Воздействие на мозг изменило моральные нормы испытуемых

31 марта 2010





Учёные нарушили работу одной из зон мозга с помощью магнитного поля. Более ранние исследования, кстати, показали, что стимуляция аналогичной зоны левого полушария может вызывать призраков (иллюстрация Rebecca Sax).




Нейрологи из Массачусетского технологического института (MIT) нарушили у подопытных активность правого височно-теменного стыка (TPJ). Результат воздействия на зону, предположительно связанную с прогнозированием допустимости действий, весьма удивил учёных.


Как сообщается в пресс-релизе MIT, всего было проведено два эксперимента. В ходе первого участникам было предложено прочесть ряд сценариев — моральных головоломок и оценить по шкале от одного до семи (где 1 – "абсолютно запрещено", 7 – "совершенно допустимо"), насколько приемлемы действия персонажа. Перед началом этого теста в височно-теменную зону подопытных в течение 25 минут посылались магнитные импульсы (метод ТМС).


Во время второго опыта волонтёры выносили суждения под воздействием коротких очередей магнитных "помех", происходивших уже в реальном времени, с интервалом в 500 миллисекунд.


В обоих случаях было отмечено нарушение нормальной нейронной активности в зоне TPJ, что удивительным образом выключало у большинства испытуемых механизм принятия моральных решений. Иными словами, испытуемые с гораздо большей вероятностью оценивали попытки причинить вред другому лицу как допустимые. В контрольной группе, участники который не подвергались воздействию на мозг, подобного перегиба не наблюдалось.


Статья учёных опубликована в PNAS. Кстати, одновременно в Neuron вышел материал той же команды из MIT, где исследуется сходный вопрос, но теперь уже в связи с вентромедиальным префронтальным участком коры (VPC), подробности можно узнать в пресс-релизе.

Тлей уличили в воровстве генов у грибов-паразитов

Ученые выяснили, что в прошлом гороховые тли "украли" у паразитирующих на них грибов гены, необходимые для синтеза каротиноидов - чрезвычайно важных веществ, которые, в частности, выполняют функции антиоксидантов. Работа специалистов опубликована в журнале Science. Cуть исследования описана в пресс-релизе университета Аризоны.
Тли - это паразитические насекомые, питающиеся соками растений. Считалось, что, как и другие насекомые, тли не могут самостоятельно производить каротиноиды. Тем не менее, каким-то образом они получают их (в частности, именно каротиноиды определяют красный цвет покровов некоторых видов тлей). По одной из версий, эти вещества тли заимствуют у своих бактерий-симбионтов.

Однако авторы новой работы в ходе лабораторных экспериментов выяснили, что бактерии не имеют отношения к синтезу каротиноидов: в теле лишенных их тлей они содержались в тех же количествах. Одна из линий тлей, которых разводили исследователи, в результате случайной мутации приобрела не красную, а оранжевую окраску покровов. Скрещивая мутантных насекомых с нормальными, ученые выяснили, что наследование окраски подчиняется законам Менделя. Этот результат указывал, что гены синтеза каротиноидов находится в геноме самих тлей.

В феврале 2010 года был расшифрован полный геном гороховой тли Acyrthosiphon pisum. Авторы новой работы нашли в полученной последовательности гены, ответственные за синтез каротиноидов, и сравнили их с аналогичными генами других групп организмов. Оказалось, что больше всего они напоминают "каротиноидные" гены грибов, некоторые из которых являются паразитами тлей.

Авторы полагают, что в ходе длительного сосуществования грибов и тлей последние "позаимствовали" полезные гены. Примеры переноса участков геномной ДНК от одного организма к другому встречаются в природе нередко (чемпионами по такому переносу являются бактерии), однако до сих пор исследователи не сталкивались со случаями переноса генов от грибов к животным. Дело в том, что Царство грибов и Царство животных генетически очень далеко отстоят друг от друга, и поэтому до сих пор генетический обмен между их представителями считался маловероятным.


Ссылки по теме
- Lateral Transfer of Genes from Fungi Underlies Carotenoid Production in Aphids - Science, 30.04.2010
- UA Scientists Discover First Case of Animals Making Their Own Carotene - пресс-релиз университета Аризоны, 29.04.2010
- Биологи расшифровали геном тли – Lenta.ru, 24.02.2010
- Сложную жизнь тлей свели к простым уравнениям – Lenta.ru, 03.02.2010
- Ученые обнаружили тлей-обманщиц – Lenta.ru, 19.12.2008

Сайты по теме
- Тли в Википедии

Человечеству могут грозить квантовые болезни
1.04.10 | Физика, Медицина, Игорь Иванов | Комментарии (27)



Вскоре физики смогут переводить вирусы в состояние квантовой суперпозиции. Рис с сайта www.nature.com


Ученые разработали схему эксперимента, позволяющего поместить в квантовое состояние суперпозиции вирус гриппа. Будучи — с какой-то долей вероятности — одновременно опасным и безопасным для здоровья человека, такой вирус, в полной аналогии с «котом Шрёдингера», передавшись человеку, переведет его в состояние, когда тот одновременно и болен, и здоров.

