Reality is always more complicated than you think.
Profile
Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.
Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.
Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.
DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.
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Nature vs. Nuture:
Publishing in Science, Gormley et al. compared the benefits of Oklahoma's TPS pre-K program to Head Start. Conclusion: preschool matters in cognitive development. Early childhood education programs in the United States face enormous challenges. The overwhelming majority of Head Start...
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Posted on July 2, 2008 10:55 AM • 1 Comments •
I saw this news story in Nature a couple days ago about finding a gene for "ruthlessness." I realized that I always say the same thing about these behavioral genetics stories -- stories where they claim to find a gene...
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Posted on April 9, 2008 5:36 PM • 4 Comments •
Nicholas Wade reports in the NYTimes about a UCD professor, Gregory Clark, and his theory of the Industrial Revolution. His answer is that high fertility rates in the upper classes caused them to steadily supplant lower classes. They brought productive...
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Posted on August 10, 2007 10:18 AM • 9 Comments •
The NYTimes ran an excerpt of a book called Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss -- and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata. Having read the excerpt -- I haven't read the whole book --...
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Posted on May 10, 2007 11:43 AM • 11 Comments •
I just thought this paper was kind of cool. It reviews the evidence from twin studies that shows that certain regions of the brain show very high levels of genetic heritability. Heritability, as I discussed in an earlier post, is...
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Posted on April 9, 2007 11:36 AM • 0 Comments •
Recently this model, Gisele Bundchen, speculated that the fashion industry is not to blame for anorexia. Rather parents are to blame: Gisele Bundchen has entered Brazil's growing debate over anorexia, saying families are to blame _ not the fashion industry....
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Posted on January 23, 2007 11:18 AM • 3 Comments •
The Economist has an article that wonders whether new knowledge into neuroscience and more particularly social pathologies will erode our belief in free will. I roll my eyes every time I read an article like this one, mostly because they...
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Posted on December 28, 2006 10:43 AM • 8 Comments •
I see that Simon Baron-Cohen has a piece in Seed about his theory of autism. I am really skeptical of many of his arguments related to autism, so I thought I would discuss a couple of them. Here is his...
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Posted on November 13, 2006 9:38 AM • 5 Comments •
Rebecca Saxe of MIT reviews Encounters with Wild Children by Adriana Benzaquen about historical confrontations with so-called wild children -- children raised outside of society without supervision or what the author calls the forbidden experiment. The occurence of wild children...
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Posted on September 5, 2006 11:35 AM • 2 Comments •
I have posted before about how I think that the role of genetics, at least in popular culture, has been overemphasized. Rather, the really interesting and important parts of genetics are the ways in which your genes interact with environmental...
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Posted on August 31, 2006 1:31 PM • 1 Comments •
This review in Nature Neuroscience is excellent. I have never seen the issue of gene-environment interactions laid out so eloquently. Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, so those of you not affiliated with a University may have to just...
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Posted on July 31, 2006 2:36 AM • 2 Comments •
Jonah at The Frontal Cortex posted a great article exposing the limits of genetic determinism. Sometimes a genetic explanation seems so obvious, but further study shows that environment also plays a prominent role. Definitely read the whole thing....
Posted on July 10, 2006 12:10 AM • 0 Comments •
As promised I have a response to this article in the New York Times (I had to spend a couple days marshalling my evidence). I thought I would summarize some evidence about what we know from behavioral genetics so you...
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Posted on June 18, 2006 12:10 PM • 10 Comments •
I was totally incensed by this article in the New York Times, largely because the science quoted -- what little there was in between the anecdotes -- was truly attrocious, ignorant of alternative views, and completely missing the point. When...
Posted on June 15, 2006 3:10 PM • 1 Comments •
This article in Science News is really interesting as it goes into the causes of disruptive behavior in children. I don't have much time to review it now as I have the last test of my graduate school life in...
Posted on June 9, 2006 1:17 PM • 0 Comments •
