Ask a ScienceBlogger
April 4, 2007
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
Cognitive Daily has been chosen to respond to the first question in a newly revised feature on ScienceBlogs: Ask a ScienceBlogger. Readers can submit questions, and they'll be answered by an expert in the field of inquiry (even though it's posted under Dave's name, Dave and Greta worked together on this one). Then, hopefully, discussion among the various ScienceBlogs will ensue. This week's question:
What's the difference between psychology and neuroscience? Is psychology still relevant as we learn more about the brain and how it works?
The main difference between psychology and neuroscience is the object of study: psychologists study behavior; neuroscientists study the nervous system. The disciplines overlap in an area usually referred to as the mind, the unseen "software" that controls behavior. But you can't have a mind without a nervous system, and most particularly, a brain, so perhaps you could learn everything you need to know about psychology just by studying neuroscience. That said, studying only the brain to understand behavior will be slow going if you skip over psychology and its direct study of behavior. In our view, studying both psychology and neuroscience is the best way to understand the mind, behavior, and the nervous system.
With modern neuroimaging tools, neuroscientists can tell us amazing things about the brain. They can show, for example, that the same region of the brain is activated when we listen to music or language, thus suggesting an important link between music and language. They have identified the precise regions of the brain responsible for processing hearing, sight, and smell. Armed with this knowledge, neurosurgeons can better treat conditions like brain cancer (so they can avoid damaging critical areas) and mental illness (by creating drugs or even implants that target specific areas). With the help of neuroscience, so many advances have been made in understanding the human brain that it's indeed tempting to argue that psychologists aren't needed at all.
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 1:00 PM • Comments (19)
October 24, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question is easy: The best science TV show is Mythbusters.
Let's face it: most TV science programming is downright awful. It dumbs down the content, and tends not to explain the really interesting part of the question at hand. As I wrote recently over on Word Munger,
Whether it's Nova or the National Geographic Channel, every documentary I've watched recently seems to follow the same pattern.
1. Introduce "mysterious" or "controversial" element
2. Bring in a tiny bit of factually relevant material
3. Interview a sexy or "culturally diverse" expert. There are no ugly experts any more
4. Present either (a) a cheesy dramatic reenactment of the tiny bit of factual material or (b) a crappy computer-animated rendering of the tiny bit of factual material
5. Sum up what's been presented before
6. Remind viewers that we'll soon hear about the mysterious or controversial element
7. (if on commercial TV) break for a commercial. On public TV, you have no choice but to move directly to step 8
8. Sum up what's been presented before AGAIN
9. Remind viewers that we'll soon hear about the mysterious or controversial element AGAIN
10. Repeat the above nine steps, ad nauseum, making sure to use the EXACT SAME reenactment or animation at least five times
11. At the end of the episode, when the mysterious or controversial element is finally addressed, it will inevitably be either untrue or have a completely boring explanation
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:27 PM • Comments (12)
October 18, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's Ask a Scienceblogger: "Is severely regulating your diet for a month each year, as Muslims do during Ramadan, good for you?"
I'd say that's nearly impossible to answer: there are too many other factors at work. But consider this:
Kuwait's average life expectancy is 76.9
Portugal's is 77.2
Since Kuwait is a primarily Muslim country and Portugal is primarily Christian, it appears observing Ramadan doesn't have much of an effect on life expectancy. The two countries are similar economically, with both countries registering nearly equal GDP per capita ($18,047 for Kuwait versus $18,126 for Portugal).
Posted by Dave Munger at 10:54 AM • Comments (6)
August 31, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
I try to stay away from answering "Ask a Scienceblogger" when it strays too far from my areas of expertise. This week, the question is the following:
I read this article in the NRO, and the author actually made some interesting arguments. 'Basically,' he said, 'I am questioning the premise that [global warming] is a problem rather than an opportunity.' Does he have a point?...