Современные технологии позволяют физикам изучать квантовые эффекты материи не только на уровне отдельных атомов и молекул, но и в небольших коллективах атомов. Например, исследователи уже научились переводить микроскопические облачка атомов в квантовое состояние суперпозиции, при котором те одновременно существуют в двух местах в пространстве и движутся по двум разным траекториям (подробности см. в новости Гравитационная постоянная измерена новыми методами).

Эти исследования уже достигли такого размаха, что в квантовые состояния суперпозиции сейчас помещают даже относительно крупные объекты, размером в несколько микрон. Поэтому вполне логичной кажется мысль попробовать проделать такой же эксперимент и с каким-нибудь небольшим живым организмом, например вирусом. Именно эта идея была рассмотрена в статье Towards quantum superposition of living organisms («На пути к квантовой суперпозиции живых организмов»), опубликованной недавно в журнале New Journal of Physics. Авторы этой работы во всех подробностях описывают схему эксперимента, позволяющего «приготовить» вирус гриппа в состоянии суперпозиции.

Такая ситуация очень напоминает знаменитый мысленный опыт с котом Шрёдингера, так что закрепившееся за этой идеей название «вирус Шрёдингера» вовсе не случайно. Этот эксперимент с вирусом пока не реализован, но можно не сомневаться, что его осуществление не за горами!

Предлагая этот опыт, исследователи стремились подготовить экспериментальную почву для совершенно новой области естествознания — науки о взаимодействии живого и квантового. Но так ли безопасна эта затея?

Рассмотрим гипотетическую (пока) возможность перевести какой-нибудь вирус в такое квантовое состояние, при котором он — с какой-то долей вероятности — будет одновременно опасным и безопасным для здоровья человека. В полной аналогии с «котом Шрёдингера», передавшись человеку и провзаимодействовав с ним, такой вирус и самого человека переведет в состояние, когда тот одновременно и болен, и здоров — опять же, с некоторой долей вероятности. Но в этом случае попытка диагностировать заболевание становится очень опасной! Действительно, врач, наблюдая за пациентом, может привести к коллапсу его волновой функции, то есть одним лишь взглядом ввести пациента в состояние «болен со 100-процентной вероятностью». Таким образом, мы приходим к поразительному, но единственно верному с квантовой точки зрения выводу: подобные квантовые заболевания ни в коем случае нельзя пытаться диагностировать!

С такой ситуацией медицина еще никогда не сталкивалась. Но, к счастью, и из этой ситуации, похоже, есть выход. Опирается он на другое недавнее исследование, опубликованное в журнале Physical Review Letters. Оказывается, с распространением болезни можно очень эффективно бороться с помощью случайной вакцинации. По-видимому, тот же принцип сработает и при лечении квантовых больных. Это будет означать, что победить квантовую болезнь можно будет, случайно вводя квантовое лекарство кому попало и даже не проверяя, с какой степенью вероятности болен ею каждый конкретный индивид.

Таким образом, квантовая механика может найти еще одно неожиданное применение в повседневной жизни человека.

Источники:
1) O. Romero-Isart, M. L. Juan, R. Quidant, J. I. Cirac. Towards Quantum Superposition of Living Organisms // New J. Phys. 12, 033015 (2010). Текст доступен также в архиве е-принтов (arXiv:0909.1469).
2) M. I. Dykman, I. B. Schwartz, A. S. Landsman. Disease Extinction in the Presence of Random Vaccination // Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 078101 (2008).

См. также:
1) Физики описали технологию превращения вируса в кота Шредингера.
2) Грег Бир. Чума Шрёдингера.

Игорь Иванов

Пролит свет на происхождение полов

Пролит свет на происхождение полов

19 апреля 2010





"Вольвокс и его родственники – хорошая модель для изучения эволюции полового диморфизма. Благодаря им мы можем пошагово проследить развитие разницы между полами, что невозможно сделать, исследуя сложные организмы – растения и животных", – говорит глава группы Джеймс Умен (James Umen).




Используя в качестве моделей многоклеточную зелёную водоросль Volvox carteri и её одноклеточного родственника Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, учёные из института Солка (Salk Institute for Biological Studies) исследовали секреты появления различий между женскими и мужскими организмами.


Нынешняя работа предоставляет первое эмпирическое обоснование модели, предполагающей, что двуполые организмы появились благодаря процессу постепенного захвата генов. Последние брали на себя функции по производству мужских и женских клеток (гамет).


"Гаметы одноклеточных, таких как хламидомонады, выглядят одинаково. Многоклеточный вольвокс производит различимые мужские и женские клетки (простейший диморфизм). Но как произошёл этот переход, никто не знает", — поясняет Джеймс. Умен и его команда исследовали генетические коды V. carteri и C. reinhardtii и обнаружили так называемый локус спаривания (mating locus) – аналог X- и Y-хромосом, определяющих пол.






