So I advertized Daniel Dennett's talk at UKZN the other day, but if you couldn't go, some good news: Dennett is giving a couple of more talks in South Africa in the next week. First he'll lecture at SciFest (in Grahamstown) on April 28th (program) on "How materialism transforms our understanding of consciousness", then he'll deliver the TB Davis Memorial Lecture on March 31st at the University of Cape Town on "What should you be free to teach your children about religion?" (press release) and, finally, on April 1st he's at Stellenbosch University with a talk entitled "From animal to person" (press release).
If you're in any of these towns -- go to these events! You will not be disappointed.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
SA blog awards -- go vote
The finalists have been announced for the SA blog awards and, though I didn't make, there is good news: Angela of The Skeptic Detective did! She's up for the best SA Science and Technology blog. Please go vote for her! (Note: you need to submit your email address and then click on a confirmation email). Unfortunately, the Sci-Tech category is light on the Sci and heavy on the Tech, so Angela is the only science blog in sight, which is even more reason to vote for her...
Oh. And full disclosure: Angela is my girlfriend. So, I might be biased.
Oh. And full disclosure: Angela is my girlfriend. So, I might be biased.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Carnival of the Africans -- call for submissions
It's almost time for the 8th Carnival of the Africans, the premier (and only...) carnival dedicated to African science and skepticism. And... it'll be hosted right here on Ionian Enchantment! Please check out the guidelines, and then send your submissions to me at ionian.enchantment@gmail.com.
Get writing folks, let's make this edition the best one yet!
Get writing folks, let's make this edition the best one yet!
Clay Shirky on newspapers and the web
Ok, so this is seriously off topic, but Clay Shirky's post about the impact of the web on newspapers, and the revolution in how we manage information more generally, is an absolute must read. Shirky argues, in brief, that there is nothing natural or inevitable about how journalism is current conducted -- it's simply a product of the economics of the printing press. And, rather disconcertingly, we simply don't know -- can't know -- what system will replace the current one. A snippet:
Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.
Dennett in Durbs
The great Daniel Dennett, cognitive scientist and philosopher of mind, will be speaking at the University of KwaZulu Natal on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 17:20 for 17:30. The venue is at the Howard College campus (map) in the L5 Lecture Theater (map).
All are welcome!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Skeptics' Circle #107
The 107th -- podcast! -- edition of the Skeptics' Circle is out over at The Skeptics Field Guide. (The mp3 is here). Some eye-catching posts: Religion, Sets, and Politics on electronics and the supernatural, Whiskey Before Breakfast on stunning creationist ignorance, and Verbal Razors on yet more feng shui bollocks.
Picture: A High-Resolution Map of Science
This map of science (from this PLoS paper) is awesome:
(Yes, yes. We must be careful about how we interpret this, the methodology must be carefully checked and the limitations spelled out, etc. But it's pretty. And interesting).
(Yes, yes. We must be careful about how we interpret this, the methodology must be carefully checked and the limitations spelled out, etc. But it's pretty. And interesting).
Monday, March 16, 2009
Encephalon #66: The No-Frills, No-Fuss Edition
Welcome to the 66th installment of the venerable Encephalon -- the premier brainy / psychology-y blog carnival! My hosting philosophy is to be minimalist, so I figured I'd make this an official no-frills, no-fuss edition, presented with 'just the facts, ma'am' (with apologies to Orac).
Scicurious of Neurotopia is first up and has a lengthy and fantastic piece on how the serotonin theory of depression is wrong, or at least incomplete. This submission is the 4th installment in a series of posts about depression, all most certainly worth checking out.
The most excellent Neurocritic does his neurocritical thing about a study that claimed (to put it very crudely) that atheists are neurotic and religious zealots are antisocial. It turns out the paper uses the same methods as Amodio et. al., the study that got a lot of attention in 2007 and was one of the very first things I wrote about on my blog (I now think I was rather too kind).
Dr. Spurt (yes, there is an interesting story behind this pseudonym) of Effortless Incitement summarizes the findings of a fascinating ("sociobiological") study that found knowledge about whether a sibling is dead or alive varies by relatedness.
I don't think Mo of Neurophilosophy needs an introduction at this point. Go read his posts on the brain mechanisms seemingly involved in Freudian repression and on how spatial memories are encoded.
The Neuroanthropology co-authors, Greg and Daniel, has a post each in this edition. The former asked: is Facebook bad for you? (AKA 'there is technophobia afoot'). And the latter wrote about the four steps of addiction (viz. vulnerability, training, intentions, and meaning).
Sandeep, from The Mouse Trap, has two posts in this edition: the first is on a paper in PNAS that argued that religiosity can be devolved into three underlying factors, all relating to the Theory of Mind circuitry. Sandeep's second post on the fascinating contention that schizophrenia is due to heightened attribution of agency.
Next up (from Down Under), is the Podblack Cat, who submitted a cool and decidedly quirky post about poetry and expert performance. I must say I never expected to have to conjoin those two clauses...
Dr. Shock (who writes a Neurostimulating blog...) covers a study that investigated why online gaming is so popular. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, participants most often cited socializing as their reason for gaming.
Lastly... two posts from Brain Blogger. Joseph Kim (MD & MPH, nogal) covers a possible new treatment for chronic migraines: nerve stimulation therapy. And Sajid Surve surveys the challenges faced in creating pluripotent stem cells.
Late addition: Sharp Brains on a new study that supports neurofeedback as a treatment for ADHD and a two-parter on Maggie Jackson's book on distraction.
That's it!! Neuroskeptic will host the next edition of this carnival on March 30th, so, as usual, please email your submissions to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com.
Scicurious of Neurotopia is first up and has a lengthy and fantastic piece on how the serotonin theory of depression is wrong, or at least incomplete. This submission is the 4th installment in a series of posts about depression, all most certainly worth checking out.
The most excellent Neurocritic does his neurocritical thing about a study that claimed (to put it very crudely) that atheists are neurotic and religious zealots are antisocial. It turns out the paper uses the same methods as Amodio et. al., the study that got a lot of attention in 2007 and was one of the very first things I wrote about on my blog (I now think I was rather too kind).
Dr. Spurt (yes, there is an interesting story behind this pseudonym) of Effortless Incitement summarizes the findings of a fascinating ("sociobiological") study that found knowledge about whether a sibling is dead or alive varies by relatedness.
I don't think Mo of Neurophilosophy needs an introduction at this point. Go read his posts on the brain mechanisms seemingly involved in Freudian repression and on how spatial memories are encoded.
The Neuroanthropology co-authors, Greg and Daniel, has a post each in this edition. The former asked: is Facebook bad for you? (AKA 'there is technophobia afoot'). And the latter wrote about the four steps of addiction (viz. vulnerability, training, intentions, and meaning).
Sandeep, from The Mouse Trap, has two posts in this edition: the first is on a paper in PNAS that argued that religiosity can be devolved into three underlying factors, all relating to the Theory of Mind circuitry. Sandeep's second post on the fascinating contention that schizophrenia is due to heightened attribution of agency.
Next up (from Down Under), is the Podblack Cat, who submitted a cool and decidedly quirky post about poetry and expert performance. I must say I never expected to have to conjoin those two clauses...
Dr. Shock (who writes a Neurostimulating blog...) covers a study that investigated why online gaming is so popular. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, participants most often cited socializing as their reason for gaming.
Late addition: Sharp Brains on a new study that supports neurofeedback as a treatment for ADHD and a two-parter on Maggie Jackson's book on distraction.
That's it!! Neuroskeptic will host the next edition of this carnival on March 30th, so, as usual, please email your submissions to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com.
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