Why psychologists often view their research as “me-search.” -NICHOLAS EPLEY: John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavior Science and Director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago
"Deciding whether to base policy on behavioral science comes down to a tricky balance between the pros and cons of acting on imperfect evidence."
https://click.nautil.us/behavioral
WATCH: Why psychologists often view their research as “me-search.”
Nicholas Epley Department of Health and Social Care - DHSC U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Psychology Today American Psychological Association #psychology #behavior #behavioralscience #sociology #epidemiology #economists #withscience #politicalscientists Jay Van Bavell
Poetry in America: The Fish
A new episode of Poetry in America looks at “The Fish” by Marianne Moore. Tune in for this exploration of the histories & possible futures of our oceans in a warming world. Host Elisa New is joined by guests Al Gore, Jorie Graham, and Conservation International scientists M. Sanjayan, Peter Seligmann, Laure Katz, & more.
Featuring brilliant deep sea footage, this episode considers the human and natural worlds, how poetry can give us new insights into science, and science new insights into poetry. Tune in to the World Channel this Saturday, April 25, at 7:30pm ET, 6:30 CT, 4:30 PT
The Case for Lab-Grown Meat
Clean meat is anatomically identical to animal flesh—because that’s precisely what it is—but without any drugs, animal suffering, or the need for large expanses of land and water. So if we can create a delicious, juicy, sizzling burger that is a win-win across the board, why wouldn’t we embrace it as the future of food?
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In our latest "Ingenious" we spoke to the linguist Julie Sedivy about the power and limitations of language.
In the following interview, Sedivy explains how language both enraptures and deceives. She explains why Donald Trump’s language shrinks the world into gross simplicities. Our discussion delves into what makes good fiction and bad writing. Throughout, in her words and insights, Sedivy reveals what makes her a true language expert. Watch the entire interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/ingenious-julie-sedivy
April 13, 2017
Will a rat sink or swim? Your mental health may be riding on the answer. That story, plus ethical dealings with aliens, climate change, and a test to see if animals are self-aware. http://nautil.us
April 6, 2017
Consciousness is a hard problem because it is emergent, mixes software and hardware, and is dizzyingly self-referential. It’s harder still because, in a sense, it impossible to study directly.
We can measure how some living (or even inanimate) thing interacts with the world. We can learn to recognize intelligence and reflexivity in that behavior. But how can we tell what it is like to be that thing?
Christof Koch, one of today’s leading thinkers on consciousness, describes it as “physics from the inside.” It’s a different category of question than we’re used to, and one that has a growing set of intersections with other sciences.
It is even a short distance from some common laments. Why don’t we understand each other, or even ourselves? This issue is full of discovery, re-discovery and argument by analogy.
Because that’s a good place to start.
Welcome to “Consciousness.” http://nautil.us
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Do you think you can read emotions like joy or anger in another person’s face and actions, because joy and anger are universal emotions and we all know what they look like? Well, if so, says neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, you are winging it, guessing at best. Emotions like happiness and despair are not baked into our brains, waiting to be triggered by experiences in the world.
So what are emotions? In this month's Ingenious, we spoke to Barrett about her theory of "constructed emotion." Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/ingenious-lisa-feldman-barrett
March 30, 2017
When you look down from a high place, do you ever fight the urge to jump?
That story, plus the first woman to attend MIT, the origin of emotions, New York City’s noise addiction, and why you should work less, all this week at Nautilus. http://nautil.us
March 23, 2017
If you want to find out who someone really is, give them power. That story, plus cooperative evolution, dark energy, extraordinary female scientists, and why storms make us happy, all this week on Nautilus. http://nautil.us
March 16, 2017
How close are we to a Grand Unified Theory of physics? Physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss brings us up to date.
That story, plus a fifth force of nature, what art can teach us about physics, and whether immortality is realistic all this week on Nautilus.
March 9 ,2017
How is pleasure related to fear? That story, plus how aging changes the genetic lottery, the multiverse as VR, and the thin line between genius and madman, all this week on Nautilus. http://nautil.us
Balance
A glacier’s mass balance is the difference between how much snow and ice it accumulates, and what it loses to melting. A negative mass balance will, given enough time, skew other balances. As less sunlight is reflected by the shrinking glacier’s bright ice, more is absorbed by the dark ocean, pushing temperatures up.
Warmer temperatures increase the amount of human-produced carbon dioxide stored in the atmosphere, which speeds ocean acidification and the dissolving of deep-water carbon deposits. These deposits make oceans more alkaline, balancing out their acidification.
Peel back one balance, and you find another. In this issue, each balance leans against the next: mental against physical, evolutionary against ecological, one infinity against another. The web of balances that make up our world is intricate, full of tiny stable points and unexpected transitions.
That can make it inscrutable. But, as living participants, we can still tell when it is broken. This February saw over 3,000 record high temperatures across the United States, compared to 30-odd record lows, the most lopsided ratio in history. This January was 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century global average.
