
     
    Finding some interesting and very much TOK articles while I'm working on my religious investigation about the science behind Buddhist beliefs. I found this one particularly intriguing as it discusses why the theory of reincarnation is scientifically sound and why scientists are often narrow-minded and overly trusted. "I was once told by a Buddhist G.P. that, on his first day at a medical school in Sydney, the famous Professor, head of the Medical School, began his welcoming address by stating "Half of what we are going to teach you in the next few years is wrong. Our problem is that we do not know which half it is!" Those were the words of a real scientist." "Logic is only as reliable as the assumptions on which it is based." "Objective experience is that which is free from all bias. In Buddhism, the three types of bias are desire, ill-will and skeptical doubt. Desire makes one see only what one wants to see, it bends the truth to fit one's preferences." "Reality, according to pure science, does not consist of well ordered matter with precise massed, energies and positions in space, all just waiting to be measured. Reality is the broadest of smudges of all possibilities, only some being more probable than others." "At a recent seminar on Science and Religion, at which I was a speaker, a Catholic in the audience bravely announced that whenever she looks through a telescope at the stars, she feels uncomfortable because her religion is threatened. I commented that whenever a scientist looks the other way round through a telescope, to observe the one who is watching, then they feel uncomfortable because their science is threatened by what is doing the seeing! "
carolinewren

The Reality of Quantum Weirdness - NYTimes.com - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...lity-of-quantum-weirdness.html

quantum reality nytimes science

shared by carolinewren on 27 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Is there a true story, or is our belief in a definite, objective, observer-independent reality an illusion?
  • Is there a fixed reality apart from our various observations of it? Or is reality nothing more than a kaleidoscope of infinite possibilities?
  • So an electron is a wave, not a particle?
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • each electron somehow acts like a wave interfering with itself, as if it is simultaneously passing through both slits at once.
  • the electrons go back to their wavelike behavior, and the interference pattern miraculously reappears.
  • Instead, we see two lumps on the screen, as if the electrons, suddenly aware of being observed, decided to act like little pellets.
  • . For an individual particle like an electron, for example, the wave function provides information about the probabilities that the particle can be observed at particular locations, as well as the probabilities of the results of other measurements of the particle that you can make, such as measuring its momentum.
  • If the wave function is merely knowledge-based, then you can explain away odd quantum phenomena by saying that things appear to us this way only because our knowledge of the real state of affairs is insufficient.
  • If there is an objective reality at all, the paper demonstrates, then the wave function is in fact reality-based.
  • We should be careful to recognize that the weirdness of the quantum world does not directly imply the same kind of weirdness in the world of everyday experience. That’s because the nebulous quantum essence of individual elementary particles is known to quickly dissipate in large ensembles of particles (a phenomenon often referred to as “decoherence”).
kushnerha

The rise of the 'gentleman's A' and the GPA arms race - The Washington Post - 2 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...5-9804-537defcc3cf6_story.html

washington post education grades research bias

shared by kushnerha on 30 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • A’s — once reserved for recognizing excellence and distinction — are today the most commonly awarded grades in America.
  • That’s true at both Ivy League institutions and community colleges, at huge flagship publics and tiny liberal arts schools, and in English, ethnic studies and engineering departments alike. Across the country, wherever and whatever they study, mediocre students are increasingly likely to receive supposedly superlative grades.
  • Analyzing 70 years of transcript records from more than 400 schools, the researchers found that the share of A grades has tripled, from just 15 percent of grades in 1940 to 45 percent in 2013. At private schools, A’s account for nearly a majority of grades awarded.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Students sometimes argue that their talents have improved so dramatically that they are deserving of higher grades. Past studies, however, have found little evidence of this.
  • While it’s true that top schools have become more selective, the overall universe of students attending college has gotten broader, reflecting a wider distribution of abilities and levels of preparation, especially at the bottom. College students today also study less and do not appear to be more literate than their predecessors were.
  • Plus, of course, even if students have gotten smarter, or at least more efficient at studying (hey, computers do help), grades are arguably also supposed to measure relative achievement among classmates.
  • Affirmative action also sometimes gets blamed for rising grades; supposedly, professors have been loath to hurt the feelings of underprepared minority students. Rojstaczer and Healy note, however, that much of the increase in minority enrollment occurred from the mid-1970s to mid-’80s, the only period in recent decades when average GPAs fell.
  • That first era, the researchers say, can be explained by changes in pedagogical philosophy (some professors began seeing grades as overly authoritarian and ineffective at motivating students) and mortal exigencies (male students needed higher grades to avoid the Vietnam draft).
  • The authors attribute today’s inflation to the consumerization of higher education. That is, students pay more in tuition, and expect more in return — better service, better facilities and better grades. Or at least a leg up in employment and graduate school admissions through stronger transcripts.
  • some universities have explicitly lifted their grading curves (sometimes retroactively) to make graduates more competitive in the job market, leading to a sort of grade inflation arms race
  • But rising tuition may not be the sole driver of students’ expectations for better grades, given that high school grades have also risen in recent decades. And rather than some top-down directive from administrators, grade inflation also seems related to a steady creep of pressure on professors to give higher grades in exchange for better teaching evaluations.
  • It’s unclear how the clustering of grades near the top is affecting student effort. But it certainly makes it harder to accurately measure how much students have learned. It also makes it more challenging for grad schools and employers to sort the superstars from the also-rans
  • Lax or at least inconsistent grading standards can also distort what students — especially women — choose to study, pushing them away from more stingily graded science, technology, engineering and math fields and into humanities, where high grades are easier to come by.
  • Without collective action — which means both standing up to students and publicly shaming other schools into adopting higher standards — the arms race will continue.
johnsonle1

