From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sat Apr 12 2003 - 15:28:23 MDT
After reading this latest email from the Skeptics list, I thought some of
you may be interested in the two books featured here. I've not read them
(and am continually - no, permanently - behind in my reading), but the
subjects look tantalizing.
Olga
----- Original Message -----
From: "E-Skeptic" <skeptic-admin@lyris.net>
To: "Skeptics Society" <skeptics@lyris.net>
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 2:13 PM
Subject: E-SKEPTIC: TWO NEW SKEPTICS BOOKS/DEMON HAUNTED BRAIN
> E-SKEPTIC FOR APRIL 12, 2003
> Copyright 2003 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine,
e-Skeptic
> magazine (www.skeptic.com and skepticmag@aol.com). Permission to print,
> distribute, and post with proper citation and acknowledgment. We encourage
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> ------------------------
> TWO NEW SKEPTICS BOOKS
> Skeptic Magazine Senior Editor Frank Miele has recently authored two books
I
> wanted to alert everyone to. Frank has been a vital part of the
development
> and editing of Skeptic magazine articles, theme issues, and interviews, as
> well as Skeptics Society Caltech lectures, symposia, and conferences. I am
> pleased to recommend these two important contributions to some of the most
> controversial ideas in science and culture.
>
> Intelligence, Race, Genetics: Conversations with Arthur R. Jensen
(Boulder,
> CO: Westview Press) and The Battlegrounds of Bio-Science: Cross-Examining
the
> Experts on Evolutionary Psychology, Race, Intelligence, and Genetics, and
> Population, Environment, and Cloning (Bloomington, IN: 1stBooks Library)
>
> Intelligence, Race, and Genetics: Conversations with Arthur R. Jensen
was
> favorably reviewed by Intelligence and Metapsychology, recommended by the
> editors of Scientific American (Nov. 2002), becoming the best seller on
the
> SciAm on-line bookstore in its first month after publication, and endorsed
> by, among others, sociobiologist E. O. Wilson:
>
> "The work of an honest, courageous man, interviewing an honest, courageous
> man" --E. O. Wilson
>
> "Miele asks the hard questions and Jensen answers without blinking. A must
> read for critics and supporters alike." --Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr.,
> Professor of Psychology, University of Minnesota
>
> "Arthur Jensen has received endless criticism, much of it vituperative.
Yet,
> he has remained moderate in tone and has repeatedly been more data
oriented,
> more quantitative, more thorough, more scholarly, and more knowledgeable
than
> his critics. Here is a chance for those who have not read his technical
> writing to learn his mature views in easily accessible, question and
answer
> form." --James Crow, Professor Emeritus of Genetics,
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
> "An excellent introduction, overview and update about the man and the
science
> behind the 'ism' of Jensenism. In clear and candid dialogue, Jensen
> unflinchingly answers hard questions about the policy implications of his
> life's work." --Professor Robert Plomin, MRC Research Professor,
> Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
>
> "There is no more important subject than how we as a society best utilize
the
> precious gift of human intelligence. It is a tribute to Professor Jensen
and
> his skeptical inquisitor Frank Miele that Intelligence, Race, and Genetics
> successfully challenges the usual ideological posturing on this taboo
> subject. This is science at its best: cautious and audacious, gripping and
> timely." --Jon Entine, author of Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports
and
> Why We're Afraid to Talk About It
>
> "For those who have learned of 'Jensenism' and Arthur Jensen from the
popular
> press, this is a 'must read' book. Frank Miele asks the tough questions an
> informed skeptic should ask and gets answers understandable to the layman.
> Even if you have read everything Jensen has written, you will learn a lot
> about the man and his work." --Douglas K. Detterman
> Professor of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University
> Editor, Intelligence: A Multidisciplinary Journal
>
> Intelligence, Race, and Genetics can be ordered through
> http://www.sciam.com/books
> or through amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com
>
> The Battlegrounds of Bio-Science brings together in one volume Miele's
> Skeptic Magazine interviews of best selling, world class scholars such as
> evolutionists Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene) and E. O. Wilson (On
Human
> Nature, The Ants), anthropologists Donald Johanson (From Lucy to
Language),
> Lionel Tiger & Robin Fox (The Imperial Animal), psychologist Robert
Sternberg
> (The Encyclopedia of Intelligence), political scientist Charles Murray
(The
> Bell Curve), ecologist Garrett Hardin (The Tragedy of the Commons), and
> economist Julian Simon (The Ultimate Resource) who take opposing views on
> these controversial issues.
>
> Battlegrounds also includes Miele's highly regarded and widely used
> "Quick and Dirty Guides" which provide overviews to these subjects. One of
> them, "The (Im)moral Animal: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Evolutionary
> Psychology and the Nature of Human Nature" has been selected to appear on
the
> Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) web site, as well as being
named
> a Best Web Site resource by The Encyclopedia Britannica On-line, and
Zimbardo
> and Gerrig's widely used introductory psychology textbook, Psychology and
> Life.
>
> It and other of these articles and interviews have been included on the
> reading lists of the Jagellionian University (Cracow, Poland), the Russian
> Academy of Sciences (Zvenigorod, Russia), the National University of
Ireland
> in Galway, Monash University (Australia), the Konrad Lorenz Institute for
> Evolution and Cognition Research (Vienna, Austria), the University of
> Helsinki (Finland), the University of Toronto (Canada), the Vrei
Universiteit
> (Brussels, Belgium), the University of Massachusetts, and Syracuse
> University, as well as the Great Ideas in Personality, the Stephen Jay
Gould
> Archive Library, and other web sites.
