New York Times :: At the Center of the Storm Over Bush And Science
Article

> Other experts have been blunter. In a recent interview on
> National Public Radio, Dr. Howard Gardner, a cognitive
> psychologist at Harvard, said, "I actually feel very sorry
> for Marburger, because I think he probably is enough of a
> scientist to realize that he basically has become a
> prostitute."
>
> Later, in an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Gardner
> said he had made the reference but added, "I wish I'd used
> it as a verb rather than as a noun."

Let's compromise and just say that he's behaved at times in a prostitutative way.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 6:26 PM

New York Times :: The Brain? It's a Jungle in There
Article

> The theory's first principles and assumptions are
> relatively simple: There is no overseer in the brain
> setting rules and making connections. There are also no
> "spooky" forces, as Dr. Edelman puts it. Neither is the
> brain a machine or a computer. For Dr. Edelman, there are
> only the "unlabeled world" and the "embodied brain," a
> confrontation of unstructured immensities.

The absence of spooky forces is what most people probably find spookiest of all.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 10:15 PM

New York Times :: Sex and the Brain: Researchers Say, "Vive la Différence!"
Article

> In her study, which ignited a small firestorm, Dr. Chivers
> used a device to measure genital arousal in subjects as
> they looked at pornography. Heterosexual men, she found,
> were aroused by footage of men and women having sex. Gay
> men reacted to two men having sex. Women, regardless of
> sexual orientation, responded to everything.
>
> In some cases, she said, women reported no sexual arousal,
> though the device said otherwise.

A disconnection between arousal and desire -- what an incredible idea!
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:40 AM

Reuters :: German Jews Attack Vegetarian Ad Campaign
Article

> An animal rights group said on Wednesday it would go ahead
> with a controversial advertising campaign that likens the slaughter
> of animals to the murder of Jews under the Nazis despite threats
> of a legal challenge.

The irony is that the Nazis would have been equally horrified. As Robert N. Proctor details in his book, The Nazi War on Cancer, the Nazis financed major public ad campaigns promoting vegetarianism and against vivisection.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 10:41 PM

New York Times :: Origin of Species [Tom Friedman]
Article

> India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan each
> spontaneously generated centers for their young people's
> energies. In India they're called "call centers," where
> young men and women get their first jobs and technical
> skills servicing the global economy and calling the world.
> In Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia they're called
> "madrassas," where young men, and only young men, spend
> their days memorizing the Koran and calling only God.
> Ironically, U.S. consumers help to finance both. We finance
> the madrassas by driving big cars and sending the money to
> Saudi Arabia, which uses it to build the madrassas that are
> central to Al Qaeda's global supply chain. And we finance
> the call centers by consuming modern technologies that need
> backup support, which is the role Infosys plays in the
> global supply chain. posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:55 PM

New York Times :: Defying Psychiatric Wisdom, These Skeptics Say 'Prove It'
Article

> "These guys are sort of the Ralph Naders of psychology,"
> said Dr. David Barlow, director of the Center for Anxiety
> and Related Disorders at Boston University.
>
> Yet the psychologists are hardly cranks. Their criticisms
> reflect a widening divide in the field between researchers,
> who rely on controlled trials and other statistical methods
> of determining whether a therapeutic technique works, and
> practitioners, who are often guided by clinical experience
> and intuition rather than scientific evidence.

Deposed psychotherapists, take heart. You'll always have a home on the cutting edge of literary studies.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 12:10 AM

New York Times :: Study Finds That Teenage Virginity Pledges Are Rarely Kept
Article

> Lack of condom use was an important factor in the higher-than-
> expected rates of sexually transmitted diseases among the pledgers,
> the study found. Only 40 percent reported having used condoms in
> the most recent year of the study, compared with 60 percent of the
> teenagers who had not pledged.

Another example of the Law of Unintended (but Foreseeable) Consequences.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 8:30 AM

New York Times :: A Poet's Spirit Springs to Life on Death Row
Article

> Only twice in twelve long years
> Has the Self in me transformed
> To weighing less than a cent,
> And blended with the evening,
> Or heard ringing in my ears,
> Or seen a star do its thing,
>
> Umbrellaed aloft on air.
> Swooping into a huge swarm
> Of mosquitoes and gnats, there,
> On velvety wings, I went
>
> Gliding and eating until
> Chilled to my buoyant marrow,
> Convinced not to eat my fill,
> To leave some for tomorrow.

posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 9:31 PM

New Yorker :: Reckless Driver
Article

> This time, though, he is unlikely to garner enough strategically placed votes
> to push the electoral college past the tipping point.

I would have thought the same thing, but :

AP Poll: Bush, Kerry Are Tied in Race
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 6:47 PM

New York Times :: Japan Seeks Robotic Help in Caring for the Aged
Article

Better even than the robots is this idea:

> Caught between Japan's high labor costs and anti-immigrant
> sentiment, some mainstream politicians have even suggested
> exporting some of Japan's elderly to Thailand and the
> Philippines, but that has never won much popular support.

Now that's thinking globally. Maybe we can retrain some of our outsourced workers to care for them.

You have to see the photos.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 11:00 AM

New York Times :: 50 First Deaths: A Chance to Play (and Pay) Again
Article

> Some find it interesting that in creating a virtual world -
> one that could be perfect, without the blemish of mortality
> - death is an essential ingredient, said Taylor Carman, an
> associate professor of philosophy at Barnard College.
>
> It "makes me suspect that our own mortality is, as some
> existential philosophers maintained, such a constitutive
> dimension of our self-understanding that even in utopian
> fantasies we can't see our way out of the prospect of our
> own demise," he said in an e-mail message.

The prospect of my own demise -- sometimes it's the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 8:36 PM