Saturday, January 21, 2006

Nature, culture & the revival of the naturalistic paradigm. In the interview below with anthropologist Dan Sperber I allude to the "naturalistic paradigm" in anthropology. What does this mean? Sperber, along with Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer and Laurence Hirschfield are anthropologists who treat culture as an outgrowth of a natural and reducible process mediated by the human mind. Sperber often speaks of the "epidemiology of representations." He examines the dynamics which constrain the transmission of cognitive representations within and between cultures, in short, memetics with an awareness of the limits and biases of the mind as elucidated by cognitive psychology. The difference between the naturalistic paradigm and the standard social science model employed within cultural anthropology today is detailed very well in the short book Theological Incorrectness, by Jason D. Slone. Slone's book is an elaboration on his doctoral thesis, where he argued that people often represent ideas about god(s) in their minds which are at sharp variance with their professed creeds. Despite the putatively narrow focus of Slone's work the first third is an incisive critique of the standard anthropological program which is emphasizes "thick description" and "local pecularities" at the expense of general assertions and insights about human behavior. As Scott Atran notes, the problem with the localized model which emphasizes culturally based differences and mutual unintelligibility because of the lack of common references is that the very act of perception of difference indicates that those outside the culture can intuit the general character of that culture without being of that culture. In other words, the very act of going beyond assertion to argument implies knowledge and understanding which is denied by the argument! The school of naturalistic anthropology deviates from this self-refutation and takes a step back from the continuous process of critique as it attempts to synthesize the findings of cognitive psychology, anthropology and evolutionary psychology. It assumes that humans have universal cognitive modalities which are constrained and canalized by biological points of departure. Our capacity for abstraction and system building is buffered by the nature of our intuitions about the world around us, and the semantic distinctions we make often have more to do with coalition building than a genuine difference of ontologies. In short, while some would assert that the seminal function to analyze is: Culture(input) = behavior The naturalistical model might assert that the central dynamic of study is: Mind(input) = culture In other words, cultural is a function of the inputs into the human mind, as opposed to mind being conditioned by cultural filters. [Gene Expression] 2:12:05 PM    comment []

Israeli Forces Trained for Iran Strike. This Jerusalem Post piece reports that the Israeli Air Force is trained for a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The reserve colonel who led the 1981 strike against Iraq's reactor at Osirak believes that an assault is possible despite the obvious lessons that Iran would have gleaned from the Iraqi experience, dispersing and probably hardening its facilities. The 1981 strike initiated what has come to be referred to as the Begin Doctine, Israel's assertion of the right to make a preemptive strike to prevent any of its Arab neighbors from attaining nuclear weapons capability. [Follow Me Here...] 2:11:22 PM    comment []

What It Takes. In the ongoing string theory comment thread (which, by the way, I'm really happy to see), "Who" steps off first to ask an interesting question: One way to give operational meaning to a theory being predictive in the sense of being empirically testable is to ask What future experimental result would cause you to reject the theory? I think what worries a lot of people about string thinking is that it seems so amorphous that it might be able to accomodate any future experimental measurement. In fact I am not aware of any string theorist's answer to this basic question. It's an interesting question, and not just for string theory. The book I'll be using for my "Quantum Optics" class in the spring term spends a good deal of time on the history of experimental attempts to prove the existence of photons. It turns out to be a really difficult thing to do, because people can keep finding theoretical loopholes. When you start looking itno the history, the Qwiki page for "Photon" has the definition about right: A little word that can cause a lot of problems... The simplest experiment you can do-- setting up a detector or a camera that records individual photons-- is a complete non-starter. You see discrete spots, or hear discrete "clicks" on your detector, but there's nothing about that that proves you've got photons. Historically, a lot of textbooks point to Einstein's theory of the photoelectric effect (which is officially what got him the Nobel) as the demonstration that photons exist. The photon theory works very nicely in this case, but even after Einstein's model was experimentally confirmed, there were people who really didn't buy it. In fact, you can develop a semi-classical model (treating the atoms as quantum objects with discrete states, but the light as a continuous classical wave) that reproduces all the features of the photoelectric effect. The Compton effect was actually more convincing, historically, but there's a dodge around that one, too (I don't recall what it is, though, and the book is at work). There are a number of other experiments that have been claimed as proof of the photon nature of light (Hanbury-Brown and Twiss, for example), but all of them turn out to have semi-classical explanations. The experiment that finally settled the question for just about everybody was the observation of photon anti-bunching. In 1977, a full 72 years after Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect. (More after the cut.) [Uncertain Principles] 2:11:18 PM    comment []

The Internet is falling, the Internet is falling!. Balkanization, fragmentation... cyberspace is doomed! [Salon - How the World Works] 6:53:18 AM    comment []

Iran shifts billions from banks in Europe amid fears of UN sanctions. Iranian government shifts billions from banks in Britain and the rest of Europe amid fears of UN sanctions. [Guardian Unlimited] 6:52:53 AM    comment []