Слева: вегетативная женская колония V. carteri образует сфероид, состоящий из 2-4 тысяч индивидуальных клеток, объединённых одним внеклеточным матриксом. В период бесполого размножения клетки колонии производят новые повторяющимся делением. Справа: мужская колония. В период полового размножения мужские клетки V. carteri производят пакеты спермы, в каждом из которых 64 или 128 половых клеток. Эти группы, двигаясь как единое целое, достигают женского сфероида, где распадаются, чтобы оплодотворить женские клетки (фото Umen laboratory/Salk Institute for Biological Research).


Локус более сложного V. carteri был в пять раз длиннее такового у хламидомонад (при этом часть генов в локусах были одинаковыми). Откуда взялись дополнительные гены? Чуть позже выяснилось, что некоторые из них присутствуют и у C. reinhardtii, только не в локусе спаривания, а рядом с ним. Получается, что многоклеточный организм "нанял их на работу" в половом размножении.


"До сих пор считалось, что половые хромосомы – это области постоянного разрушения, потери генов, не используемых для полового размножения, — рассказывает в пресс-релизе Умен. – Мы же увидели регионы, в которых происходит быстрый набор и переподготовка нового генетического материала".






Микробиологи также взялись за изучение локуса спаривания "переходного звена" между хламидомонадами и вольвоксом – гониума (Gonium), в колонии этих водорослей обычно 4-16 клеток (фото Entwisle et al.).


Сейчас биологи изучают эти новоприобретённые гены локуса V. carteri, чтобы понять роли каждого из них в определении пола и половом развитии. Кое-какие данные уже получены – читайте о них в статье авторов работы в журнале Science. Любопытно, что и в современном мире не всё так просто с разделением полов: читайте об организмах, в которых одновременно "сидят" и мальчик, и девочка.



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В мозге человека впервые обнаружены зеркальные нейроны

15 апреля 2010





Зеркальные нейроны отвечают за подражание. Но ранее прямые свидетельства их существования были получены лишь в ходе опытов с обезьянами. Между тем именно зеркальным клеткам мы обязаны способностью к "чтению" чужих мыслей, настроения и вообще – к сопереживанию (иллюстрация University of California Los Angeles).




Зеркальные нейроны — клетки мозга, работающие не только во время непосредственного выполнения какого-то действия, но и тогда, когда мы видим (думаем), как то же самое делают другие. Биологи из Калифорнийского университета в Лос-Анджелесе (UCLA) впервые доказали, что в мозге человека они действительно присутствуют.


Группа Ицхака Фрида (Itzhak Fried) обследовала 21 пациента с эпилепсией. Этим людям имплантировали внутричерепные электроды для выявления областей будущего хирургического вмешательства. С согласия больных биологи UCLA параллельно провели свои исследования. В общей сложности под наблюдением оказались 1177 нейронов.


Эксперимент был разделён на три этапа. Сначала пациенты должны были смотреть на картинку на компьютере, где те или иные действия выполняются другими людьми (фаза наблюдения). Затем, увидев на мониторе слово, больные должны были выполнить то действие, что оно описывало (фаза активности). И наконец в последнем задании пациентов просили просто прочесть слово и ничего не делать (контрольная фаза).


Учёные записали активность как отдельных нейронов, так и групп клеток, причём не только в предсказанных двигательных областях головного мозга, но также в регионах, ответственных за зрение и память. Выяснилось, что зеркальные клетки усиливали работу в активной фазе и "уменьшали" в наблюдательной.


"Мы считаем, что в момент наблюдения нейроны подавляют автоматический повтор увиденных действий другого индивида. Также они, скорее всего, помогают нам отличить свои действия от чужих", — рассказывает в пресс-релизе UCLA Рой Мукамель (Roy Mukamel).


Статья авторов опубликована в журнале Current Biology. Узнайте также о борьбе за нейроны полушарий мозга и о том, как было обнаружено, что эти клетки действуют несогласованно.



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АВСТРАЛИЙСКИЕ УЧЕНЫЕ ПРОГНОЗИРУЮТ ЭПИДЕМИЮ ДЕМЕНЦИИ

Татьяна БАТЕНЁВА



Австралийские ученые прогнозируют эпидемию старческой деменции, которая будет нарастать катастрофическими темпами. Но подобные опасения высказывают врачи и других цивилизованных стран. Причина, как ни парадоксально, - в успехах медицины.

Деменция, или старческое слабоумие, обычно начинается незаметно. Ухудшается память, слабеет абстрактное мышление, теряются ориентировка в пространстве и контроль за сложными действиями... Среди людей до 65 лет такие изменения отмечаются у одного из пятидесяти, но среди тех, кому за 80, уже у каждого пятого. У некоторых деменция прогрессирует так быстро, что они не могут жить без посторонней помощи. Причинами служат генетическая предрасположенность (болезнь Альцгеймера), но могут быть и другие факторы - ожирение, высокий уровень холестерина, диабет, даже образ жизни, когда человек добровольно сокращает повседневные заботы, круг общения и интеллектуальные усилия.

