Cognitive Science
razib | May 6, 2006I really don't know what to make of this paper I just stumbled upon, The Structures of Letters and Symbols throughout Human History Are Selected to Match Those Found in Objects in Natural Scenes:
...Our first result is that these three classes of human visual sign possess a similar signature in their configuration distribution, suggesting that there are underlying principles governing the shapes of human visual signs. Second, we provide evidence that the shapes of visual signs are selected to be easily seen at the expense of the motor system. Finally, we provide evidence to support an…
razib | May 4, 2006I see that UC Davis is touting that its ecology & evolutionary biology program was ranked #1 by US News and World Report. Check out the "Best Graduate Schools" online sampler at US News and World Report. I had a friend who narrowly chose Harvard over Davis for evolutionary ecology, so it doesn't surprise me that much. In ecology & evolutionary biology Berkeley & Harvard were #2 & #3 respectively.
Does this mean anything? I don't know, I don't really think so on the most basic of levels: do US News & World Report's graduate school rankings give you information you wouldn…
razib | March 22, 2006Dan Dennett will be on Radio Open Source today to talk about his book Breaking the Spell. I've been getting into it on the comment boards.
Update: Re: Dennett's book, I read it. It is a good review of the literature, though I highly recommend you go straight into the primary sources (though for Rod Stark, stick to A Theory of Religion, it is dry compared to his other stuff, but far less polemical and grating).
Related: The nature of religion and Breaking the Spell, Who Dan Denett think he be foolin'?.
razib | March 21, 2006Chris of Mixing Memory has an important two part series that explores the recent discussion of cognition by those with partisan viewpoints. As usual he clears up some big confusions, hopefully this will get read/linked across the web.
razib | March 5, 2006I listened to Dan Dennett on the most recent Tech Nation with Moira Gunn (not online yet), and he went on about the ideas proposed in his book Breaking the Spell. Some of the ideas were interesting, though I've read more well developed versions in most of the supporting literature. Nevertheless, Dennett's schtick that those who think that religious people can't analyze their beliefs rationally are being patronizing seems really laughable to me. Most atheists I know have a hard time getting around the fact that many people who are extremely bright (no pun intended in the context of Dennett…
razib | February 22, 2006A few science bloggers have referred to Daniel Dennett's new book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, and the controversy that is erupting around it. I haven't read the book, but this piece in The Boston Globe gives a very quick sketch of the ideas Dennett covers. It seems that Dennett wants to examine religion as just another natural phenomenon, a suite of behaviors and cognitive states characteristic of our species. In short, Dennett seems to be covering three primary modern hypotheses in regards to why religion seems a ubquitous aspect of our cross-cultural phenotypes…
razib | February 20, 2006Chad is not happy with my previous post where I consider that we shouldn't expect that everyone should be able to pass algebra conditional upon a deep understanding of the subject. First, let me state that my post was in part operating outside what I will call the "Cohen narrative." Rather, I wanted to interject the opinion that variation is a contingent fact of human history (otherwise, we wouldn't have been shaped by natural selection). I was attempting to offer that the alternatives are not black and white in that everyone should learn algebra or that everyone need not learn algebra.…
razib | January 17, 2006This is more the territory of Cognitive Daily, but I think I want to offer a possibility as to why Science Blogs is bio-heavy, as RPM observed. I think it is because biology is a science which intersects with intuitive cognitive biases we naturally exhibit as humans. I am suggesting that perhaps a content specific element is at work so that our folk psychology and folk biology perks up when biology wanders into their input domains. Now, there is a folk physics, but cutting edge (ergo, bloggable) scientific physics is so advanced and abstractly removed from our intuitive understanding of…