Robert Cialdini and the Science of Persuasion: “I was sitting in a car outside Marks & Spencer in Camden when I realised that Professor Robert Cialdini had completely changed my way of looking at the world…” (Times.UK)
Daily Archives: 12 Nov 07
‘Reductio ad Absurdum’ Dept.
Depression Study Suggests Model for Neurological Basis of Psychotherapy: ‘A new study has provided preliminary evidence that similar neurobiological mechanisms underlie psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. The study found an association between genotypic variation in 2 receptors associated with antidepressant response and patients’ responses to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
Specific polymorphisms of HTR2A (a serotonin receptor) and NTRK2 (a receptor for brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF), as well as their interactions, appear to predict the effectiveness of CBT in patients with unipolar depression.’ (Medscape)
Oh man, is this an unwarranted stretch if I have ever heard one. The fact that a genotypic variation which correlates with antidepressant responsiveness also correlates with responsiveness to a type of talk therapy for depression carries next to no implication that that mechanisms at that receptor underlie the neurobiological response to therapy! I hope it is easy to see that this is an exemplar of the classical fallacy of taking correlation for causation. Through the years, there have been a spate of speculative papers attempting to reduce psychotherapy response to a neurobiological mechanism. Well, duh, all mental events operate via neurons and neurochemicals, right? Surely ‘reduce’, as in reductionism, is the operative word in these attempts.
Supreme Court could take guns case
Although it is always the case that what cases the SCOTUS will agree to review is anyone’s guess, speculation runs high that it could agree to hear Washington DC’s appeal of a lower court ruling which struck down its 31-year ban on handguns on Second Amendment (“the right to bear arms”) grounds. (Yahoo!)
Thanks, but No Thanks
Volunteers turning out to help clean up San Francisco Bay beaches after the oil spill were turned away, threatened with arrest, or asked to sign loyalty oaths. (FireDogLake) Does this make any sense to you?
Eleven Days Awake
To this day, no one knows the limits of human wakefulness. Although since superseded, here is a piece about a 1963 high school stunt that turned into a groundbreaking sleep deprivation experiment. Excerpted from Alex Boese’s Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. (Neatorama via Kevin Kelly)
NerdArt
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Kevin Kelly writes: “More than once, the nerdy Icelandic/Danish artist Olafur Eliasson has donated 3 tons of white lego bricks to a community and had their kids construct cityscapes. The resulting art is beautiful. I much prefer fantasy constructions with Lego, to any reproduction of an existing thing, which most Lego building seems to be about. These community built cities have all the glory of community built cities in real life.” (KK Lifestream )
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![//theworld.com/~emg/lego.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://theworld.com/%7Eemg/lego.jpg "Eliassonville") |
