animal cognition
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On human uniqueness and invasive species.
On evolutionary timescales, we are a slow-moving meaty wrecking ball. And our spread, apparently, resembles that of any other invasive species.
Adolph Lyons, animal cognition, animal teaching, Black Lives Matter, brain size, cooked food, excessive force, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, homogenizing brains, human evolution, human extinctions, human migration, human migratory patterns, invasive species, Lyons v. Los Angeles, McCleskey v. Kemp, Neanderthal, neural circuitry, number of neurons in human brain, origin of knowledge, overcrowding, overpopulation, police chokeholds, quintet of hate machines, r-type population growth, racial injustice, sexual dimorphism, Stanford Graduate School of Education, starfish evolution, starvation, supreme court nomination, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, the plow brings misogyny, Trump supreme court appointment, u.s. supreme court
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On fish (and their similarities to us).
We so often denigrate the capacities of presumed others. It’s much harder to exploit those whom you know feel.
animal cognition, animal learning, animal models of human psychiatric disorders, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are, brain science, Descartes was wrong, differences between life in water and on land, dogs, fish, fish feel pain, Frans de Waal, Jonathan Balcombe, leopard gecko, mistreatment of animals, neural plasticity, Project Prakash, racism, Sean Carroll, The Big Picture, the evolution of intelligence, the suffering of others, What a Fish Knows
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On octopus literature, a reprise: what would books be like if we didn’t love gossip?
Of all intelligent species I know of, only the octopus evolved its mind for purposes other than keeping track of gossip.
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On Gerry Alanguilan’s “ELMER,” his author bio, and animal cognition.
In ELMER by Gary Alanguilan, chickens suddenly gain intelligence and have to fight against murder, oppression, and prejudice.
abortion rights, Andy Hartzell, animal cognition, chicken, David Duchovny, ELMER, empathy, ethics, evolution, Fox Bunny Funny, Frans de Waal, Gerry Alanguilan, graphic novel, Holy Cow, Homo naledi, live your ethics, Peter Singer, speciest, suffering, teleological misconception, teleology, vegan, vegetarian
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On attempts to see the world through other eyes.
Recoloring an image is cool … but is it enough to imagine how other animals view a certain scene?
A Different Form of Color Vision in Mantis Shrimp, animal cognition, animal vision, animal vision tool, attention, brain plasticity, color vision, colorblind glasses, cone cells, crotalomorphism, dichromat, distinguishing between similar colors, eyes, facial recognition, frequency shifting, fusiform gyrus, gene therapy, glasses to let colorblind people see color, human facial recognition, image processing, mantis shrimp, mantis shrimp research, mantis shrimp vision, neurological processing, New York Times, peacock vision, perception, photoreceptors, retrovirus, species, starling vision, summer of science, tetrachromat, Thoen study, trichromat, vision, visual spectrum, what do bees see, what do dogs see, what does the world look like to other animals, what does the world look like to other creatures
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On watchful gods, trust, and how academic scientists undermined their own credibility.
Despite my disagreements with a lot of its details, I thoroughly enjoyed Ara Norenzayan’s Big Gods. The book posits an explanation for the current global dominance of the big three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Instead of the “quirks of history & dumb luck” explanation offered in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, Norenzayan suggests…
Abrahamic faiths, Abrahamic religions, animal cognition, Ara Norenzayan, atheism, Automaticity of Social Behavior, Bargh, Big Gods, climate change, credibility, Daniel Dennett, experimental psychology, false positive, False-Positive Psychology, Freedom Evolves, Guns Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond, John Bargh, Joseph Simmons, Jurgen Osterhammel, Kanesh, Leonard Wantchekon, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Nathan Nunn, priming, religion, replication, scientific method, scientific publishing, social psychology, statistical significance, statistically significant, survivor bias, The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa, The Transformation of the World, trust, truth, unethical research
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On mental architecture and octopus literature.
I might spend too much time thinking about how brains work. Less than some people, sure — everybody working on digital replication of human thought must devote more energy than I do to the topic, and they’re doing it in a more rigorous way — but for a dude with no professional connection to cognitive…
Frank Brown Cloud 