Ученые посчитали, что к 2020 году больных деменцией в Австралии будет больше, чем страдающих раком и сердечными заболеваниями, вместе взятых, а больше всего жертв будет в северной части страны. Возможно, потому, что к тяжелому климату здешних мест присоединяются вредные привычки: столицу северной территории город Дарвин называют самым пьющим городом Австралии. А к 2050 году слабоумие поразит более 1,13 млн австралийцев. Особенно беспокоит врачей то, что болезнь молодеет: отмечено 10 случаев болезни у людей моложе 55 лет и один - у юноши 17 лет.

Всего в мире тяжелыми формами деменции сейчас страдают 37,5 млн человек, из них 5,3 млн - в США. Благодаря успехам медицины средняя продолжительность жизни в цивилизованных странах растет, увеличивается и число страдающих деменцией. По прогнозам, оно будет удваиваться каждые двадцать лет и к 2050 году достигнет 115,4 млн. В России статистика деменции отсутствует, но в жизни многие семьи с этой проблемой сталкиваются. Кардинального лечения нет, в качестве профилактики врачи советуют сохранять активный образ жизни, больше работать головой и следить за здоровьем.

inauka.ru

The Natural Order Of Things
by Matt Ridley, Spectator
Reposted from:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3213246/the-natural-order-of-things.thtml

Matt Ridley says that Darwinian selection explains the appearance of seemingly ‘designed’ complexity throughout the world — not just in biology but in the economy, technology and the arts

Charles Darwin, who was born 200 years ago next month, has spent the 150 years since he published The Origin of Species fighting for the idea of common descent. Though physically dead, he is still doing battle for the notion that chimps are your cousins and cauliflowers your kin. It is a sufficiently weird concept to keep Darwin relevant, revered and resented in equal measure. But in some ways it is less radical and topical than his other, more philosophical legacy: that order can generate itself, that the living world is a ‘bottom-up’ place. On the internet, Darwinian unordained order is now ubiquitous as never before.

Living beings are eddies in the stream of entropy. That is to say, while the universe gradually becomes more homogeneous and disordered, little parts of it can reverse the trend and become briefly more ordered and complex by capturing packets of energy. It happens each time a baby is conceived. Built by 20,000 genes that turn each other on and off in a symphony of great precision, and equipped with a brain of ten trillion synapses, each refined and remodelled by early and continuing experience, you are a thing of exquisite neatness, powered by glucose. Says Darwin, this came about by bottom-up emergence, not top-down dirigisme. Faithful reproduction, occasional random variation and selective survival can be a surprisingly progressive and cumulative force: it can gradually build things of immense complexity. Indeed, it can make something far more complex than a conscious, deliberate designer ever could: with apologies to William Paley and Richard Dawkins, it can make a watchmaker.

Ideas evolve by descent with modification, just as bodies do, and Darwin at least partly got this idea from economists, who got it from empirical philosophers. Locke and Newton begat Hume and Voltaire who begat Hutcheson and Smith who begat Malthus and Ricardo who begat Darwin and Wallace. Before Darwin, the supreme example of an undesigned system was Adam Smith’s economy, spontaneously self-ordered through the actions of individuals, rather than ordained by a monarch or a parliament. Where Darwin defenestrated God, Smith had defenestrated government. Neatly, this year also sees a Smith anniversary, the 250th birthday of his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, a book that is very Darwinian in its insistence that sympathy is what we would today call innate, that people are naturally nice as well as naturally nasty.

Darwin’s debt to the political economists is considerable. In his last year at Cambridge in 1829, he reported in a letter, ‘My studies consist in Adam Smith and Locke’. At Maer, his uncle Josiah Wedgwood’s house in Staffordshire, he often met the lawyer and laissez-faire politician Sir James Mackintosh (whose daughter married Darwin’s brother-in-law and had an affair with his brother). On the Beagle, he read the naturalist Henri Milne-Edwards, who took Adam Smith’s notion of the division of labour and applied it to the organs of the body. Darwin promptly re-applied it to the division of labour among specialised species in an ecosystem: ‘The advantage of diversification in the inhabitants of the same region is, in fact, the same as that of the physiological division of labour in the organs of the same individual body — a subject so well elucidated by Milne-Edwards.’

Today, generally, Adam Smith is claimed by the Right, Darwin by the Left. In the American South and Midwest, where Smith’s individualist, libertarian, small-government philosophy is all the rage, Darwin is reviled for his contradiction of creation. Yet if the market needs no central planner, why should life need an intelligent designer? Conversely, in the average European biol- ogy laboratory you will find fervent believers in the individualist, emergent, decentralised properties of genomes who prefer dirigiste determinism to bring order to the economy.

So long is the shadow cast by the determinism of Karl Marx that it is often forgotten how radical the economic liberalism of the political economists seemed in the 1830s, the decade when Darwin’s thinking crystallised. This is well illustrated by the case of Harriet Martineau, who had a small but seminal influence on Darwin. The daughter of a Norwich cotton manufacturer ruined by a bank crash in the 1820s, Martineau lived by her pen. She was a radical, outspoken feminist, who toured America bravely inveighing against slavery and became so notorious that there were plans to lynch her in South Carolina. Yet before that, she had shot to fame with a series of short fictional books called Illustrations of Political Economy, which were intended to educate people in the free-trade, free-market ideas of Adam Smith (‘whose excellence is marvellous’, she said), David Ricardo and Robert Malthus, and in particular to persuade the working classes that their interests were congruent with those of their employers.