The Universe Is as Spooky as Einstein Thought - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...516201

quantum physics

shared by johnsonle1 on 12 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • johnsonle1 on 03 Mar 17
     
    According to standard quantum theory, particles have no definite states, only relative probabilities of being one thing or another-at least, until they are measured, when they seem to suddenly roll the dice and jump into formation.
Javier E

Study Shows Why Lawyers Are So Smart - WSJ.com - 2 views

online.wsj.com/...4230504577615443664768610.html

intelligence studying effects research

shared by Javier E on 21 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • The research team performed brain scans on 24 college students and recent graduates, both before and after they spent 100 hours studying for the LSAT over a three-month period. The researchers also scanned 23 young adults who didn't study for the test. For those who studied, the results showed increased connectivity between the frontal lobes of the brain, as well as between the frontal and parietal lobes, which are parts of the brain associated with reasoning and thinking.
  • The study focused on fluid reasoning—the ability to tackle a novel problem—which is a central part of IQ tests and can to some degree predict academic performance or ability in demanding careers.
  • "People assume that IQ tests measure some stable characteristic of an individual, but we think this whole assumption is flawed," said Silvia Bunge, the study's senior author. "We think the skills measured by an IQ test wax and wane over time depending on the individual's level of cognitive activity."
kenjiendo

Impact Factor and the Future of Medical Journals - Haider Javed Warraich - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...282763

science research knowledge medical journals future peer review issues

shared by kenjiendo on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
    • kenjiendo
      kenjiendo on 10 Jan 14
       
      An article highlighting recent criticism for the accuracy of published Medical Journals, origins of the issue, and possible solutions for the future. 
  • Impact Factor and the Future of Medical Journals Some research publications are getting away from flawed measures of influence that make it easy to game the system.
  • This year's Nobel Prize winner in physiology, Randy Scheckman, announced his decision to boycott the three major “luxury” journals: Science, Nature, and Cell.
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • medical journals are very rigid
  • impact factor, defined as the number of citations divided by the number of papers published in the journal, which is a measure to convey the influence of journals and the research they carry.
  • Journals employ several strategies to artificially raise the impact factor
  • caught trying to induce authors to increase the number of citations
  • cite each other’s articles
  • citations are barely a reflection of the quality of the research and that the impact factor is easily manipulated
  • shing’s growth is actually one of its g
  • overwhelmed with the avalanche of information
  • current system of peer-review, which originated in the 18th century, is now stressed
    • kenjiendo
      kenjiendo on 10 Jan 14
       
      An example from our reading from U6-9
  • future of the medical journal was, he summed it up in just one word: “Digital.”
  • more innovative approache
  • PLOS One, which provides individual article metrics to anyone who accesses the article.
  • Instead of letting the reputation of the journal decide the impact of its papers, PLOS One provides information about the influence of the article on a more granular level.
  • future of medical publishing is a democratic one
  • Smart software will decide based on largely open access journals which papers will be of most interest to a particular reader.
  • Biology Direct, a journal that provides open peer review that is available for readers to read along with the article, with or without changes suggested by the reviewers.
  • Impact Factor and the Future of Medical Journals
  • Impact Factor and the Future of Medical Journals
Maria Delzi

