Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book is Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Buy it here.
August 21, 2006
Category: My So-Called Life
I'll be on vacation for the next ten days, and probably won't have much time to blog. In the meantime, I thought I'd leave everyone with a few random quotes. Even though these jingles have embedded themselves in my brain,...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 2:39 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
It's easy to forget that science and religion weren't always at war in America. Once upon a time (the late 19th century), they managed to co-exist in a romantic synergy. Enlightened theologians tried to integrate Darwin into the Bible, and...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:40 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 18, 2006
Category: Culture
Over at Cracked.com, they have posted the five most obviously drug fueled TV appearances ever. Richard Pryor is pretty absurd - he can't stop rubbing his sweaty face - but my favorite is James Brown, who answers every question by...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 4:52 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Cigarettes are in the news again. A Federal judge just imposed strict new limits on tobacco advertising - no more "low tar" cigarettes - and Michael Bloomberg announced that he has set up a new foundation dedicated to starting a...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:48 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
That's the conclusion of a new study by economists Andrew Leigh and Christoper Jencks. (I suppose this is good news - poor people aren't more likely to die in developed countries - although I fear how these statistics will be...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:25 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Cass Sunstein in the Washington Post offers an excellent explanation of why an international deal on global warming is so unlikely: The obstacle stems from the unusual incentives of the United States and China. As the world's leading contributors to...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 8:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 17, 2006
Category: Culture
Can we get any more self-indulgent? These desert dwellers have decided that the best way to survive the summer heat is to install gigantic misters and air-conditioners in their backyard. Not content to spend summers housebound, Berger and his wife,...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:38 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
One of my persistent problems with evolutionary psychology is its consistent lack of interest in the way culture affects human nature. Instead of trying to understand the way pop jingles, political systems and pulp fiction novels influence our behavior, evo...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:20 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 16, 2006
Category: My So-Called Life
There are books, but also sleepy birds:...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:57 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
What happened when LSU adopted a business model budget? This is what happened. Hint: It wasn't very good for inter-disciplinary programs. But it was great for the majors favored by football players......
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
What's scarier? Communists or Islamic Fundamentalists? Stalin or Osama? Although I'm too young to remember the U.S.S.R. - the crumbling Berlin Wall is a vague childhood memory, and my sense of the Soviets came from Rocky 4 - I tend...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:40 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 15, 2006
Category: Neuroscience
In response to my last post on Musical Geniuses, I was accused of being a simple minded nurturist, a proponent of environmental determinism. So I thought I would take a moment and elaborate on why people with extraordinary talent -...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:59 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 14, 2006
Category: Culture
In a sidebar for my last Seed article, I argued that Mozart's musical genius was the result of dedication and practice, and not some innate talent for symphonic composition. Well, here's another musical savant trying to prove me wrong. On...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:49 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
The WSJ reports today that the Dept. of Homeland Security has begun testing biometric devices designed to weed out airplane passengers with "hostile intent". The particular metrics are secret, of course, but they seem to be surprisingly crude. (They don't...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:21 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
They should put more polling places in schools. According to scientists at Stanford, voters were significantly more likely to support an increased sales tax for education if they voted in a school. (Their data set was voting patterns in the...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:30 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
Everytime I walk into a wine store, and see that collage of numerical stickers (This Chianti is a 91! This Pinot Grigio is an 88!), the neuroscientist in me wants to tear them all down an go on a long...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:48 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 12, 2006
Category: Neuroscience
In this otherwise excellent summary of the physiology of testosterone, the NY Times leaves out one crucial element: it's psychological effect. And no, I'm not just talking about the placebo effect. As I mentioned earlier, testosterone is well known for...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 12:32 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 11, 2006
Category: Culture
Why is terrorism so frightening? After all, if you just look at the numbers, being blown-up on an airplane is far less likely than dying in a car crash on the way to the grocery store. A Cato report makes...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:10 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 10, 2006
Category: Culture
The recent decisions of G.M. and Ford will soon be taught in business school as an example of how not to run a business. Despite gas hovering at $3 a gallon, both companies seem determined to sell the public precisely...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:25 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 9, 2006
Category: Culture
When my girlfriend told me that the Baptist church down the street was holding a dinosaur fair at its summer camp, I didn't expect anything unusual. I assumed the kids might watch Jurassic Park, or learn about the teeth of...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:58 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
Over at Times $elect, Verlyn Klinkenborg (the E.B. White of our time) has written an eloquent meditation on our changing scientific knowledge of the night sky. After reviewing some of the universe's stranger facts - the age of light, the...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 8, 2006
Category: Culture
As PZ Myers has already pointed out, Francis Collins has been busy spreading the gospel. Myers has already dismantled Collins squishy theism better than I ever could, so I thought I would focus on one particular Collins' claim in particular....
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:52 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 7, 2006
Category: Culture
Although it wasn't supposed to be possible, Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek managed to trace the gallons of gas he purchased from a local gas station back to its varied origins. He ended up traveling to the Gulf of Mexico,...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:39 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
In the new Atlantic, the always optimistic Gregg Easterbrook has an interesting take on global warming: it's not inevitable. His logic is historical. Given the ease with which we solved past air-pollution problems (CFC's, acid rain, etc.), we can also...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 8:35 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 5, 2006
Category: Culture
Joe Francis founded the "Girls Gone Wild" franchise. As this riveting article makes clear, he's a total sleazebag. But I didn't know he was also an evolutionary psychologist: "Sex sells everything," Francis says. "It drives every buying decision . ....
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 7:48 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 4, 2006
Category: Culture
In this TED talk, Jeff Han (a scientist at NYU) demonstrates a computer system that is driven purely by touch. No keyboard, no mouse clicks, just ten fingers and varying amounts of pressure. I want one. P.S. You should also...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:28 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
According to news reports, a PR firm with close ties to oil companies has distributed a parody of "An Inconvenient Truth" on YouTube. In the corporate video, "Gore appears as a sinister figure who brainwashes penguins and bores movie audiences...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:49 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
From today's WSJ: Studies of psychiatric drugs by researchers with a financial conflict of interest -- receiving speaking fees, owning stock, or being employed by the manufacturer -- are nearly five times as likely to find benefits in taking the...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 9:59 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 3, 2006
Category: Culture
Apparently, the final straw was the recent heat wave. Robertson said on his television show this morning that the high temperatures stifling most of the country are "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time."...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 5:17 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
In the search for renewable energy, environmentalists are sometimes the bad guys. And no, I'm not talking about nuclear energy (although I'm in favor of building new nuclear plants). I'm talking about the new attempt to squeeze electricity from the...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 10:35 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 2, 2006
Category: Culture
A fascinating study on the psychological effects of war just came out in JAMA. Researchers measured the cognitive abilities of soldiers after serving in Iraq. What they found is consistent with our current models of stress, which predict that chronic...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:03 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
August 1, 2006
Category: Culture
Bruce Reed observes in Slate today that hot states tend to vote Republican. Does this mean that global warming will inevitably increase the spread of red states? Do sweltering summers cause conservative politics? 21 of the 27 states with an...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 3:59 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture
The wonder of a good novel is the way it uncovers universals through particulars. Having just read Allegra Goodman's Intuition, I was struck by the way her descriptions of a fictional molecular biology lab seemed to describe every molecular biology...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 1:37 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Neuroscience
After reading articles like this (or this or this or this), I can't help but wonder what's happening to the brains of Iraqis, Palestinians, Israelis and Lebanese. After all, neuroscience now knows that chronic stress is toxic. When your brain...
Posted by Jonah Lehrer at 11:09 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