Martineau’s Illustrations were written while Darwin was on HMS Beagle. After she returned from America she became a very close friend of his elder brother Erasmus, who saw her almost daily in the late 1830s. Erasmus introduced Harriet to Charles, who was soon hanging on her every word. Had he not been ‘astonished to find how ugly she is’, Charles might have justified his father’s worry that one of his sons would marry her (as it was, cautious Charles preferred his god-fearing mouse of a cousin Emma Wedgwood to this free-thinking literary lioness). Undoubtedly they discussed slavery, which had horrified Darwin in Brazil. But since Martineau had been a close confidante of Malthus — despite his speech impediment and her deafness — there is little doubt that they also talked political economy. Was it a coincidence that Darwin read Malthus, probably not for the first time, in October 1838, just as he was looking for a mechanism to explain evolution?

Malthus taught Darwin the bleak lesson that overbreeding must end in pestilence, famine or violence — and hence gave him the insight that in a struggle for existence, survival could be selective. But the notion that, with random variation, this selective survival could then generate complexity and sophistication where there had been none before, that it is a cumulative and creative force, is entirely his. It is also one that applies to more than the bodies of living beings.

Technology is a case in point. Although engineers are under the fond illusion that they design things, nearly all of what they do consists of nudging forward descent with modification. Every technology has traceable ancestry; ‘to create is to recombine’ said the geneticist François Jacob. The first motor car was once described by the historian L.T.C. Rolt as ‘sired by the bicycle out of the horse carriage’. Just like living systems, technologies experience mutation (such as the invention of the spinning jenny), reproduction (the rapid mechanisation of the cotton industry as manufacturers copied each others’ machines), sex (Samuel Crompton’s combination of water frame and jenny to make a ‘mule’), competition (different designs competing in the early cotton mills), extinction (the spinning jenny was obsolete by 1800), and increasing complexity (modern cotton mills are electrified and computerised).

Technology also experiences progress and ‘arms races’ between competitors. Just as a modern horse could outrun a Mesohippus three-toed horse from 30 million years ago, so a car can outrun a horse-drawn carriage. Yet horses can only just go fast enough to escape today’s lions, and Land Rovers can only just perform well enough to maintain market share against Toyotas. Such running to stay in the same (improving) place is known to biologists as a Red Queen process after the character in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.

Software inventors have learnt to recognise the power of trial and error rather than deliberate design. Beginning with ‘genetic algorithms’ in the 1980s, they designed programmes that would experiment with changes in their sequence till they solved the problem set for them. Then gradually the open-source software movement emerged by which users themselves altered programmes and shared their improvements with each other. Linux and Apache are operating systems designed by such democratic methods, but the practice has long spread beyond programmers. Wikipedia is a bottom-up knowledge repository and, though far from flawless, is proving easily capable, even in its first flush of youth, of matching expert-written encyclopaedias for accuracy and reach. It grows by natural selection among edits.

The internet is an increasingly Darwinian place, where decentralised, self-organising sophistication holds sway: swarm intelligence is the fashionable term. Trey Ratcliff, founder of a computer games company in Texas, tells me he feels more like a victim than a designer of technology’s evolution: ‘saying Edison invented the phonograph is like saying a spider invented silk’.

The supreme example of bottom-up, rather than top-down, complexity is the market itself. As the economist Paul Seabright has written, the almost miraculous system by which he can go out and buy a cotton shirt on a whim — and expect the cotton grower, the weaver, the shirtmaker, the shipper and the retailer to have got it ready for him just when he enters the shop — is not planned or designed, it evolves. The top-down alternative does not have a great track record. Can you doubt that if the shirt industry was run by a National Shirt Service, there would now be queues, quotas and shortages?

Dirigisme has a place, of course, in the regulation and operation if not the design of institutions. A school cannot work without a teacher, a firm without a manager, or an army without a general — just as a body is directed by a brain in its everyday operations. But hubristic human beings tend to exaggerate the degree to which they are in charge of, rather than at the mercy of, organisations.

The dark side of bottom-up Darwinism is that cumulative complexity can come about only through selective death or selective celibacy. Wonderful life may result, but it is born red in tooth and claw. The social Darwinists of the 19th century and the eugenicists of the 20th were of the view that the strong should therefore be encouraged to succeed, the better to keep natural selection going. But this is to misread human society. The human body may have come about through three billion years of natural selection among genes, but civilisation and prosperity came from 50,000 years of much more rapid natural selection among ideas. It is easily possible to blunt genetic selection in the name of kindness, while allowing cultural selection to continue: the death of an idea need not be cruel.

There is, however, one more disturbing and topical parallel between biological and cultural evolution. Just as natural selection’s constructive capacity did not prevent mass extinctions, one of which, 251 million years ago, eradicated over 96 per cent of marine species, so the market’s ability to build order cannot prevent crashes. Even sophisticated, entropy-defying complex systems are subject to the weather-like vagaries of mathematical chaos — and there Darwin cannot help.



