I was really uncomfortable with the first part, but I'm glad I kept watching.
No one will watch unless you watch first. You're a trend-setter. Go on.
Ha, I thought no one was ever going to comment. Sweet pwning!
2,3: Damn, I thought that was an actual compliment, not a challenge! I almost never watch the videos.
I'd also been raised to pronounce his name like "Morris" not "Mo-REESE."
I'm at work, so not going to watch the videos.
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The day after the SC primary, Romney's nomination chances on InTrade slumped from 90% to 70%. A friend pointed this out, and suggested taking advantage; we didn't, of course, but now they're back up to 88%, I see we could have made a nice chunk if we'd had the money to play around with. At more modest gambles, like $100, the fees eat up the profit.
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I'm at work, and I watched the videos anyway, and they were seriously awesome.
"Of course it's about sex."
No wonder they freaked me out as a child.
Damn, I thought that was an actual compliment, not a challenge! I almost never watch the videos.
It was a compliment! I was only talking to you.
I haven't watched these videos; after Sendak's recent interview on Fresh Air I'm kind of afraid to. He sounded so sad, I nearly started crying listening to it.
He doesn't come off as sad in these. He comes off as sharp-tongued and awesome.
Although he does hate everything. That's kind of sad, but he says it in a funny way.
11. Does not! He likes Dr. Seuss. I don't think he hates anything most Unfoggeteers don't hate.
Hooray, three people watched it!
Can't see it yadda yadda IP yadda yadda capitalism yadda yadda internet freedom yadda yadda evil yadda yadda...
Josh, you should watch them. They really are excellent.
Thanks, heebie. These are terrific.
These are great. I completely get Thorn's point in 1, because in the beginning it looks like Sendak's just going to play straight while Colbert says offensive things, but once Sendak warms up a little bit (or maybe it's Colbert warming up a little bit? or both of them?) you can sort of see Colbert deciding that it's going to work better if they're taking turns being funny. (Which, though I don't watch a huge amount of his stuff, I get the sense is pretty rare for him to do.) And then it really does get rolling.
OT but related to children: anyone have any experience with ringworm? I've googled and know it's not a worm and doesn't have to leave a ring, but with just one lesion I'm not sure whether to guess that or hives part two or who knows what.
I have an irrational dislike of Where the Wild Things Are.
18: The ringworm I've seen in person looks like a really obvious ring. It can be cured with OTC stuff, so not much harm in mis-diagnosing it, though.
18: I do (I feel wrong admitting that). I only had one lesion and it looked pretty much exactly like eczema except perfectly round. And it wouldn't go away if I put hydrocortisone on it - in fact, the doctor told me that hydrocortisone makes it worse!
Anything else you want to know?
It takes Sendak a little bit to figure out Colbert's act and realize he likes it. But from there on out it's magic. I'd watched them on TV and then again with rhymeswithmaria.
Colbert's trained in high-level improv, and will let people be funny if they've got the skills. Check out any of his Al Franken interviews for good examples.
Ringworm is just athlete's foot but on a random non-foot non-crotch part of the body, right?
23: Yep. It's just a fungal infection. Also the same as jock itch. It likes damp moist places.
Except mine which was on my arm.
23: Yes and 21: Mara only has one lesion, so I appreciate hearing that it was your experience too. I'm sure we'll have a doctor take a look, but it's not an emergency room experience, unlike when she had hives and they were moving so fast we could watch them. That was creepy. This is creepy, but differently. It's a perfect oval with a tiny (like one-pore) gap and thn a raised center, each pore individually raised. If it's hives, it doesn't look like the last time she had hives, but Alex's are very differnt from that too. I did give her Benadryl just in case.
OT
|| This MNew Yorker narrative of the run up to the Tyler Clementi Suicide/Rutgers webcam case is damn depressing. I find myself unable to articulate a remotely satisfying take-away.
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Jesus that roommate's a complete git.*
* And I have very little sympathy for the family of the roommate: you brought your son up to be a little shit? And he, you know, broke the law? And now he's facing jail? What a surprise!
25: I hope it isn't impetigo. That sucks to get rid of.
Agreed with Josh that the recent-ish Fresh Air interview was really wistful but not in a bad way. He's just very expressive and really opens up.
Also agreed that these interviews were great and fun and not sad and worth watching (if you're in the blessed USA or can otherwise get at the content).
That's brilliant. I'm glad Sendak runs with it, because it could have been mean and painful.
Is there some rule that writers of well-loved children's books are going to turn out to be nutty, pervy, and/or misanthropic? Shel Silverstein is the other one who comes to mind, but I feel like I've heard of others.
17 is mostly right. I liked this Guardian interview a little better -- he's not really someone I want to see through Colbert's lens, even once they do get rolling. But I have a deep and abiding love for Sendak. Our dog Jennie was named after the star of Higgelty Piggelty Pop--indeed her full name was Miss Jennie Puppers or There Must Be More To Life. I used to read Outside Over There to my little sister to scare her.
I showed up to see my nephew and toddler cousins recently bearing one copy each of the new Sendak, Seuss and Silverstein. They didn't give a damn, but I was full to bursting with self-satisfaction.
At more modest gambles, like $100, the fees eat up the profit
and at larger gamble sizes, your bet eats up all the liquidity and you get a price nothing like the one you saw on the screen. it is a really shitty gambling exchange.
I am wondering what a J.G. Ballard children's book would have been like. (Seriously - very committed single dad, with the surrealists' concern for child-like creativity. And, yup, misanthropic, nutty arsehole with a nasty sense of humour.)
