‘The Four Horsemen HD - Now on YouTube’ by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett - RichardDawkins.net

For your viewing pleasure and spiritual journey…

On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen.

‘The Four Horsemen HD - Now on YouTube’ by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett - RichardDawkins.net

Did you fight with your family over the holidays? - Scientists think they know why

Ben Franklin used to say that fish and visitors stink after three days.  Anyone who has either visited or hosted family for several days has probably experienced this first hand.  Now scientists think they know why:

Since relatives are processed through areas of the brain linked to self-reference, the study could also help to explain why relatives cause us to take things personally. While we may tolerate a friend’s loud laughter or snoring, for example, we may have less patience with a relative because we judge them similarly to how we judge ourselves.

“This research is a wonderful example of the fruitfulness of conducting cognitive neuroscience informed by evolutionary theory,” said Todd Shackelford, a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University.

“I am hopeful that other researchers in the cognitive neurosciences will follow Dr. Platek’s lead and take full advantage of the predictive power of a Darwinian perspective on the design of the structure of the mind,” he told Discovery News.

It’s likely, he explained, that a face we perceive as “friendly” is one that looks more like us. But how we later feel about that person could be tied to how we feel about ourselves, perhaps explaining the prevalence of arguments during family reunions.

Being poor heavily influences brain function - as severly as an adult stroke victim

Another case for universal early childhood education, especially in impoverished areas of the country.  Another study I read recently from the University of Michigan states that children of lower socioeconomic status hear 1 million less words and have 1000 less hours of “lap time” than those in the middle socio-economic status range.

Poor Children’s Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows

“Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult,” said Robert Knight, director of the institute and a UC Berkeley professor of psychology. “We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response.”

Previous studies have shown a possible link between frontal lobe function and behavioral differences in children from low and high socioeconomic levels, but according to cognitive psychologist Mark Kishiyama, first author of the new paper, “those studies were only indirect measures of brain function and could not disentangle the effects of intelligence, language proficiency and other factors that tend to be associated with low socioeconomic status. Our study is the first with direct measure of brain activity where there is no issue of task complexity.”