Google, Subpoena, and Privacy. [I wrote this as a contribution to the discussion on Dave Farber's mailing list, but I might as well shout to the wind here, as it may not make the moderation cut. The best documentation I've seen is Gary Price's summary at Blog.SearchEngineWatch.com] Let's take a deep breath and step back for a minute, and recall that this all started from a statistics professor's bright idea of how to design a survey of search engines and measuring how many porn sites are in the average results. It's not Big Brother, NSA Echelon, Total Information Awareness, or any sort of attempt to snoop on individuals. The government narrowed the request down to a sample of one million URLs and "a random sampling of one million search queries submitted to www.google.com on a given day" (page 14, McElvain Declaration file). That's it. And it's hedged with protective orders and presumably whatever non-disclosure agreements are necessary. If I were to be utterly cynical, I'd conjecture that Google decided to make a big noise over this relatively trivial request as a PR strategy to counter the increasing criticism of its omnivorous database collection practices. Remember, there's fever-swamping wolf-criers who will hype an error in government website cookie settings into attacks on privacy laws, or a minor change in obscure harassment provisions to be the end of anonymous blog comment posting. So marketing a storyline of "Google Stands Up To THE FEDS To Protect YOUR PRIVACY" will be quite appealing to a certain mentality, even if the effects are insignificant in practice. Essentially, Google can't lose here. If the subpoena is quashed, it's a big hero for beating back Government Snooping. If not, Google gets to loudly divert attention to the terrible, terrible injustice of being forced by men with guns to produce some search strings for a survey. This will probably inoculate Google against much critical examination in the press, since it will point to how it Stood Up For Freedom. Now, there's a way in which this could be consciousness-raising, regarding the privacy implications of the huge amount of personal data collected by search engines. But such examination would require journalists going beyond the PR-chow they'll be fed. And sadly, I doubt that will happen. [Infothought] 6:52:47 AM    comment []

Judge Strikes Down Md. Ban on Gay Marriage [Washington Post: Top News] 6:37:19 AM    comment []

With Threat of Sanctions, Iran Protects Some Assets [New York Times: International News] 6:36:45 AM    comment []

Fun with Fonts. I Want To linked to Logo54.com which allows you to use some very recognizable fonts to create your own logos! Star Wars, Harry Potter, Monsters Inc, Ferrari, Yahoo, or Nintendo are available. Imagine this on the publicity for your next computer class? Or How about the publicity for your next hot teen program? Tags: logos fonts typography ['Brary Web Diva] 6:36:11 AM    comment []

Rove: It's the (eternal) war, stupid!. In his first speech in two months, "Bush's brain" laid out his plan for GOP victory: War, war and more war. [Salon] 6:35:48 AM    comment []

Rove Offers Republicans A Battle Plan For Elections [Washington Post: Top News] 6:35:15 AM    comment []

Cell phones silent in Katmandu. As an indicator of the power of cellular phones as grassroots organizing tools, Nepalese authorities have shut down cellular phone service in Katmandu in conjunction with numerous of political arrests. The power of technology is always clearest when those who stand to lose power through its use attempt to limit its availability. Read the rest in ... Andrew Gianni [PJM - Top Stories] 6:34:50 AM    comment []

New York Moves to Limit Colleges That Seek Profit. The freeze on commercial colleges comes as officials nationwide look to tighten rules on this booming sector of higher education. By KAREN W. ARENSON. [NYT > Education] 6:34:14 AM    comment []

Seed Magazine launches science blog-network. Cory Doctorow: Seed Magazine, my hands-down favorite science magazine, has launched a network of topical science blogs, covering the leading edge of science and culture. Topics include: Adventures in Ethics and Science Aetiology Afarensis Cognitive Daily Deltoid Dispatches from the Culture Wars Evolgen Gene Expression The Intersection Living the Scientific Life No Se Nada Commentary Pharyngula Stranger Fruit Uncertain Principles These are going straight into my RSS reader. Link (Thanks, Luke!) [Boing Boing] 6:33:47 AM    comment []

Broadcast Flag is back, this time it covers iPods and PSPs, too.  The Senate has introduced the "Digital Content Protection Act of 2006," a bill that will create "Broadcast Flags" for all digital radio and television, leading to FCC oversight of all new digital media technologies from iPods and PSPs to TVs and DVD recorders. Under the DCPA proposal, digital media technologies would be restricted to using technologies that had been certified by the FCC as being not unduly disruptive to entertainment industry business-models. There are two things to be certain of this century: 1. Everything that can be expressed as bits will be expressed as bits 2. Bits will only get easier to copy  . . .  If the current entertainment companies can't or won't adapt to a world of bits, that's too bad. Let them die, and let new businesses that thrive in the new technological reality take their place. If you can't stand the heat, get off the volcano. Back in the mainframe days, IBM made its money by giving away computers below cost and then charging a bundle for keyboards and printers. Hitachi killed the mainframe business by introducing cheap peripherals for IBM mainframes. Killing mainframes didn't kill computers: it made them better. IBM was forced to get into the minicomputer business, which led to the personal computer.  . . . Hollywood's crybaby capitalists accuse us of being "communists" with one breath, and in the next, they go begging to Congress to turn the FCC into device czars who keep the market from being disrupted by innovation.  . . . Send a strong signal to your lawmaker: if you break my TV, radio, and computer, I will campaign tirelessly for anyone who will promise to throw you out of office and undo your deeds. Watch this space for opportunities to write to your Senator and send this message. Link (Thanks, Alex!)  [Boing Boing] 6:33:25 AM    comment []