I watched it all, Heebie. Good stuff.
Ballard was an arsehole? I suppose the only thing I read about him was from right after he died, so that might be why they didn't mention it.
One of the strengths of the version of The Nutcracker I was flogging in December is the Maurice Sendak-designed sets and costumes. I think the Pacific Northwest ballet still performs it every year. A reason to go there in the winter!
I have an irrational dislike of Where the Wild Things Are sex.
28: Definitely not that, thank gawd. I was really worried about it being ringworm or impetigo or something similar because we've got one kid who refuses to wipe, one who has a staph infection already (styes) although I think that treatment's ending, and one with pica who chews her nails and sometimes tissues and all sorts of awful things. So we're living in a disgusting world where anything awful would just keep being passed around because all the kids are too little and too stubborn to make all the necessary hygiene changes if they're not under watch at all times.
However, I'm now convinced it's pityriasis rosea and this spot is her herald patch. She was sickly all weekend, which fits the pattern, and this is exactly where the first spots typically show up and a perfect oval is standard. It's also one of the few skin conditions where Dr. Google was very clear about how it looks on dark skin rather than the white skin used to illustrate every condition, and hers does differ in those ways.
It's also possible I'm convincing myself of this because then it's not some horribly contagious menace that will probably overtake our household. I never wanted to raise little littles because they're a disgusting. Maurice Sendak would support me in email on that point, I'm sure.
37: I had the Nutcracker book with Sendak illustrations when I was growing up and it's perfect. The ways he depicts the excess of the celebrations and all the scary stuff are creepy and compelling. Highly recommended for those who like that sort of thing.
However, I'm now convinced it's pityriasis rosea and this spot is her herald patch. She was sickly all weekend, which fits the pattern, and this is exactly where the first spots typically show up and a perfect oval is standard. It's also one of the few skin conditions where Dr. Google was very clear about how it looks on dark skin rather than the white skin used to illustrate every condition, and hers does differ in those ways.
Sally had this a few years ago. I confidently google-diagnosed the first spot as ringworm, treated it with over-the-counter athletes foot stuff, and it went away. Then the real rash showed up six weeks later, and the doctor had no idea until I randomly mentioned the bit of ringworm she'd had, which had him leaping for a textbook to identify it. Very House, except that AFAIK the illness is pretty harmless.
Ugh, I had that when I was about 19 - never noticed an early patch if I had one, just woke up one morning with my entire torso covered. Bit of a surprise.
(Talking of random ailments, did I mention that my 11 year old has Bell's Palsy? Now that is weird.)
42. I had to google that one. Poor kid! What are the shamans doing about it, and is it helping?
42.2 Oh, that's an awful one! Is this recent? I know recovery can be fairly quick, but sometimes isn't.
i almost never watch linked videos, but these are wonderful.
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A student of mine asked for a recommendation for a summer program aimed at minority students. (She included this fact in her email.) I'm not sure if she's thinking that she is included for being a woman in math, or if she's Hispanic and just happens to have a non-Hispanic last name and not look particularly Hispanic. Is there a polite way to ask someone if they are white?
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This morning I will spend two hours getting lectured at by [ redacted, but just guess ] about the awesomeness of Ev/olut/onary Psych/ology. I wish I could say I was doing it for you, unfogged, but I'm doing it because I have to.
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Hermann Cain?
Charles Murray?
Jacquiline Paisley Parker Popsie?
I'm guessing 50 is correct. I am curious to what extent the talk matches your expectation going in. A report back is expected.
Confidential to heebie: Check her application to Heebie U. You have it in your files, since you're her advisor.
43, 44 - came on just before Christmas. Oddly, my dad and C have both had it (before I remember/knew them), so as soon as he started saying he couldn't move his face, I realised what it was. He had a large-ish dose of steroids and antivirals, it continued to get worse for a couple of days until completely frozen, and has been slowly improving for the last 3 weeks. His mouth still doesn't work right, and his eye doesn't shut properly, but there is very gradual improvement. It was a tense fortnight of waiting, but it's not so bad now there is some movement again. He is up and down with it, but mostly okay. The worst bit is that sometimes his face just hurts, but that has lessened too.
If 50 is correct, the talk may well be impressive, and the genocidal president attending it may well be convinced. Also, the conviction may wear off on further consideration.
46: you could probably write the recommendation without needing to know exactly what the grounds are for her inclusion. I mean, she presumably needs a letter testifying to her academic abilities, not to her minoritude. She's not expecting something along the lines of "Ms X is totally eligible for this scholarship program for female students. She's female. I mean, 100% female. Words cannot express how female she is. She's had eight babies to my knowledge since the start of this semester alone, including two sets of twins. She's so female that her femaleness cannot be contained within the bounds of her own body but expands to affect everyone and everything within a 20 yard radius. As a direct result of her joining this school, my teaching assistant, Mike, is now pregnant, and three of my office chairs have started ovulating."
hee hee, I like Ajay's approach.
But I'm confused - is she asking you to recommend her to a program she chose, or is she asking you to recommend a potential program to her? I thought the latter until I read 55.
56: Write a recommendation for a program she already chose. Anyway, it turns out she is Hispanic, so win-win!
you could probably write the recommendation without needing to know exactly what the grounds are for her inclusion. I mean, she presumably needs a letter testifying to her academic abilities, not to her minoritude.
To take this seriously, I know someone on the other end of the program, and asked them, and they said "White students should not apply." So I would have wanted to steer her towards other programs.