I don't really think I need to be an expert to respond. The article in question seems to have been written largely as a joke. Al Gore suggests that New York would be underwater as a result of rising sea levels. The author's retort: "get with it Democrats, where is your traditional love of public works? Rising ocean levels will keep the government in the sea wall business for decades."
I agree, that could be an interesting problem to solve. Unfortunately, the world isn't run by liberals. So when a real climate crisis occurs as a result of global warming, such as the drought in Darfur or Hurricane Katrina, real people die, in the thousands and hundreds of thousands.
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 11:18 AM • Comments (14)
August 9, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
Seed has asked all the sciencebloggers to respond to the following question:
What movie do you think does something admirable (though not necessarily accurate) regarding science? Bonus points for answering whether the chosen movie is any good generally....
I talked with Greta about this last night, and we each used similar logic for our choices. Greta's pick was Jurassic Park, which of course generally has appalling science, but in one scene demonstrates an incredibly important scientific lesson. The scientists at the Jurassic Park Institute "knew" it was impossible for their dinosaurs to reproduce in the wild because they were all males. When the dinosaurs reproduced nonetheless, it showed that scientists can't really "know" anything -- they can only attempt to explain the phenomena they observe.
My pick is Dark Star, the satirical sci-fi movie from the '70s. The basic plot involves a spaceship flying from star to star destroying "unstable" stars so that unsuspecting humans don't colonize them. But most of the time, the astronauts are just incredibly bored, since interstellar travel takes a long time. I like this notion that interstellar travel isn't just a matter of switching into "hyperdrive" and arriving at Alderaan (or what used to be Alderaan) five seconds later, so Dark Star gets my vote. Of course, even Dark Star's version of interstellar travel is wrong. The only way we might ever be able to "colonize" another star system is if we developed a ship that could sustain many generations of humans, who took hundreds of years to reach their destination.
Are these good movies? Sure. Jurassic Park is a great action movie, where the excitement never stops, and Dark Star is a hilarious (if sometimes a bit boring) sendup of pre-1974 science fiction.
Posted by Dave Munger at 7:23 AM • Comments (8)
June 21, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
Here's this week's Ask a Scienceblogger question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
Funny you asked. It's actually rather a long story. You see, about a year and a half ago, I had this idea to write a book. But, I thought to myself, my problem is that I'm not really an expert in anything. If only I had a real expert who could help me out with, you know, facts and things, I think I could write an excellent book.
After racking my brain trying to figure out which of my friends might be interested on working on a book with me, I realized that my best friend -- my wife Greta -- was actually an expert in psychology. So here's what I proposed to her: if she could provide me with a steady supply of psychology articles, I'd read them, ask her for help when I didn't understand them, and then explain them in terms non-psychologists could understand. Since I am a layman, when it comes to psychology, I would have a good idea what most non-experts might need to know.
Then, on a whim, I suggested that as we compiled this research, I could write up each article on a blog. Perhaps we could generate a little "buzz" for our book before it was even published. Now, over half a million visitors later, I suppose we've generated more than a little buzz.
So how do we manage all this, along with our "day jobs"? The answer is that I don't have a day job. I work on CogDaily and other writing projects about 4 or 5 hours a day, then spend the rest of the time driving the kids here and there, running errands, and generally making sure the household doesn't fall apart. Greta and I meet every Friday to discuss the week's articles on CogDaily, and Greta spends a few hours a week on her own finding stuff for me to write up, as well as checking up on what I've written to make sure I haven't committed a major gaffe. That leaves plenty of time for Greta's day job.
All in all, it's a nice arrangement. The only question remaining is, what happened to the book? The answer: we're still working on it, but we're taking our time about it. Cognitive Daily has taken on a life of its own, and sometimes we wonder whether a book is even necessary.
Posted by Dave Munger at 2:37 PM • Comments (2)
June 12, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's Ask a Scienceblogger inquires about our other research interests:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?...
We talked about this one over the weekend, considering all the important lines of research we could have gotten involved in: solving world poverty, curing cancer, stopping global warming. It's all quite overwhelming. Besides, we've just gotten comfortable with this gig, where Greta serves as the fountain of knowledge about things cognitive and I'm its editorial arm.
