Monthly Archives: February 2009
What is Literary Darwinism? An Interview with Joseph Carroll
If you’ve heard the term “Literary Darwinism,” you may have been tempted to lump it in with the list of schools of thought conjoining evolutionary thinking with, well, almost everything. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit I did … Continue reading
Filed under Interviews
Survival of the Kindest: An Interview with Dacher Keltner
I have an interview with Dacher Keltner, author of Born to Be Good, in Scientific American Mind Matters today. Keltner is the director of the UC Berkley Social Interaction Laboratory, leading research efforts focusing on the biological and evolutionary origins of … Continue reading
Filed under About Neuroscience, Interviews
This is Not Your Grandfather’s Monkey (or pigeon)
The mind can always intend, and know when it intends, to think the Same. This sense of sameness is the keel and backbone of our thinking. –William James Science has just served humanity another helping of humble pie. Ed Wasserman, principal … Continue reading
Filed under About Research
Attention Under Siege: An Interview with Author Maggie Jackson
In his masterwork, Flow, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us that the two major components affecting our ability to control and direct our mental resources are time and attention. On the first, time, most of our verdicts are the same: we … Continue reading
Filed under Interviews
What Makes You Happier, Stuff or Experience?
According to a study conducted at San Francisco State Univeristy, the things you own can’t make you as happy as the things you do. One reason is adaptation: we adapt to all things material in our lives in a matter … Continue reading
Filed under About Research
The Monkeys of Wall Street
Scientific American is running a 60-Second Science audio clip of primatologist Frans de Waal’s address at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. He discusses a frequently cited experiment he co-conducted that tested whether monkeys are able to distinguish … Continue reading
Filed under About Neuroscience, About Research
Bridging the Empathy Gap: An Interview with J. D. Trout
Renowned author and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has said of J. D. Trout’s latest book, The Empathy Gap, that it is “important and engaging,” and on both counts I agree. But I would also add one more word: sensible. The … Continue reading
Filed under Interviews
David DiSalvo is a science, technology and culture writer whose work appears in Scientific American Mind, Psychology Today and a variety of other places.
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