56.2: hmm, good point. I assumed the former. Heebie?
58: Because you work at a Hispanic-serving institution.
'She's so Hispanic, she makes me and all my imaginary internet friends Hispanic as well' -- que deberÃa funcionar.
27: Really? 10 years in jail and deportation to a country he's almost never lived in?
I know someone on the other end of the program, and asked them, and they said "White students should not apply." So I would have wanted to steer her towards other programs.
Holy paternalism batman! I guess this is why you're a good teacher. I would fill in the blanks on my batch print recommendation and assume the student understood their eligibility.
51: Having seen [ redacted ] lecture before, it met my expectations pretty exactly.
54: That seems a little bit dismissive of my critical thinking faculties. [ redacted ] is a fluid and intelligent speaker, but my opinions on the topic remain largely unchanged.
I feel like the question could be finessed, but it's hard not for it to be obvious that that's the main thing you want to know.
Also you can be Hispanic and white.
Oh, also, I used the term "on the veldt" in a question, just for you guys.
Andy Jackson (despite his unfortunate policies toward the Cherokee) is the hero!
So, did [redacted] boggle at the 'on the veldt' phrasing, or did it go over smoothly? Please say it went over smoothly: then I can believe that those people really talk like that among themselves.
It went over perfectly smoothly. I might be able to send you audio.
I assume the "on the veldt" of back on the veldt was "in the trees".
I watched the videos, and they are good.
Bloody Bloody Awesome Job, Andrew Jackson! That's hilarious.
So, did [redacted] boggle at the 'on the veldt' phrasing, or did it go over smoothly? Please say it went over smoothly: then I can believe that those people really talk like that among themselves.
Was there ever really any doubt?
I wouldn't have thought so. "Savannah" seems to be more common, but I assume that's just because "veldt" is a little bit colloquial.
Incidentally, I am perfectly convinced that some phenomena that I regard as both true and as likely to be acribed to evolution are meaningful described via Ev Ps/ych. [ redacted ] also made an excellent case that it is possible (but very difficult) to do good science within that framework. [ redacted ] did not convince me that much of the research that has actually been done along those lines fits the criteria necessary to be described as such, but that's neither here nor there.
Also neither here nor there is [ redacted ]'s shocking, near-constant disregard for the analogy ban.
Yeah, I'm one of the most consistent "on the veldt" mockers here, and I actually don't think there's anything conceptually flawed about connecting human psychology to evolutionary history. Everything I intend to make fun of is actually existing pop on-the-veldtism, rather than the idea that someone could do good science in that area.
Everything I intend to make fun of is actually existing pop on-the-veldtism, rather than the idea that someone could do good science in that area.
I would say that you can probably feel free to make fun of a large portion of the currently-existing science. But I suspect most people would be willing to grant an evolutionary influence on fear of snakes, for instance.
Oh, sure, I'd buy all sorts of stuff like that.
Speaking about fear of snakes, holy python stories coming out of Florida!
But I suspect most people would be willing to grant an evolutionary influence on fear of snakes, for instance.
Huh? Is fear of snakes genetic?
84: to a first approximation, probably.
I believe that even people with no experience of poisonous snakes tend to be disproportionately startled/frightened by a moving snake-shaped thing. I don't think it's everyone, and I don't recall the actual research, but my sense is that there are fairly good reasons to think snake-fear isn't learned or cultural.
68 is great. You should totes give us audio.
Is the idea supposed to be that people who were relatively snake-averse were more likely to survive, back on the veldt? That doesn't seem very plausible.
I sent confirmatory audio to LB and a couple of other people, but one, it isn't actually very exciting and two, it's pretty hard to hear and three, I can't claim to be operating fully within my comfort zone of presidential pseudonymity even as it is.
This tries comparative anatomy between primates that evolved in the presence and absence of venomous snakes. Neat ideas, but wrapped in a very thick layer of maybe.
Not clear to me that snakes, which are food for many people, are any more relvant than spiders, which, again, serve as a food source. What about grubs, are those disgusting or appetizing?
Whoops, link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16545427
To elaborate on 89, snakes don't care whether you're afraid of them; I don't see how being afraid of them increases your chances of survival. People without a "fear of snakes" generally aren't unaware of the fact that you don't want a cobra to bite you. And that if you see a cobra that looks like it wants to bite you, you should get away (or be prepared to defend yourself). Being afraid of the snake doesn't really change this dynamic.
Fear of snakes seems much more likely to be a freudian response than an ev-psych one.
91: I'd buy it on the grounds that 'something that looks like a snake' gives you higher odds of being life-threatening than 'something that looks like a spider'. Most spider-bites are no big deal, and at that level you're probably not distinguishing a spider from an insect. Snakes seem plausible to me as the highest odds thing that doesn't look dangerous by ordinary standards (close to my size or bigger, with teeth), but is immediately recognizable as different from other non-dangerous things. (There are, of course, non-poisonous snakes, but I think more poisonous snakes as a percentage of all snakes than seriously poisonous insects/arachnids as a percentage of all insects/arachnids.)
93: Huh? Fear is a good motivator to run away fast. Of course parental/social learning and language add to genes quite a lot, but I'd bet you could get the same response from entirely genetic sources among non-social animals.
93 was me.
If I'm reading 92 correctly, it doesn't say that the fear of snakes is an evolved response, it says that adaptions in the ocular system that allow primates to better see camouflaged snakes is (maybe) an evolved response. That seems much more plausible.