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1. Comment #317802 by Richard Dawkins on January 12, 2009 at 11:52 am

This article could serve as the basis for a master class in how to write good English. Such economy.

Richard

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2. Comment #317811 by papasitocanada on January 12, 2009 at 12:12 pm

This article is fascinating. Not only is it written in superb, British English, it is clear and interesting to read.
Moreover, it shows a general progression as one person learns from the other who, in turn, learned it from someone else. It starts small and different and, over the year, morphs into something more complex and one can easily see the history of where and how it happened. Hmmm I think I am seeing a pattern here...

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3. Comment #317818 by Philip1978 on January 12, 2009 at 12:19 pm

Richard

I completely agree, I particularly love his use of the word "dirigisme" - a fine word to use in such an article.

What an excellent analogy - I do like this sentence


Even sophisticated, entropy-defying complex systems are subject to the weather-like vagaries of mathematical chaos


Here the whole intelligent design rubbish falls down immediately when trying to even consider what a deity would have to do to organise all the "weather like vagaries" concerned with evolution by natural selection.

Yes, I did like this article, very interesting indeed.

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4. Comment #317819 by Meph on January 12, 2009 at 12:20 pm

Richard, you forgot to say "first."

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5. Comment #317823 by God fearing Atheist on January 12, 2009 at 12:26 pm

Indeed, it can make something far more complex than a conscious, deliberate designer ever could: with apologies to William Paley and Richard Dawkins, it can make a watchmaker.


A sentence waiting for a misquoter? Am I being too cynical?

I liked the irony of the US bible belt embracing Smith while rejecting Darwin.

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6. Comment #317834 by kaiserkriss on January 12, 2009 at 12:47 pm

Great Article! I particularly like the multidisiplinary approach Mr Ridley has taken, something that is severely lacking is this age of specialization.

On another thread I was called for taking a similar multi disciplinary approach for illustrative purposes. Ridley has done a great job in stating my case.. jcw

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7. Comment #317836 by Diacanu on January 12, 2009 at 12:51 pm

Hey! I've made the observation about the hypocrisy of the bible belt embracing Smith and not Darwin!

..except I kept it in my head, and if I wrote it down, it would've been laced with F bombs, and the paragraphs wouldn't be all pretty, and...

*Sigh* no wonder I don't make the big bucks...

Stay in school, kids.

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8. Comment #317840 by xmd on January 12, 2009 at 12:53 pm

Ridley is my favourite author... after Dawkins

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9. Comment #317847 by Stafford Gordon on January 12, 2009 at 12:57 pm

Wonderful; well written and giving historical clarity.

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10. Comment #317856 by Apeseed on January 12, 2009 at 1:05 pm

I did find this strange.


Living beings are eddies in the stream of entropy. That is to say, while the universe gradually becomes more homogeneous and disordered, little parts of it can reverse the trend and become briefly more ordered and complex by capturing packets of energy.


Didn't this site recently feature an article about how life is actually an engine of entropy? Taking highly coherent energy from the sun and using it to generate biological structures, all the time stepping the energy down until it is dissipated into kinetic energy and finally heat.

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11. Comment #317873 by NewEnglandBob on January 12, 2009 at 1:14 pm

Every radiant star reverses the trend toward increased entropy to become briefly more ordered and complex.

"Briefly" here means several billion years.

#10 by Apeseed: I think you meant an engine to reduce entropy, not an engine of entropy.

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12. Comment #317884 by beebhack on January 12, 2009 at 1:21 pm

I recommend Ridley's The Red Queen (about sex) and the Origins of Virtue (about why animals cooperate) -- absolutely seminal, consistently fascinating and, in the case of Origins, a barrage of evidence to use against those who insist that only belief in a deity stops us from slaughtering each other.

As to the entropy thing -- check out Peter Atkins's Creation Revisited, excerpted in the Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing

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13. Comment #317904 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on January 12, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Well written.. I'll be sharing this with my department, or at least those members who are likely to bother reading it. I find the Smith/Darwin comparison interesting, especially after reading a fair amount of Enlightenment material. The interdisciplnary aspects are a wonderful addition.

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14. Comment #317906 by Apeseed on January 12, 2009 at 1:36 pm

Comment #317873 by NewEnglandBob on January 12, 2009 at 1:14 pm


#10 by Apeseed: I think you meant an engine to reduce entropy, not an engine of entropy.


No. I meant an engine of entropy.

While I can't do justice to the article itself and others may recall which I mean, it showed than any seeming decrease in entropy was only apparent and not actual.

Roughly, All the radiant energy from the sun that fell upon the earth was converted into structure by plants. However this process was always imperfect with energy being wasted. All the plant matter was then food for animals who then became food for larger carnivores. At each step there was less and less energy.
It also showed how the organisms that made most efficient use of the available energy were selected for.

Edit:There we go, that's better.

