Posted on February 27th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
The blog Journey to Perplexity notes that Gerald Edelman’s book Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge offers some valuable insights into why “the mind is not a computer.” I am not sure who writes this blog, but he seems to be writing from a philosophical background.
http://iamyouasheisme.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/the-mind-is-not-a-computer/
Its been a while since I read [...]
Filed under: Neuroscience, philosophy of mind | 4 Comments »
Posted on February 23rd, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
In a recent blog post I objected to Richard Lewontin’s claim that we know nothing about the evolution of the human brain. Apparently my reaction was shared by quite a few researchers in the field. Michael Butler describes their reaction at an interdisciplinary panel that was also held at this year’s AAAS annual meeting.
One thing [...]
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Posted on February 22nd, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
György Buzsáki, author of Rhythms of the Brain (OUP 2006) is a Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers University. His book is a comprehensive review of the current state of research in the field of brain oscillations. It includes the role of these oscillations in sleep and memory. In episode 31 of the Brain Science [...]
Filed under: Interviews, Neuroscience, Podcast Show Notes, brain science | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 22nd, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
Episode 30 of the Brain Science Podcast was devoted to the subject of language evolution. In that episode I mentioned Steven Jay Gould’s claim that language was a spandrel, an incidental by-product of evolution. Gould’s co-author on his famous 1970’s paper about spandrels was Richard Lewontin, who is well-known for disagreeing with prevailing opinions in [...]
Filed under: Neuroscience, brain science | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 19th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
The Science magazine podcast is providing highlights from this year’s AAAS meeting in Boston.
So far, I found the discussion of the evolution of morality with Marc Hauser and several other scientists to very interesting. One issue that was raised was whether the utility of a theory depends on its ability to generate testable hypotheses. Listen [...]
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Posted on February 18th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
There is lots of interesting stuff coming out of this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I hope to attend the meeting in person next year. This year’s meeting is over but I hope to bring you a few brain-related highlights in the next few days.
Since episode 30 I [...]
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Posted on February 17th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
Nancy Yanes-Hoffman sent me this review of an article just published in the Journal of Neuroscience:
That was good!” “Do it again.”
This is what the brain says when people use tobacco, as well as ‘hard drugs’ such as heroin. New research published in the February 13 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience indicates that the effects [...]
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Posted on February 16th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
There is an interesting paper in this week’s Science magazine that suggests that being tested might be an essential component of making what we study part of long term memory. In the study students had memorize Swahili-English word pairs. According to the authors, “Repeated studying after learning had no effect on delayed recall, but repeated [...]
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Posted on February 15th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
The latest episode of Talking Robots is an interview with Inman Harvey of the University of Sussex. He observes that when researchers attempt to build automous robots their approach is strongly influenced by their philosophy of mind, even if that philosophy is only implicit. He also points out that what he calls “good old-fashioned AI” [...]
Filed under: Podcasts, artificial intelligence | Comments Off
Posted on February 13th, 2008 by Ginger Campbell, MD
The Brain Science (Podcast) is featured in an article entitled, “Wizzard Media Closes Second Podcast Ad Deal with U.S. Navy” (FoxBusiness.com 2/12/08), but they got the name wrong!
Hopefully, Brain Science is close enough to help people find the Brain Science Podcast.
Filed under: Podcast, announcements, brain science | 2 Comments »