We decided that the responsibility of Saving the World Through Science was simply too great. Instead, we'd prefer to devote our scientific efforts to a more managable problem. While it may not save the world, it does have the potential to impact millions, even billions of lives.
We'd like to develop the perfect pizza crust.
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 7:37 AM • Comments (4)
May 29, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's "Ask a Scienceblogger question" is:
Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies?
NO!
The public isn't qualified to determine whether research is worthwhile. Why do you think researchers spend nine-plus years studying their specialties?
However...
I do think that research paid for by public money should be freely available to the public. That means that the journal publishing industry would have to be turned upside down. Today subscribing to a journal can cost hundreds -- even thousands -- of dollars. Greta and I just had to cancel our subscription to Visual Cognition because they doubled their subscription rate to $558! Who can afford that? Not Davidson College's library: the institutional subscription rate is over $1000 per year for the same journal. And this is considered an "inexpensive" journal.
Read on »
Posted by Dave Munger at 4:31 PM • Comments (11)
May 17, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
This week's Ask a Scienceblogger question is "will the "human" race still be around in 100 years?"
The short answer is yes.
The slightly longer answer is this: we could face a number of catastrophes, including a pandemic, massive global warming, nuclear war, or all of the above. Our numbers could be reduced to a tiny fraction of what they are today. But we will most certainly still exist.
From a cognitive science perspective, there are a couple other interesting possibilities. What if, within the next 100 years, we succeeded in creating artificial intelligence that appeared to match human intelligence? What if we could create a robot that, externally at least, appeared to be "human"? Would we consider such a thing to be a part of the human race? If we couldn't distinguish it from other humans based on behavior and external appearance, then why shouldn't we consider it to be a human being, with human rights?
If so, then arguably the human race would be fundamentally different from what it is today, and so in that sense you might say that the human race no longer exists.
If this can't happen in 100 years, then certainly in 1,000 it might.
What's more, in 1,000 years, we may have discovered the secret of aging, and it might be possible for people to live infinitely long lives. Would such a creature be human? Isn't mortality part of what makes us who we are? Assuming some catastrophe doesn't bring humanity back to the stone age, it's possible that in 1,000 years we will have changed ourselves into something that is no longer recognizably human.
Last week's question was "If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?," and you can see a roundup of all the answers here. This week's roundup should be up on Stochastic by midday.
Posted by Dave Munger at 6:27 AM • Comments (2)
May 9, 2006
Category: Ask a ScienceBlogger
All the ScienceBloggers have been asked to write about the recent invention they could wipe off the face of the earth. Their answers have been the usual suspects: nuclear bombs, land mines -- truly awful stuff -- and they might be right.
However, I'm not enough of a historian to know what the full impact of nuclear weapons has been. Maybe if the Bomb hadn't been invented, we would have had a World War III by now. Therefore, I've decided to nominate the Ab Lounge. True, it hasn't caused any wars, but imagine what watching your favorite TV show would be like if you weren't incessantly tormented during every commercial break by breast-enhanced ditzoids claiming that all you have to do is relax in a lounge chair to have abs solid enough to open beer bottles.
What's more, removing the Ab Lounge from the universe has absolutely no downside. Those wanting washboard stomachs could still attain them the old fashioned way -- through genetic good fortune and thousands and thousands of sit-ups. Credit lines would be freer, attics and yard sales would be less cluttered, and hundreds of UPS and FedEx workers would suffer from fewer hernias.
Of course, after we've gotten rid of the Ab Lounge, we'd need to also go after Thigh Master, Ab Slide, Ginsu knives, anything made by Ronco, and pretty much everything sold on this site. But the Ab Lounge would certainly be a good place to start.
Posted by Dave Munger at 12:48 PM • Comments (5)
Cognitive Daily reports nearly every day on fascinating peer-reviewed developments in cognition from the most respected scientists in the field.