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15. Comment #317909 by Apeseed on January 12, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Sorry about the weirdly nested blockquotes.
I have no idea why that happened.

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16. Comment #317914 by AmericanGodless on January 12, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Living beings are eddies in the stream of entropy.
#10 by Apeseed & #11 by NewEnglandBob: Yes, life is both an engine for general increased entropy and for localized decreased entropy. It is made up of dissipative structures, which utilize a flow of energy and a general increase in entropy to build and maintain themselves as local organized structures, thus doing both. The "eddy" metaphor is quite illustrative, as an eddy in a stream depends upon the flow of the stream to keep those leaves swirling around in its center; but while it is there, more leaves are drawn in, and an organized structure is formed that would not be there but for the energy flow of the stream.

Edit: Apeseed has got it pretty much right in #14: life uses energy to build things, but there is always a loss to inefficiency; so local order is increased (decreased entropy) while total order is decreased (increased entropy).

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17. Comment #317921 by madamX on January 12, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Please be careful with the word entropy. Observations show that physical entropy does not decrease, ever. The “designed” complexity we observe around us is a product of an increase in physical entropy, not an exception to the rule. Also, it is better to use the word organized and not ordered. A crystal is ordered; a human is organized, and thus complex.

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18. Comment #317927 by JAMCAM87 on January 12, 2009 at 1:57 pm

10. Comment #317856 by Apeseed on January 12, 2009 at 1:05 pm


I did find this strange.


Living beings are eddies in the stream of entropy. That is to say, while the universe gradually becomes more homogeneous and disordered, little parts of it can reverse the trend and become briefly more ordered and complex by capturing packets of energy.


Didn't this site recently feature an article about how life is actually an engine of entropy' Taking highly coherent energy from the sun and using it to generate biological structures, all the time stepping the energy down until it is dissipated into kinetic energy and finally heat.




Isn't an organ, like the heart for example, more ordered than a bacterium and thus has lower entropy' Do organisms not evolve to lower entropy states over millions of years or is this an oversimplification'

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19. Comment #317936 by alabasterocean on January 12, 2009 at 2:11 pm

When I was reading Manuel Castells book about the rise of the information society my thoughts always drifted to Mr Dawkins The Selfish Gene. My teacher actually looked confused then I pointed this out and then mentioned that this was a communications lecture and not biology.

To bad, I could have used this reference four years ago.

Hail Biology!

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20. Comment #317942 by Apeseed on January 12, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Comment #317927 by JAMCAM87 on January 12, 2009 at 1:57 pm


Isn't an organ, like the heart for example, more ordered than a bacterium and thus has lower entropy'


A quote from the article seems to be saying that it is quite the opposite that happens.

"By randomly mutating individuals of a species, various paths are explored in the quest of increasing entropy most rapidly. These mutations sooner or later naturally converge on the most probable path."

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2973,Evolution-as-Described-by-the-Second-Law-of-Thermodynamics,PhysoOrg

Other Comments by Apeseed
21. Comment #317947 by Stuart Paul Wood on January 12, 2009 at 2:26 pm

Thought this was an engrossing article by Matt Ripley.

It is fascinating how simple organisation and selection over time can lead to such complexity in so many different disciplines whether the logic is applied to life or technology or economics.

It seems to be the way of things. No top down authority required. The article effectively demonstrates the impotence of ultimate authority should it even exist in the first place. Ultimate authorities are non-existent in fact and unworkable in concept.

Good!

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22. Comment #317951 by mmurray on January 12, 2009 at 2:32 pm

@Apeseed


Sorry about the weirdly nested blockquotes.
I have no idea why that happened.


Looking at the source it looks like you opened two blockquotes but never closed any of them. I expect you meant the second opening blockquote to be a closing blockquote.

Michael

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23. Comment #317963 by Apeseed on January 12, 2009 at 2:41 pm

Comment #317951 by mmurray on January 12, 2009 at 2:32 pm


Looking at the source it looks like you opened two blockquotes but never closed any of them. I expect you mean the second opening blockquote to be a closing blockquote.


Thanks Michael. I'll watch out for that. My tagging can be a mess sometimes.

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24. Comment #317974 by crusader234 on January 12, 2009 at 3:05 pm

Chaos theory...fractals, phase transitions,order out of chaos, self simularity on small and large scales etc etc etc. Science is evolving in the way it describes this creation more eliquintly every day. religion just sucks!

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25. Comment #317975 by Stephen Welch on January 12, 2009 at 3:06 pm

Good article by Ridley with some lovely imagery about the survival of the fittest in the fields of both technology and ideas.

The only slight criticism is that the evolution of memes is Lamarckian, i.e. the inheritance is via acquired characteristics. While Ridley alludes to this he does not spell out this difference with Darwinian biological evolution.

Darwin is arguably the greatest and most influential scientist there's ever been but there is a tendency to over-use him. If we are not clear in our definitions it will be fuel for the creationists to criticise evolution.

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26. Comment #318034 by Friggertool on January 12, 2009 at 4:15 pm

This article could serve as the basis for a master class in how to write good English. Such economy.