How Dangerous Neighborhoods Make You Feel Paranoid | TIME.com - 0 views

healthland.time.com/...orhoods-make-you-feel-paranoid

shared by Maria Delzi on 17 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Simply walking through a sketchy-looking neighborhood can make you feel more paranoid and lower your trust in others
  • In a study published in the journal PeerJ, student volunteers who spent less than an hour in a more dangerous neighborhood showed significant changes in some of their social perceptions.
  • The researchers’ goal was to investigate the relationship between lower income neighborhoods and reduced trust and poor mental health.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • from Newcastle University in the UK, wanted to determine whether the connection was due to people reacting to the environment around them, or because those who are generally less trusting were more likely to live in troubled areas. Prior research showed that kids who grew up in such neighborhoods were less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to develop stress that can lead to depression.
  • The study took 50 students, sent half of them to a low income, high crime neighborhood and the other half to an affluent neighborhood with little crime.
  • Before the students ventured into their respective areas, the researchers interviewed the neighborhood residents and found that residents of the high-crime neighborhood harbored more feelings of paranoia and lower levels of social trust compared to the residents of the other neighborhood.
  • The students in the study were not from either neighborhood, and did not know what the study was about. They were were dropped off by a taxi and told to deliver envelopes containing a packet of questions to a list of residential addresses. They spent 45 minutes walking around their assigned neighborhood distributing the envelopes. When the students returned, the researchers surveyed them about their experience, their feelings of trust, and their feelings of paranoia.
  • Despite the short amount of time they spent in the neighborhoods, the students picked up the prevailing social attitudes of the residents living in those environments; those who went to the more dangerous neighborhood scored higher on measures of paranoia and lower on measures of trust compared to the other group, just as the residents had.
  • Not only that, but their levels of reported paranoia and trust were indistinguishable from the residents who spent years living there.
  • That came as an intriguing surprise to other experts. Ingrid Gould Ellen, the director of the Urban Planning Program at New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, studies how the make-up of neighborhoods can impact the attitudes and interactions of people who live in them
  • found that kids who live on blocks where violent crimes occurred the week before they took a standardized test performed worse on those tests than students from similar backgrounds who were not exposed to a violent crime in their neighborhood before their exam.
  • paranoia and lack of trust set in after just a short time in the more troubled neighborhood suggested how powerful the influence of these environments can be.
  • For urban planners, the findings confirm what most probably understood instinctively — that people do tend to make snap judgments about both their environments and the people in them based on visual cues such as broken windows and abandoned houses. But the results also show how these cues can influence deeper perceptions and mental states as well.
Javier E

Rush Limbaugh Knows Nothing About Christianity « The Dish - 0 views

dish.andrewsullivan.com/...ows-nothing-about-christianity

Christianity capitalism materialism market Pope Francis

shared by Javier E on 04 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Limbaugh is onto something. The Pope of the Catholic Church really is offering a rebuttal to the Pope of the Republican party, which is what Limbaugh has largely become. In daily encyclicals, Rush is infallible in doctrine and not to be questioned in public. When he speaks on the airwaves, it is always ex cathedra. Callers can get an audience from him, but rarely a hearing. Dissent from his eternal doctrines means excommunication from the GOP and the designation of heretic. His is always the last word.
  • And in the Church of Limbaugh, market capitalism is an unqualified, eternal good. It is the ever-lasting truth about human beings. It is inextricable from any concept of human freedom. The fewer restrictions on it, the better.
  • The church has long opposed market capitalism as the core measure of human well-being. Aquinas even taught that interest-bearing loans were inherently unjust in the most influential theological document in church history. The fundamental reason is that market capitalism measures human life by a materialist rubric. And Jesus radically taught us to give up all our possessions, to renounce everything except our “daily bread”, to spend our lives serving the poverty-stricken takers rather than aspiring to be the wealthy and powerful makers. He told the Mark Zuckerberg of his day to give everything away to the poor, if he really wanted to be happy.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • there is a risk that a radical capitalistic ideology could spread which refuses even to consider these problems, in the a priori belief that any attempt to solve them is doomed to failure and which blindly entrusts their solution to the free development of market forces.
  • Could anyone have offered a more potent critique of current Republican ideology than John Paul II? Could anything better illustrate John Paul II’s critique of radical capitalist ideology than the GOP’s refusal to be concerned in any way about a fundamental question like access to basic healthcare for millions of citizens in the richest country on earth?
  • the Church in no way disputes the fact that market capitalism is by far the least worst means of raising standards of living and ending poverty and generating wealth that can be used to cure disease, feed the hungry, and protect the vulnerable. What the Church is disputing is that, beyond our daily bread, material well-being is a proper criterion for judging human morality or happiness. On a personal level, the Church teaches, as Jesus unambiguously did, that material goods beyond a certain point are actually pernicious and destructive of human flourishing.
  • the Pope is not making an empirical observation. In so far as he is, he agrees with you. What he’s saying is that this passion for material things is not what makes us good or happy. That’s all
  • if the mania for more and more materialist thrills distracts us from, say, the plight of a working American facing bankruptcy because of cancer, or the child of an illegal immigrant with no secure home, then it is a deeply immoral distraction.
  • material goods are not self-evidently the purpose of life and are usually (and in Jesus’ stern teachings always) paths away from God and our own good and our own happiness.
  • Christianity is one of the most powerful critiques of radical market triumphalism.
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