>
> The Battlegrounds of Bio-Science can be ordered through amazon.com or
> barnesandnoble.com
>
> A frequent speaker and host at Skeptic Society meetings, Miele has been
> interviewed about his work on the Science Edition of KPCC's Air Talk (the
NPR
> affiliate for So. California) hosted by Michael Shermer & Larry Mantle,
> KQED's Forum (hosted by Michael Krasny), and The Karen Grant Show.
> -------------------
> DEMON-HAUNTED BRAIN
>
> Occasionally one of my monthly columns in Scientific American ("Skeptic")
> draws an extraordinary amount of mail. The March column, entitled
> Demon-Haunted Brain, is one of those. The general criticism was that just
> because apparent paranormal phenomena can be replicated through brain
> stimulation of various types does not mean that the paranormal phenomena
are
> not real. Here is the column, or you can just go to http://www.sciam.com
and
> download it there (along with the latest column on cloning entitled "I
Clone"
> that includes my analogue to Asimov's three laws of robotics in the "three
> laws of cloning"; as well as all past columns).
>
> SKEPTIC March, 2002
>
> Demon Haunted Brain
>
> If the brain mediates all experience then paranormal phenomena are nothing
> more than neuronal events.
>
> Michael Shermer
>
> Five centuries ago demons haunted our world, with incubi and succubi
> tormenting their victims as they lay asleep in their beds. Two centuries
ago
> spirits haunted our world, with ghosts and ghouls harassing their
sufferers
> all hours of the night. Last century aliens haunted our world, with grays
and
> greens abducting captives out of their beds and whisking them away for
> probing and prodding. Today people are experiencing out of body
experiences,
> floating above their beds, out of their bedrooms, and even off the planet
> into space.
>
> What is going on here? Are these elusive creatures and mysterious
phenomena
> in our world or in our minds? New evidence indicates that they are, in
fact,
> a product of the brain. Neuroscientist Michael Persinger, in his
laboratory
> at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada, for example, can induce all
of
> these experiences in subjects by subjecting their temporal lobes to
patterns
> of magnetic fields (I tried it and had a mild out-of-body experience).
>
> Similarly, the September 19, 2002 issue of Nature, reported that the Swiss
> neuroscientist Olaf Blanke and his colleagues discovered that they could
> bring about out-of-body experiences through electrical stimulation of the
> right angular gyrus in the temporal lobe of a 43-year old woman suffering
> from severe epileptic seizures. In initial mild stimulations she reported
> "sinking into the bed" or "falling from a height." More intense
stimulation
> led her to "see myself lying in bed, from above, but I only see my legs
and
> lower trunk." Another stimulation induced "an instantaneous feeling of
> 'lightness' and 'floating' about two meters above the bed, close to the
> ceiling."
>
> In a related study reported in the 2001 book Why God Won't Go Away,
> researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili found that when Buddhist
monks
> meditate and Franciscan nuns pray their brain scans indicate strikingly
low
> activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe, a region of the brain
the
> authors have dubbed the Orientation Association Area (OAA), whose job it
is
> to orient the body in physical space (people with damage to this area have
a
> difficult time negotiating their way around a house). When the OAA is
booted
> up and running smoothly there is a sharp distinction between self and
> non-self. When OAA is in sleep mode--as in deep meditation and
prayer--that
> division breaks down, leading to a blurring of the lines between reality
and
> fantasy, between feeling in body and out of body. Perhaps this is what
> happens to monks who experience a sense of oneness with the universe, or
with
> nuns who feel the presence of God, or with alien abductees floating out of
> their beds up to the mother ship.
>
> Sometimes trauma can trigger such experiences. The December 2001 issue of
> Lancet published a Dutch study in which of 344 cardiac patients
resuscitated
> from clinical death, 12 percent reported near-death experiences, where
they
> had an out-of-body experience and saw a light at the end of a tunnel. Some
> even described speaking to dead relatives. Since our normal experience is
of
> stimuli coming into the brain from the outside, when a part of the brain
> abnormally generates these illusions another part of the brain interprets
> them as external events. Hence, the abnormal is thought to be the
paranormal.
>
> These studies are only the latest to deliver blows against the belief that
> mind and spirit are separate from brain and body. In reality, all
experience
> is mediated by the brain. Large brain areas like the cortex coordinate
> imputes from smaller brain areas such as the temporal lobes, which
themselves
> collate neural events from still smaller brain modules like the angular
> gyrus. This reduction continues all the way down to the single neuron
level,
> where highly-selective neurons, sometimes described as "grandmother"
neurons
> fire only when subjects see someone they know. Caltech neuroscientists
> Christof Koch and Gabriel Kreiman, in conjunction with UCLA neurosurgeon
> Itzhak Fried have even found a single neuron that fires when the subject
is
> shown a photograph of Bill Clinton. The Monica neuron must be closely
> connected.
>
> Of course, we are not aware of the workings of our own electrochemical
> systems. What we actually experience is what philosophers call qualia, or
> subjective states of thoughts and feelings that arise from a concatenation
of
> neural events.
>
> It is the fate of the paranormal and the supernatural to be subsumed into
the
> normal and the natural. In fact, there is no paranormal or supernatural;
> there is only the normal and the natural--and mysteries yet to be
explained.
> It is the job of science, not pseudoscience, to solve those puzzles with
> natural, not supernatural, explanations.
>
> Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and
author
> of Why People Believe Weird Things, now in a revised edition.
>
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