Yeah, it seems very plausibly something along the same lines as how mice behave when a sudden shadow falls on them from above. AAAAH!
There are a few problems with 93, but I will stick to pointing out that "likely to be a freudian response" is not a terribly meaningful scientific statement at this point in the history of psychology.
95: so the idea is that people with no social learning or other knowledge of what a snake is or does will instinctively flee from snakes in a way that they won't instinctively flee from other entirely unfamiliar animals?
I'm skeptical, but that would be interesting if true.
97: I'm expecting owls to evolve an chest-mounted adjustable light to counteract this.
96: Well, why is it much more plausible? The visual cortex is just a part of the brain, no different (except in function) from the parts that trigger an autonomic aversive response.
99: I don't have a link, but I think that's the case: like, you can reliably frighten a toddler by dragging a thick electrical cord in a dim room where movements of similar scale that aren't snaky won't scare them. (I'm making up the research here, but I've seen something like that. I'll google.)
Does "Freudian" have a meaning in this context other than "bullshit"? (I mean, I know Freudianism is important in reading literature influenced by Freud or studying intellectual history, but in the context of science it's no more valid than saying it's because God cursed us to be afraid of snakes in Garden of Eden, right?)
I see I was pwned by 98.
You want to know who hates the fuck out of some snakes? Parrots, that's who. Put anything remotely snake-shaped anywhere near them and they go APESHIT. That's tubes of gift wrapping paper, vacuum cleaner hoses, anything. APESHIT. It's been true of every parrot on which I've ever tested this.
103: That's correct at this point, although there are ongoing (and interesting, if quite possibly loopy) attempts to reconcile some Freudian ideas and modern neuroscience.
94. Careful, your competitors will steal the idea, unless you've already published it.
We don't really understand the genetic basis of anxiety or fear in general, though there's a lot of fragmentary knowledge. Specific fears are completely out of reach.
Without regard to cause, just asking about existence: early development studies of the type that [redacted] cites in Language Instinct suggesting that fear of snakes is present in very young infants would convince me. A couple of minutes looking at citations that are claimed as support for this comes up empty for me.
So, I don't think so, would be interested to read otherwise though.
Yes, I was about to ask what "Fear of snakes seems much more likely to be a freudian response than an ev-psych one" means. Does it have something to do with penes?
WE WISH YOU'D QUIT THAT.
Is 107 serious? I'm pretty sure it's because they don't want to be eaten.
99: Well, it could be that the social-learning means of transmission has taken over for genetic transmission, but I think it's possible for there to be some genetic component, yes. If we had a few dozen Irish wolf-raised children we could do a proper scientific study!
108: Oh, my memory of having seen that kind of research is fully compatible with everything I saw having been bullshit. Mostly, the 'innate fear of snakes' thing strikes me as the sort of thing that I wouldn't have any trouble believing if there were any evidence for it. It may be actually false, but it's not self-evidently implausible.
111: But how does any given parrot know that snakes might eat them?
I was about to ask what "Fear of snakes seems much more likely to be a freudian response than an ev-psych one" means. Does it have something to do with penes?
Well, yes, that was the rough idea, but mostly it was supposed to be a snarky way to restate: "Fear of snakes does not seem likely to be an ev-psych response."
Yes, I'm trying to write the words that will motivate someone ealse to go look because psych papers are exasperating and I have to work.
116: This book appears to get cited quite a bit.
I've generally heard the snake argument set up with the observation that it is fairly easy to induce a compulsive fear of snakes in people, either through acculturation or direct encounters, while it is next to impossible to induce a compulsive fear of flowers in people. This difference is what we need to explain evolutionarily.
Once you establish that this is the explainee, an evolutionary explanation becomes much easier.
Notice that we are now talking about a property of the species as a whole, and not any one individual's fear of snakes. Things like Freudian explanations are ruled out at the getgo.
114: I see where you're going with this, but parrots seem very plausible candidates for having evolved with a very strong aversion to snakes. People don't.
111: But how does any given parrot know that snakes might eat them?
The way any kind of instinctual knowledge is inherited.
Although, I should say that its data on humans seems somewhat weak at extremely brief glance, and it also uses something I regard as a bit of a dodge (there are species that very quickly learn fear of snakes based on the reactions of conspecifics, which could argue for innateness, but isn't as strong an indicator as an unlearned response) when talking about some primate species.
What about cultures that have domesticated snakes for household use? Don't some cultures use them to keep rats away?
Or, maybe I'm confused, and they use mongooses to keep the snakes away. I don't recall specifically.
Why don't the parrots fly away from the snakes?
it is fairly easy to induce a compulsive fear of snakes in people, either through acculturation or direct encounters
Easier than doing the same with cockroaches? Cockroaches don't eat people.
This particular post title is always already relevant.
Thanks for 117. The snippet view discusses snakes or spiders for extinction time studies.
"Crawlies make primates jumpy" is OK with me, but a lot less specific than atavistic fear of snakes, especially little poisonous ones, came from the veldt.
The parrots actually seem more interesting, since no culture. I'll look in a few days to see if there's anything there.
The roach thing could be explained as collateral damage from the general fear of spiders and bugs and stuff.
In any case, as long as we have one clearcut difference that is open to evolutionary explanation, we are in business. The other cases are changing the subject.
125: what do you mean? In nature, they generally do, I think. And when I've been around them with snake-like objects, they attempt to, quite desparately, but we're inside, so there are walls and such. And they give every impression that being on the other side of an enclosed room from a snake-like object isn't nearly far enough away, for a parrot.
