Neuroanthropology is a collaborative weblog created to encourage exchanges among anthropology, philosophy, social theory, and the brain sciences.
We especially hope to explore the implications of new findings in the neurosciences for our understanding of culture, human development, and behaviour.
If you are interested in joining as an ongoing contributor, please contact Greg Downey at Macquarie University greg.downey @ mq.edu.au (remove spaces).
I recently came across a couple of postings on a Psychology Today blog, Remaining puzzle #7 solved: Why children may love their parents, and Stump the evolutionary psychologist: Remaining puzzles, both by Satoshi Kanazawa. Dr. Kanazawa is a self-proclaimed ‘evolutionary psychologist’ (by that, I just mean that I’m not the one applying the label — he is) who is affiliated with Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Department of Psychology at University College London, and the Department of Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. Listed as one of his primary qualifications is his co-authorship, with the late Alan S. Miller, of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters.
In the first of the posts, ‘Stump the evolutionary psychologist,’ Dr. Kanazawa writes about his blog, The Scientific Fundamentalist:
Regardless of the particular topic at hand, the consistent theme in my blog has been to illuminate the power of evolutionary psychology to explain human cognition and behavior — what we think, how we feel, what we want, and what we do. The range of topics covered in this blog reflects my belief, shared by all evolutionary psychologists, that evolutionary psychology provides the best and the most ultimate (as opposed to the proximate) explanations of human behavior.
The fact that evolutionary psychology can explain so much of human behavior, however, does not mean that it can explain everything. Yet. Although I have absolutely no doubt that evolutionary psychology (along with behavior genetics and cognitive neuroscience) can eventually explain all of human cognitions and behavior some day, the day is still far ahead. There is still so much that we do not know.
‘The thing that I try to reach when I do “Junkie” is articulated anger. I’m not concerned about Junkie as a Junkie. To me as a dancer, as a performer, it’s a study in self-destruction, and this particular person shows drugs.’ Read the rest of this entry »
Colour is a perceptual interaction arising from our ability to discriminate between different wavelengths of light from within a narrow band of electromagnetic radiation. Light itself has no colour. The colour of a specific wavelength can change according to context. For example, in the above picture, despite having the same spectral reflectance, the ‘X’ appears to be different when set against the two different backgrounds (Albers J. 1975). Read the rest of this entry »
I just gave a lecture on hominin brain evolution, and it’s left my own brain kind of fried. So no clever posting from me (’Is there ever?’ I hear the skeptics asking…). I’ll just share these slides. All the graphics have been captured from different online sources — I’ve done my best to put in appropriate credits, but that’s sometimes been difficult (or I’ve just been working so late that I forgot to do it). If I’ve included something you’d prefer I don’t, and if you’re the one who has the rights to something, just drop me a line and I’ll quickly cease and desist. My goal is only to share around the resources, not to take credit for anyone else’s work.
5-2braindiet
It’s a big file (about 3 mb), so it might take a minute depending on your connection.
A word of warning: I made this in Keynote on a Mac, so the animations and transitions might not do well on Microsoft Powerpoint. The video is no longer embedded. Here it is from Youtube:
Obviously, I don’t take the video at face value. Not just the claims about meat but also assuming that humans are the ‘most developed species’ on the planet. But it’s a great jumping off point for a discussion of diet and evolution. I did an earlier piece on this subject at: Red meat, Neandertals were meant to eat it.
If you’re interested in the whole course I’m teaching, I have previously posted the unit syllabus: Human evolution syllabus.
The new Grand Rounds of medical-related blogging is up at A Chronic Dose. This week has an education theme, including sections on language, insider lessons and expert lessons, and then the school of life. Definitely a worthy edition, so check it out!
Vaughn at Mind Hacks is one of my favourite neuro-bloggers, not only because he once referred to us as the ‘mighty’ Neuroanthropology, but also because he maintains his prolific output while still finding ample opportunities for inducing the unexpected snort-laugh (you know the one — you’ve just scanned his site because you want to sip your coffee and eat a muffin, so you can’t keep typing, and he writes something that causes you to have to clean up your keyboard, cursing him at the same time that you appreciate the barb…).
He writes about the developmental impact of Microsoft Word’s ‘auto-correct’ function (I only say ‘auto-correct’ because that’s what it’s called — sometimes it’s more like ‘obdurately-mangle’). He refers to the disorder as Bell’s Frontal Nomenclature Hypertrophy Syndrome in his post, ‘Computers cause abnormal brain growth - proof!‘ The part that caused my snack-related accident was a line about the growing frequency of the phrase ‘cingulated cortex,’ with the likely culprit being the ubiquity of the ‘auto-mangle’ function on Word.
There are 15 uses of the phrase “cingulated cortex” from 1900 to 2000. There are 1,740 uses from 2000 to now.
There must be a variant of the disorder, however, that’s caused by the auto-hyperlink function (which I know there should be some way to disable, but it would require me to become even more intimate with Word — a man has to draw the line to save his dignity!). And perhaps another one linked to the sometimes unexpected ways that Word decides you’re trying to achieve some formatting trick — like indented, numbered paragraphs. I feel like I have to watch what I’m typing to catch these software ticks, as my document gets auto-corrected, auto-formatted, and auto-linked in various ways that I emphatically reject. It’s certainly changed my visual search behaviour while typing, but it may also be undermining my linearity of narrative thought as I must constantly engage in recursive software checking, rendering my internal narrative a kind of play-and-replay, like a mad scratcher on an out-of-control turntable. But then again, maybe it’s just my midweek sleep deprivation as I try to complete slides on Human Brain Evolution and Dietary Change for tomorrow’s lecture…
John Calvin, a Theologian from Strasbourg died the day before I was born. He taught an austere form of personal ethics supporting good hospitals, a proper sewage system, protective rails on upper stories to keep children from falling from tall buildings, special care for the poor and infirm, and the introduction of new industries. Read the rest of this entry »
Mes recherches primaires se compose de l’intégration des neurosciences avec l’anthropologie et l’ethnologie, intégration qui offre un relativement nouveau champ de recherche, la neuroanthropologie.
Mon interêt a été particulièrement captivé par l’étude sur la complexité anthropo-sociale et la contribution du biologique et de l’imaginaire (La Méthode d’Edgar Morin) ainsi que le processus par lequel le monde social et culturel s’imbibe dans l’esprit dès l’enfance. Ainsi nous avons des créations culturelles qui peuvent se développer par l’histoire. Cependant nous devons considerer, non seulement l’évolution biologique de l’espèce mais, également, l’évolution culturelle de l’humanité (Jean-Pierre Changeux, 6th Kenneth Myer Lecture).
Specifiquement, J’essaye d’étudier l’interdependance circulaire entre la culture et le cerveau, c’est à dire étudier comment les processus du cerveau des individus sont conditionnés par la culture, et comment la culture est structurée par ces individus. Pour cette enquête, j’emploie la musique et le mouvement humain cultivé.
