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It’s Science, but Not Necessarily Right
The New York Times: ONE of the great strengths of science is that it can fix its own mistakes. “There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong,” the astrophysicist Carl Sagan once said. “That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process.” If only it were that simple. Scientists can certainly point with pride to many self-corrections, but science is not like an iPhone; it does not instantly auto-correct. As a series of controversies over the past few months have demonstrated, science fixes its mistakes more slowly, more fitfully and with more difficulty than Sagan’s words would suggest.
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Why Trolls Behave the Way They Do
The Wall Street Journal: People who troll online get the same thrill from it as drinking and exercising power according to U.S. researchers. Apparently anonymity means web users lose their inhibitions in much the same way as alcohol reduces people’s inhibitions. The people’s true characters are revealed, according to research conducted by Northwestern University. Read more: The Wall Street Journal
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Mood and Experience: Life Comes At You
Living through weddings or divorces, job losses and children’s triumphs, we sometimes feel better and sometimes feel worse. But, psychologists observe, we tend to drift back to a “set point”—a stable resting point, or baseline, in the mind’s level of contentment or unease. Research has shown that the set points for depression and anxiety are particularly stable over time. Why? “The overwhelming view within psychiatry and psychology is that is due to genetic factors,” says Virginia Commonwealth University psychiatrist Kenneth S. Kendler.
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National Academy of Sciences Sackler Colloquium
The National Academy of Sciences is hosting the Sackler Colloquium “Biological Embedding of Early Social Adversity: From Fruit Flies to Kindergartners” December 8-10, 2011 in Irvine, CA. The meeting, co-sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and organized by W. Thomas Boyce, Gene E. Robinson and Marla B. Sokolowski, will summon a world class, cross disciplinary assembly of basic, biomedical and social scientists to explore, using new developmental neurogenomic approaches, why disease, disorder and developmental misfortune are so unevenly distributed. The Arthur M.
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How To Quit Smoking? Think About Smoking
The Huffington Post: Paradoxically, the news of the government's plans for grisly anti-smoking ads made me crave a cigarette. I quit smoking many years ago and rarely have a craving anymore, but seeing these ads brought it all back. It also reminded me of the unpleasantness of quitting, including the obsessive thoughts. My quitting strategy was to keep my mind and body busy all the time, in order to keep my thoughts of cigarettes at bay. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. I relapsed a few times before I finally quit for good. Read more: The Huffington Post
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FDA’s Graphic Cigarette Images: Will they work?
The Sacramento Bee: Can graphic images persuade people to make lasting changes to their behavior? The answer, according to psychological research, is probably not. Dr. Howard Leventhal, the Board of Governors Professor of Health Psychology at Rutgers, agrees that photos are in fact stronger than words, but that images may not lead to long-term behavioral effects. Leventhal states, "You don't need a lot of threat to get something to happen as long as the threat is associated with a clear, simple plan of action. For cigarettes, it's more complicated, you may need a more potent level to get people to change." Read more: The Sacramento Bee