Okay, but arguments precisely of the structure of 118+129 could be constructed for, e.g., just about any conceivable observed difference between the sexes. And in fact, they have! And that's what is usually mocked in forums such as this.
Comparing to flowers is pretty dodgy, 'cause, you know, flowers aren't animate. I think most people would accept the possibility of an innateness about the distinction between animate and non-animate...
Why don't the parrots fly away from the snakes?
They probably mob them. Birds often mob predators; sometimes different species gang up on them. This is because most snakes are more likely to be interested in parrot eggs or chicks than full grown bloody huge hooked beaked parrots.
flowers aren't animate
Well, except for triffids.
The parrots actually seem more interesting, since no culture. I'll look in a few days to see if there's anything there.
I'd actually never thought to google it, but clearly I'm procrastinating today. Based on reports on the internet, some parrots can over time learn to live in the same room with snakes (in separate cages, obviously), although they'll probably be quite stressed at first. Also, rubber snakes are good for keeping birds out of your garden (says roughly 90% of the search results that turned up). But not all birds. Owls don't fear snakes, for example. So says google.
119: I don't necessarily disagree (although people can't fly), but there are a few things to note. One, if you believe that it's perfectly plausible that parrots could have an evolved aversive response, then there's really no reason in principle for humans not to have evolved responses. If something is both always present and always bad, then it is trivially true that an individual who was innately afraid of that thing would be more likely to survive to reproduce than an individual who was not. So if there's anything that was consistently present and consistently bad (or good) in the environment in which a species evolved, then there is a very plausible case for a species to have an innate response to that thing.
The second thing to remember is that even very very tiny differences in reproductive fitness can lead to a given allele becoming completely predominant in a relatively short period of time, evolutionarily speaking. So if you were even very slightly more likely to survive to reproduce if you were afraid of snakes (even if that prevented you from eating as much nutritious snake meat as you othwerwise could have), and if poisonous snakes were a fact of life in the places that the early hominids (and their ancestors) lived, then there is a very plausible case for an innate fear (quite possibly a mild one) of snakes in humans.
So it's plausible. The follow-up questions of whether the necessary assumptions hold, and the even more important question of whether the hypothesized innate aversion actually exists (and how to investigate that) are where it gets far more complicated, and where many opportunities to do lousy science arise.
I don't disagree with anything in 136.
Except for the causal mechanism as to how this innate aversion would be coded into people.
138: You mean a causal mechanism besides natural selection? The causal mechanism by which genetic information is expressed in brain structures? Not that it's a solved problem exactly how it happens, but the evidence that there is a way for genetic information to be translated into differential brain development is, I would think, unassailable. Maybe I'm missing something.
118: Some snake/flower research with rhesus monkeys. (I have no idea what the controls were or what other research justifies saying the results extend to all simians.)
Simian-wide prepotentiated fears were first empirically documented in two experiments by Cook and Mineka (1989). In the first experiment, they examined whether observer rhesus monkeys would acquire fear responses to evolutionarily relevant stimuli (toy snakes) as compared to evolutionarily neutral stimuli (artificial flowers) after a single viewing of a videotape showing model conspecifics behaving fearfully.And from the article, rather than innate try "a phylogenetically prepotentiated predisposition". Maybe it's actually a phylogenetically prepotentiated predisposition to view flowers benignly.
Eh, causal mechanism is the wrong wording. But there's a lot of elegant argument there as to why it should exist, but very little about what form it takes. Which is what I would find most interesting, I think, and what annoys me about a lot of ev-psych work.
Well, that's the hard bit. Figuring out what plausibly could be innate is easy and fun. Determining what is actually innate is really hard. Figuring out how the innateness works is past hard into probably not happening yet.
139: To me some of the gene/developmental triggers/brain development experiments are among the most, "Whoa, dude!" things I've read about recently. And basics such as changes in optic nerve organization during the metamorphosis of tadpoles into frogs is pretty astounding even before researchers start fucking with them with evil genetic tricks.
Well, what I think an ev-psych researcher would say to that is that it's a different level of analysis; ev-psych is a useful tool for developing research hypotheses. So, for instance, and as discussed in the Marks book, you could look at whether the response to snakes in a given species was a response to motion, or shape, or color. You could do that by looking at single-unit electrophysiology, or fMRI, or by doing behavior tests. You could look at whether or not the aversive response was triggered by the amygdala. You could look at whether strength of an individual's aversive reaction to snakes correlates with connectivity between the visual cortex and midbrain regions. You could look at whether aversive responses to snakes block aversive responses to other stimuli. And people do look at all those things! But the fact that ev-psych does not subsume all of brain science does not per se make it useless or interesting. It's one level of analysis that hopefully contributes to overall knowledge of how the brain works. That it doesn't answer every question isn't a bug.
That said, have I yet mentioned that I think most of the actual research is pretty bogus? Why are you people making me defend this?
Eh, causal mechanism is the wrong wording. But there's a lot of elegant argument there as to why it should exist, but very little about what form it takes. Which is what I would find most interesting, I think, and what annoys me about a lot of ev-psych work.
Indeed, we do not know exactly which neuron does what.
144: That all sounds perfectly reasonable -- all I meant to say is that, AFAIK, none of that research is really yet in the realm of "We fully understand how this measurable physical process produces this psychological/behavioral effect". Not because the science is being poorly done, or because it's impossible in principle, but because it's just really not there yet.
