Memory: The Relationship Between Brain and the Experience of 'Self'

Interesting article in Time Magazine about a woman named Lonni Sue Johnson who was a very successful artist, violinist and pilot until she suffered an attack of encephalitis in 2007 at the age of 57.  Studying patients like Johnson, scientists are learning about the relationship between the physical brain and experiences and even the nature of 'self'.

With the help of the hardware and Johnson's willingness to sit still for so much study, science may be able to answer one other, more abstract question: What is it like to have lost so many memories about your life and the world? If who you are is an amalgamation, at least in part, of the things you've experienced--the people you've loved, the places you've lived, the tragedies you've endured--are you actually you at all when those things are wiped away? The self is ineffable, but it's also material, the product of neurochemicals sparking their way through living tissue. How we draw the line between those two dimensions--the biological and the experiential, the brain and the far less knowable mind--has kept philosophers awake for millennia.

Approval from Department of Commerce Required for Science Communications

The Union of Concerned Scientists has published a very simple review of new Department of Commerce policies regarding the communication of science to the public and has provided links to letters written in protest of these polices and the policy itself.

These are remarkable documents. On the surface, they appear to guarantee the "open dissemination of research results." However, upon closer examination it’s quite clear that scientists are actually required to seek approval from the Department of Commerce for any scientific communication.

Marine Protected Areas (MPA's) Not Growing Fast Enough

Erik Stokstad wrote in today’s Science NOW Daily News that we are not preserving marine biodiversity fast enough. According to Stokstad, Scientists meeting at the World Conservation Union (IUCN) believe we need to accelerate the creation of marine protected areas if we want to preserve marine biodiversity and move towards more sustainable modes of development.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, the signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed that: 10% of the offshore regions controlled by individual countries (economic exclusive zones) and 20% of the world’s oceans would be protected by 2010. But Louisa Wood, a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia, has found that the total protected area would have to double every year for the next three years to meet that goal.

How Exxon Spent $15 Million to Create Confusion and Dissent in Global Warming Debate

The Union of Concerned Scientists has published an powerful and compelling report on exactly how Exxon spent $15 Million with dozens of shady organizations appearing to produce legitimate science and policy reports in order to discredit the real science behind global warming. It’s 60-some pages but really impressive in its attention to detail.

Most of the report is focused on the elaborate web of organizations, associations, think-tanks and consultancies Exxon has funded to create the impression that there is a large, heterogeneous group of informed scientists who disagree on the basic facts and theory of anthropogenic climate change.  They have documented a deliberate attempt to manufacture a controversy in science when, in fact, there is none.

TOS Education and Public Outreach Guide

The Oceanography Society has published a very useful guide to public outreach written specifically for scientists.  It agrees in principle with most of my own findings and might be a very valuable resource.  Check out their site and their guide.

Brain Physiology of Love and Sex

Elizabeth Cohen posted this story on CNN about what cognitive scientists are learning about love.We exchanged a few emails on the subject so I figured I'd take one of them and post this blog entry.

Cohen wrote, “In a group of experiments, Dr. Lucy Brown, a professor in the department of neurology and neuroscience at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and her colleagues did MRI brain scans on college students who were in the throes of new love.  While being scanned, the students looked at a photo of their beloved. The scientists found that the caudate area of the brain -- which is involved in cravings -- became very active. Another area that lit up: the ventral tegmental, which produces dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter that affects pleasure and motivation."

Some interesting websites on Science and Society

Report from the House of Lords Committee on Science and Technology.  An excellent assessment of the situation, analysis of root causes and recommendations for the future.  Published in 2000.

An interesting site by Bonnie Bucqueroux, who blogs about current threats and how we can respond at the personal and policy levels.  Great use of video and YouTube.

 There are dozens of Yahoo! Groups organized around energy issues.   Is it better to start a new group or join some other ones?  Or perhaps both?

Public Attitudes about Science in the UK

The following list was published in the third report of the House of Lord's Select Committee on Science and Society. It was published in 2000 but it still rings true today.

• The perceived purpose of science is crucial to the public response.
• People now question all authority, including scientific authority.
• People place more trust in science which is seen as "independent".
• There is still a culture of governmental and institutional secrecy in the United Kingdom, which invites suspicion.
• Some issues currently treated by decision-makers as scientific issues in fact involve many other factors besides science. Framing the problem wrongly by excluding moral, social, ethical and other concerns invites hostility.
• What the public finds acceptable often fails to correspond with the objective risks as understood by science. This may relate to the degree to which individuals feel in control and able to make their own choices.
• Underlying people's attitudes to science are a variety of values. Bringing these into the debate and reconciling them are challenges for the policy-maker.

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COMMENTS from the original blog

2006-12-01 12:47:40 stefano

Would Americans Hold the Same Attitudes

I wonder, for example, if Americans have the same degree of trust in science?  Is American science seen as independent as that of the UK?