Which brings to mind another balance—a moral one.
Welcome to “Balance.” http://nautil.us
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"What makes someone a pedophile or struggle with sexual impulses if not their brain? And, if the locus is in their brain, then what makes their responsibility any more or less than someone who has a tumor? A hundred years from now we may be able to talk about brain function in a deterministic way, even if there’s not such a clear obvious organic issue." Carl Erik Fisher weighs in on the complicated intersection of neuroscience and justice.
Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/ingenious-carl-erik-fisher
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The idea of mindfulness has permeated our zeitgeist. We are exhorted to be "mindful" at every turn—mindful about work, mindful in our relationships, mindful in our diet. Is the concept all it's cracked up to be? The meditating psychologist Carl Erik Fisher weighs in. Watch the whole interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/ingenious-carl-erik-fisher
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The reactions to Carl Fisher’s Nautilus essay, “Against Willpower,” ranged from the appreciative to the sorely defensive. Why should we be asked to give up the idea of willpower? Aren’t we just giving ourselves and others permission to fail? Is this a political idea in disguise?
In this month's "Ingenious," we gave Fisher a chance to respond in depth, and explain some of the nuances of his relationship with "willpower." Watch the full interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/ingenious-carl-erik-fisher
This week on Nautilus
A man in Ohio is about to break open the oldest quarantine in mathematics. That story, plus isolated scientists, addiction, and the dark side, all this week on Nautilus. http://nautil.us
This week on Nautilus
This week at Nautilus, magnetic leaders, computer models of atheism, water wars, the Stanford Prison Experiment, all the single ladies, and more. http://nautil.us
"When you think back to your career what do you remember? You remember the headwinds you faced. You don’t remember all the tailwinds that were pushing you along."
We spoke to our latest ingenious, Robert Frank, about the invisible role luck plays in all of our lives. Watch the entire interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/ingenious-robert-h-frank
“To imagine that everybody does best by being purely selfish is a socially moronic posture to bring to the study of human behavior,” economist Robert Frank says. The American Dream needs a rewrite, he believes, and with it comes wider personal and social perspectives, ones that might guarantee a more equitable and just land. “If we acknowledge luck, the experimental evidence is really quite clear that we become much more inclined to pay forward for the common good, to contribute things that will benefit not just us but the community at large.”
In our latest "Ingenious," we spoke to Frank about the invisible hand of luck in our lives and economy: http://nautil.us/issue/44/luck/ingenious-robert-h-frank
Watch out exclusive interview with Siddhartha Mukherjee, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Gene: An Intimate History," as he discusses the most profound effects that genetics will have on our culture as its technology rapidly advances.
We spoke to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Gene: An Intimate History," about the powerful role genetics is poised to play in the future of human culture and medicine.
Watch the full interview on our website.
Sylvia Earle
If there's a true hero of the ocean, it's Sylvia A. Earle, who has spent a lifetime passionately defending the life in the waters. As President Barack Obama said of her, "I am in awe of how much she has done for ocean conservation."
Watch our video interview with her here: http://nautil.us/issue/43/heroes/voice-of-the-ocean-rp
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The year was 1962, and it seemed like cell biologist Leonard Hayflick had made a mistake. After all, for 60 years it had been known that human cells were immortal, capable of dividing forever if they were cultivated in the right medium under the right conditions. But some of Hayflick’s cells were not dividing. Maybe his sample had been contaminated, or there was a problem with the way he’d prepared the cells. A few weeks passed, however, and not only did his finding remain the same, but a pattern emerged: The cells would double around 50 times, then stop dividing.
Today, we take it for granted that human cells multiply a finite number of times. They stop at the aptly-named Hayflick Limit, when their telomeres—the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes—get too short. But at the time, the scientific community deemed Hayflick’s discoveries—that normal cells are mortal, that they have memory and an internal counting mechanism, that cancer cells are uniquely immortal—preposterous. It would take nearly a decade of criticism and skepticism before his ideas were accepted as fact.
Today, as a storied expert in the field of aging, Hayflick is still dispelling misconceptions. This month, we spoke to him in our latest "Ingenious." Watch the complete interview here: http://nautil.us/issue/42/fakes/ingenious-leonard-hayflick
If you think you're unique for being lactose intolerant, well, think again. In fact, 2/3 of people develop lactose intolerance as adults—along with all other mammal species. So how and why did that other 1/3 develop? What is the evolutionary advantage of lactose tolerance?
Follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, as he tracks down the biological and cultural history of humans' ability to digest lactose, in this fascinating video: http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/why-most-of-us-shouldnt-drink-milk
Experience science, don't just read about it. Deep, undiluted, narrative storytelling brings science into the most important conversations we are having today. Our award-winning articles and artwork, pull back the curtain on the wonders of nature.