144: that's the kind of work that --- to me --- is most interesting! But most ev-psych I see --- and it must be observed that by definition that's not a fair sample --- stops at that point.
147: That's actually either no longer true or surprisingly close to being no longer true (depending on how much of the underlying neuroscience you buy) when you talk about processes like optogenetics, where people are at the stage of, for instance, activating specific neural reward networks in ways that predictably alter a rat's behavior on a decision task.
In my day we didn't have to deal with closing tags. It was all massacres and enormous cheeses.
ev-psych is a useful tool for developing research hypotheses
If it were more commonly treated merely as such, I don't think it would receive quite the level of scorn it often receives.
100: You say that like the evolution of a chest-mounted adjustable lamp is unprecedented.
114.last: That said, have I yet mentioned that I think most of the actual research is pretty bogus?
From my completely layman perspective, it seems to me that it is a field that would benefit from declaring a moratorium on pursuing certain kinds of results* while it develops and sorts out a methodology for producing defensible research, and then getting serious on self-policing.
*OK, not possible, but the balance should move decisively towards the foundational and methodological and away from contrarian just-so stories.
149: Neat. I've heard some stuff about that, but not at a level where I can evaluate it at all.
153: I think the field would gain some benefit in terms of the respect of commenters on unfogged (and, sure, some subset of researchers in related fields), but I'm not seeing how the strategy pursued thus far has been unsuccessful in any other sense.
I think that that physical process stuff is really really cool.
(Rats! With electrodes! And treats!)
155 is pretty accurate, although things always go well until they don't.
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Apropos of nothing: Can anyone point me to some entertainment law contract boilerplate that deals with allowing an artist to maintain control over their work, while allowing continued use of the work produced for a specific project by the contractee? E.g. "Contractor retains copyright and allows contractee to use work produced under this contract in future presentations of the larger work" or something like that? Or something where there's a nominal fee for granting rights to use the work again?
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I'm not seeing how the strategy pursued thus far has been unsuccessful in any other sense.
Because as a science its fundamental purpose is to increase the truth and decrease the falsity in aggregate human understanding. The fact that evolutional psychology as as whole has--thanks to the contrarian just-so stories adored by certain of its most popular spokespersons--done the reverse makes it fundamentally unsuccessful at its core.
*OK, not possible, but the balance should move decisively towards the foundational and methodological and away from contrarian just-so stories.
Contrarian to you, maybe, but (as you realize) the real problem here is that they use ev-psych to confirm common prejudices. It's no surprise that some of the stupidest ev-psych gets a sympathetic hearing in Slate.
Natlio: Do you have an email you can put up here? If you do, I'll email you later tonight. I really don't understand exactly what you're asking for and why, but one can almost certainly draft a license that achieves what you want.
Most of the free online boilerplate sites for entertainment-related things totally suck, so beware.
It's a successful academic niche. And its an academic niche that's been successful in gaining popular attention. But almost all the popular attention gained has been for things that are false, or at least unproven. I'm sure the real work being done in the field has served to advance potential human understanding, but the false popularizations have significantly offset that gain.
urple it's sweet the way you put the ivory tower on a pedastal.
but I'm not seeing how the strategy pursued thus far has been unsuccessful in any other sense.
Sure you're seeing it. As you say:
I think most of the actual research is pretty bogus
At the same time, as you also say:
ev-psych is a useful tool for developing research hypotheses
I recognize that a key problem for people like me, who are more-or-less uniformly pissed off by evolutionary psychology, is that I can't offer much of an alternative research program. The human brain is formed by the same evolutionary forces as the parrot brain, and is rightly studied on that basis.
But human intelligence is obviously different in a way that introduces massive complexities that are routinely ignored by evo-psych types.
163: Sorry, I was using "successful" to mean "successful in attracting funding, faculty positions, attention in the mainstream and scientific press, and citations". As far as whether it's an interesting or productive way to spend one's time, I tend to think that it largely is not, and hopefully after today will devote a minimal amount of attention to it. And "human intelligence is obviously different in a way that introduces massive complexities that are routinely ignored by evo-psych types", while a simplification (you can acknowledge the first part of the statement is true without rejecting the ev-psych approach) is something that I largely agree with, and formed the meat of my question to [ redacted ].
64: yeah, it's pretty awful for him, especially if he thinks the suicide was his fault; that's something awful to live with. But he did do an awful thing.
But his family? I met a whole bunch of privileged, self-absorbed assholes at college, and the family was pretty much always to blame. (Sure, it's vindictive & collective punishment & all, but really, people teach their kids to be arseholes and get away with it all the time.)
105: We had a cockatiel who very obviously hated anything snake-like. She was raised from an egg in a bird-only specialty store and had never seen a real one.
160: Here's the email I set up for Unfogged stuff. I can clarify more, privately, but basically we don't want to be in the position of wanting to put on our show and not having the option to use a significant chunk of the script. Our collaborator wants to be sure that she can republish her contributions at will. Frankly, I think the likelihood of her republishing is significantly higher than the likelihood of our remounting the show, and sincerely want to protect her rights to do with her work as she sees fit. But I also don't want to sign a contract that screws over the people who are paying me.
165: The New Yorker article was a fascinating portrayal of some teenagers, but I still feel I don't understand the climax of the story -- (a) I don't really know why Clementi killed himself and (b) it appears that his roommate's reaction upon reading the suicide Facebook update (or whatever it was) was to immediately try to cover up his electronic footprints, which is a level of sociopathic behavior the rest of his dickishness hadn't prepared me for.