Fallacies in the Science and Religion Debate

One of the things I would like to do with this blog is to watch the raging debate between Science and Religion carefully for erroneous characterizations or fallacious reasoning.

In particular, I am interested in ways that each misrepresent the "other" in the debate. It serves us well as observers in this dialog to repeatedly ask the question "how do we know?" Not all Scientists but certainly some of the most visible regularly succumb to the straw-man fallacy by trivializing religious institutions, beliefs and practices and then demolishing their stereotypes.

Contradictions in Public Attitudes Towards Science

Is anyone else concerned with the apparent contradictions in the list of public attitudes from the Third Report of the House of Lord's Select Committee on Science and Society?

I often wonder if we don't do science a disservice by "selling" and "promoting" science with its many applications.   On the one hand, society wants to have a clear understanding of the value of basic research.  Science needs to have a clear purpose in the public's view to justify the expense and attention it demands.  Yet, at the same time, the closer basic science moves towards applications, we sacrifice scientific independence, objectivity.  To be sure, the benefits of technology accrue to science;  but, on the other hand, so do the costs.  That public funds are being used to foster innovation and stimulate the private technology economy is both good and bad.

Beyond Technology and Business; Things that Matter

It was 2004.  I had three successful startups behind me and each one was more fun and more rewarding than the one before.  So why not ‘do’ another software startup?

Good question.

Well, from sometime in high school and throughout my undergraduate years at Dartmouth, I had been interested in History, specifically the History of Ideas, Civilization and Technology.  I wrote an honors thesis on the connection between Renaissance Art and the origins of Capitalism in Northern Italy.  I always read a lot but over time I began reading more about Natural History and Biology.  Connecting the evolution of human consciousness and social behavior with History, civilization and culture was inevitable.

John Durant and MIT's Science, Technology and Society Program

I met Dr. John Durant, Adjunct Professor in MIT’s “Science, Technology and Society” program (or STS) and Director of The MIT Museum.  He delivered a paper and led a colloquium entitled “What Role for STS?” on Monday the 16th of October, 2006.

This was a perfect event to attend.  I was very interested myself in seeing what role they thought such a group or program should have within an institution like MIT.  In the process I hoped to pick up a bit of history of the field, some important terminology, names, titles and even what you might call, the “Big Questions” in the field.

Richard Nelson and Moose in Alaska on NPR

I just listened to this super piece on NPR by Richard Nelson about moose in Alaska.  I was on a bagels run so I missed the beginning.  But I stayed in the car for about 5 minutes after I got home so I could hear the end of it.  It was a classic NPR moment: I was transported by radio from our driveway in New England to someplace in Alaska.

Meeting Alan Templeton at Wash U

I met Alan Templeton on Sunday at my father’s birthday party.  He is the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.  We had an interesting discussion about his work and my interests in Science and Society despite the short time and my urge to follow a number of really, really interesting tangents.

Most of our conversation was concentrated on his work with collared lizards in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri.  Apart from being very cute, these lizards are interesting because, together with several other rare species of plants and animals, they live in a cool and rare habitat in the high Ozark Plateau called a ‘glade habitat.’  Although I am not sure I really understand what it is, it sounds a bit like islands of isolated desert with thin, poor topsoil, exposed rock, grasses, and some shrubs separated by dense hardwood forests with thick undergrowth. It seems that this glade habitat is shrinking, a series of isolated and geographically discontinuous, small islands where both plants and animals loose genetic diversity and face extinction.  Wildfires played an important role in maintaining this habitat historically:  the “islands” were larger, connected by migration corridors and surrounded by a savannah landscape, much more open than the Ozarks we see today.

Of course, I asked him my question:  “How do you know?”

Thoughts on Mello and Fire's Prizewinning Work and Media Coverage

Craig Mello and Andrew Fire were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in Biology yesterday, October 3rd. At first glance, the coverage seemed wonderful.  But as I thought about it in more depth, it seemed symptomatic of the divide between Science and Society on so many levels.

Back from St. Louis

I am just back from our weekend in St. Louis.  I will be posting blog entries on my meetings with Dr. Alan Templeton and Dr. Garland Allen later this week.  Stay tuned.

Belief in War Affects Belief in WMD's

I noticed a little note in the August 7th edition of Time Magazine.  In a 2005 poll, 36% of Americans believed that Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction prior to our invasion in 2003.  And when surveyed again this year, 50% believed they had WMD’s.

My question is this:  what evidence has been presented in the past year that can account for these differences?  To the people who changed your minds:  what did you learn in the past 12 months?  How do you know what you know?

Started Consilience by E. O. Wilson

Fabulous.  Exactly what the Doctor ordered.  It's all about the unity of knowledge, a kind of grand unified field theory not only for the natural world but for the human experience.   What ambition!

And it's totally grounded in History, tracing the ideas from the emergence of Science and the Enlightenment to the present day.

Website opened

I did it.  I decided on a theme and a name.  Hope it works.  This is the beginning of a frightening, stimulating, completely open-ended process.  Who knows where it will lead?