168
I got the same thing. It's a fascinating portrayal of what mixing teenagers with social media gets you these days. But the things described were mildly dickish, but really only in an "average for middle school" sense. I'm in utter disbelief that what the roommate did could really be the sole (or even primary) instigator of his suicide.
64, 165, 168, 169: I don't see why his attempting (badly) to cover himself a bit is so sociopathic--he did something wrong, he knew it, but the enormity of what happened was immensely out of proportion to the wrongness he committed; why wouldn't he feel a combination of shame and wanting to cover his tracks?
The whole thing was interesting, but yeah, there's no real moral except "some stories don't have a clear moral." I rather hope he doesn't get convicted, because deportation and/or jail seems absurdly disproportionate to the wrongness committed, and likely to turn him into more rather than less of an asshole in the future, but yeah, he was an asshole.
170: He did turn down a plea deal that, among other things, would have shielded him from deportation. Not sure how much of a shield that really would have been, but it did strike me as a rather bold roll of the dice.
The whole thing was interesting, but yeah, there's no real moral except "some stories don't have a clear moral."
This is exactly right.
Wait, hang on. This guy spied on a vulnerable person's private, personal activities, and made them public. That's pretty heinous, and it goes way beyond just teenage dickishness.
There's anti-spying provisions in pretty much every criminal code in the world. Generally speaking, they provide for jail time. What this guy did has to be at the high end of the offending spectrum. So I don't think that jail time is disproportionate for what he did. Obviously American jail terms are absurdly long but leaving that aside, he did do an illegal thing.
174 is what I had thought, except that most of what I'd heard before was wrong. The article in 26 is long, so I didn't finish it, but the first page of it was very much new information to me.
171: From the NY article:
A second offer was made in December: no jail time, an effort to protect him against deportation, and six hundred hours of community service. This, too, was rejected.
"An effort to protect him" sounds pretty weak.
174: Clementi's own words:
But its not like he left the cam on or recorded or anything / he just like took a five sec peep lol.
Which is still, you know, pretty shocking, especially when you publicise it on twitter, and plan on repeating it.
So I don't think that jail time is disproportionate for what he did. Obviously American jail terms are absurdly long but leaving that aside, he did do an illegal thing.
You can't just "leave aside" the fact that American jail terms are absurdly long. That they are absurdly wrong is the main reason why it's wrong to prosecute people or convict them of various things, even when those things are bad. And deportation, here, would be particularly egregious; it sounds like he hasn't been in Indian since he was very young indeed.
This guy spied on a vulnerable person's private, personal activities, and made them public.
He spied on his roommate (the first time), but didn't make that observation public, except in the sense of talking about it; he planned to make the spying public the second time, but claims to have changed his mind; regardless of the truth of that, the victim learned of it and turned the computer off, so no spying occurred. There's no question that's really wrong. But we're talking about years of jail time; and even the plea bargain (a) would have left the possibility of deportation on the table; and (b) would have involved his being forever labeled a felon, with all that entails in our wonderfully merciful country.
The guy is an incredible asshole. But Clementi wasn't in the closet -- he was out to his family and at school, if I understood article's correctly. So 'publicizing' the webcam thing on twitter is supremely jerkish, but it wasn't outing Clementi: it was "I saw my roommate making out with a man, just like anyone who knows him would expect."
It's shitty, nasty, lousy behavior. But it does seem to me to be unlikely to be a primary cause of the suicide, and to be more on the low end of the offending spectrum than the high end.
There's just no way he's up for a 10-year jail sentence if Clementi didn't kill himself.
Clementi surely was psychologically motivated to downplay the nastiness of the spying. But he also discussed the issue with others, got reasonably good advice, seemed to be getting a good response when requesting a new roommate, arranged a second hookup in the room after knowing that he had been spied on, etc.
The two roommates apparently had an in-person discussion the same day of the suicide, who knows what was said then.
He spied on his roommate (the first time), but didn't make that observation public, except in the sense of talking about it;
Except, you know, in the sense of making it public?
I do think years of jail time is harsh. (The equivalent NZ offence has an upper limit of 3 years, which seems way more reasonable.)
181: I don't know about you and your monarchy, but talking about what you saw is protected under the first amendment here. The exceptions are very narrow and in general that's a good thing.
And in fact the group viewing session is pretty awful in terms of publicising it.
181: I don't know about you and your monarchy, but talking about what you saw is protected under the first amendment here. The exceptions are very narrow and in general that's a good thing.
I would be very surprised if publicising an invasion of privacy is protected under the first amendment.
I dunno; I value individual privacy very highly, and think that as rights go, it's pretty fundamental. And taking privacy away is not just prankishness; it's criminality.
I think he may have actually spied illegally, but I'm not an lawyer. He basically hid a camera, which sounds like it should be illegal.
I would be very surprised if publicising an invasion of privacy is protected under the first amendment.
I think the usual thing is to punish the invasion of privacy but not publicizing it.
(There was a case in NZ involving a similar offence but without the sexual aspect. Expect, you know, it was the PM's privacy at a fucking media stunt that was invaded. Which, um, wtf.)
Ah, but that might be a aggravating factor (?) --- dunno the American jargon, but I think publicising shifts from a fourth degree to a third degree crime?
Does the fact that the guy was spying on what was going on in his own room matter legally?
Not sure what to think about this case. On the one hand, as everyone has said, the guy is a complete asshole, on the other I see this as less an invasion of privacy than standard issue emotional bullying of the sort that unfortunately is pretty damn common. I'm not sure if sending people to jail for that is the best solution to the problem.
186 isn't right, the First Amendment doesn't work in that way. But, the case looks like fairly excessive overprosecution to me, at least based on skimming the article.
(I've lost patience with long-form New Yorker style journalism; stop telling me what people are wearing or who they look like and GET TO THE POINT).
Keir, what exactly do you think the defendant saw? From the description in the article, it seems to me that it's awfully hard to fit it into NJ's invasion of privacy statute. Which section do you think was violated?
And from the article, it looks to me like the bias charges are going to be pretty tough too. Would he have done the same if his roommate had a girl in the room? We'll see what evidence they really have to show that.
Or, rather, it's complicated, but, just as an example, "publication of private facts" is still a viable tort that's not swallowed up by the First Amendment, with some exceptions for the news media.
190.1: I was summarizing and I don't actually know the answer.
193: Maybe I do understand it. A tort isn't criminal, is it?
193 -- no, but there are similarish things in the criminal law, including in the statute Carp cites to above. This is a pretty complicated area and I don't know that there's any point in learning more about it, but a line where the First Amendment prohibits only an "invasion" of privacy but not the publicizing isn't really accurate; you can put limits on publicizing private information without violating the First Amendment.
Like HIPAA. That makes sense. Except that I could get fired on criminally charged for violating HIPAA even if I didn't publicize anything.
Anyway, once a year they give me a test to show that I remember not to look up medical records that I'm not supposed to look up and that I don't email them to Nigerian bankers.
Obviously not an American lawyer, so this could all be tripe, but:
To start with: 1 a: ``reasonable person would know that another may expose intimate parts or may engage in sexual penetration or sexual contact, he observes another person without that person's consent and under circumstances in which a reasonable person would not expect to be observed''?
After all, reasonable person would know possibility of sexual contact, he did observe another person without consent, and under circumstances where a etc not expect to be observed.
1 b is more tricky. Two problems: one, does he `photographs, films, videotapes, records, or otherwise reproduces in any manner', and two, is it an `image of another person whose intimate parts are exposed or who is engaged in an act of sexual penetration or sexual contact'?
One, I would suggest that he does meet the standard, given that he did use a camera, and that the intent of this is presumably to forbid mechanical spying. (Of course, could be argued only meant to forbid recording; I think that's weak though.)
Two, I would argue that the observed person was engaged in sexual contact & that intimate parts were exposed, but then again it could be argued contrariwise.
So that's 1 b.
1 c breaks down into bits, as I see. One, is there an underlying 1 b offence, and two, did he disclose the reproduction? I think he did disclose, given that (a) the language is clearly meant to be read inclusively, and he did exhibit it to his friends. (Interesting question: when he attempts to set up a viewing, did he commit a crime, given that there was no reproduction, but there would be at the time the watching occurred? Was it only attempted?)
(And yeah, I think the charges are excessive and heavy. In NZ, the analogous offence only attracts at most three years.)
I just read the article, and ironically enough was interrupted in the middle by a call from Rutgers asking for money. (They're going to send me a pledge card for $25, the minimum donation. I can't afford to give much money to anyone right now, but I don't feel too bad about giving a little to Rutgers. Cornell's never getting a dime out of me.)
It was a pretty emotional read for me, even though it didn't add a whole lot to what I already knew about the incident. I was at Rutgers when it happened, and as you might imagine it was a big deal. The article feels very true to the atmosphere of the school and the social backgrounds of the kids who go there. The pervasive, overt class anxiety and homophobia and more subtle, complicated racism particularly stand out. It's not that these sorts of teenage social dynamics are unique to New Jersey; this story could have happened anywhere. But they're very typical of NJ, especially the upscale suburban areas where these kids grew up.
So yeah, I dunno. What Ravi did was pretty awful, but in a mundane sort of way and it's no clearer now than it was when the story first broke to what extent it led directly to Clementi's suicide in a way that makes Ravi legally culpable. It's not at all clear to me that he's going to be convicted on all the charges against him, or that he should be.
The bias stuff seems a stretch to me as well.
The first time, they saw the men without shirts. Nothing more, it seems from the article. Even (a) seems like a pretty steep hill to climb, without proving that the defendant thought sexual acts were taking place, even though they weren't when the observation was made. Section (b) seems ridiculous.
The second incident, nothing at all was seen. I suppose you could say that it was an attempt at (b) foiled by the victim before any possibility of the crime. And the defendant says he abandoned the attempt before any violation had occurred.
Have I missed something from the article?
What they're wearing is the point.
Also, where they went to school. And with whom.
Nobody's reading but, why not?
The first time, they saw the men without shirts. Nothing more, it seems from the article. Even (a) seems like a pretty steep hill to climb, without proving that the defendant thought sexual acts were taking place, even though they weren't when the observation was made. Section (b) seems ridiculous.
The standard isn't whether the defendant thought sexual acts were taking place, but rather whether a reasonable person would know that sexual acts may be taking place. Given that he'd asked to have the room to himself, that he was gay, and that a man had just walked in, I would say that a reasonable person would know that sexual acts might have been taking place.
I think it is possible he also gets commits either a (c) offence or an attempted (c) offence when, the first night, he tells his friends about the camera, who then watch.
Also, arguably there's at least an attempt at a (c) offence in the run up to the second time, if not an actual (c) offence. Because he does advertise an intimate recording, on twitter and verbally, even if the intimate recording doesn't exist yet & can't/won't exist.
(I assume NJ has an inchoate crimes law like everyone else does.)