Richard



And indeed physics and biology, among others :-)

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27. Comment #318074 by Don_Quix on January 12, 2009 at 5:23 pm

Science is evolving in the way it describes this creation more eliquintly every day.

I think Christopher Hitchens may have put it best when he said religion is (and I'm paraphrasing) "humanity's first and worst attempt at describing the world around us".

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28. Comment #318080 by NakedCelt on January 12, 2009 at 5:35 pm

In the American South and Midwest, where Smith’s individualist, libertarian, small-government philosophy is all the rage, Darwin is reviled for his contradiction of creation. Yet if the market needs no central planner, why should life need an intelligent designer? Conversely, in the average European biol- ogy laboratory you will find fervent believers in the individualist, emergent, decentralised properties of genomes who prefer dirigiste determinism to bring order to the economy.
I can see an equal irony in Ridley's article: he himself draws a liberal-libertarian conclusion from Darwinian principles, yet the thrust of the article is to dethrone the Cartesian thinking, designing, reasoning individual so beloved of classic liberalism and Randite libertarianism.

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29. Comment #318082 by Hellene on January 12, 2009 at 5:37 pm

This article and the interview by Henry Chu, have put a ray of sunshine in my evening. This is what I live for.

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30. Comment #318085 by mmurray on January 12, 2009 at 5:44 pm

Thanks Michael. I'll watch out for that. My tagging can be a mess sometimes.


You know you can edit if you want to ? I usually don't get mine right until the second or third try!

Michael

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31. Comment #318090 by NMcC on January 12, 2009 at 6:02 pm

"This article could serve as the basis for a master class in how to write good English."

I'm surprised Professor Dawkins that you think that. I have read it 4 times now and get the distinct impression that it is nothing more than an exercise in stating the bleeding obvious (some degree of spontaneous, unaided 'organization' is possible in some situations; complex things evolve from less complex things through small changes; no ‘new’ knowledge is ever completely new, and so on) supported by deliberate mischaracterization, false analogies, non sequiturs, ahistorical pro-market clap-trap and ridiculous examples that don’t work very well.

Oh, and of course, it includes the now seemingly obligatory lie (well, in this case inference) when discussing on RD.net anything to do with the 19th century: Everyone good, especially Darwin (oh boy, ESPECIALLY Darwin!), and only Karl Marx bad.

"Such economy".

Yes, in the use of critical faculties.

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32. Comment #318103 by cyris8400 on January 12, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Ridley's premise here is similar to Michael Shermer's thesis in his book, "Mind of the Market."

Initially I bristled slightly at the comparison between natural selection and free market economics, as I did when reading some of Shermer's book. It makes me think they are using a naturalistic fallacy, saying that since evolution doesn't need an intelligent designer, the market does not or should not be controlled or regulated.

The third to last paragraph assuaged most of my suspicions, though.

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33. Comment #318112 by thelivingbrian on January 12, 2009 at 7:18 pm

Isn't this just another restatement of Universal Darwinism?

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34. Comment #318120 by ljirving on January 12, 2009 at 8:03 pm

JAMCAM at 18 said;

Isn't an organ, like the heart for example, more ordered than a bacterium and thus has lower entropy' Do organisms not evolve to lower entropy states over millions of years or is this an oversimplification'


Yes and no. First, don't forget how much more energy is required (and wasted as heat) to make an organ, compared with a bacterium. Second, organisms do not evolve in a pre-determined direction. If natural selection became weakened (for example, by the annihilation of a competitors), then we could see the regression of a feature as selection pressure was redirected towards economy. For example, the loss of an organ (or the evolution of vestigial organs) which was necessary in the past, but not required now.

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35. Comment #318187 by Half_Cut on January 13, 2009 at 1:26 am

What a fantastic article.

One of the great things about this site is that I'm always learning something new.

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36. Comment #318191 by chinnus on January 13, 2009 at 1:54 am

NMcC - inference is the right word, you saw a criticism where there was none, there was no implied criticism, only inferred. Besides which, as I'm sure Marx and Engels would readily admit, knowledge is not stationary, but advances organically (as the article itself says) and to therefore state that anyone - from Darwin to Marx - held the consumate 'big picture' would be an error in judgement (something I'm sure the majority here would agree with).

The article was pretty good, after all it is the aim of most writers to pass on knowledge in a manner that is digestible to the average reader. Not everyone would be able to follow economic treatise on Adam Smith, or follow a Biology paper, but the article imparts a fairly large amount of knowledge in acceptably few words. To refer to non-sequiturs is a little misguided in an article that demonstrates such a unified theme and as for pro-market clap-trap' Another inference. It is possible for anybody to infer insult where there is none, it would be a fair use of 'critical faculties' to simply read what's there without approaching it as though the author had just stolen your last jaffa cake.

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37. Comment #318192 by bamboospitfire on January 13, 2009 at 1:54 am

Diacanu - and I have often noted the hypocrisy of Hampstead lefties who embrace Darwin and reject Smith. Regrettably, some people just seem to be incapable of intellectual consistency.

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38. Comment #318194 by brainsys on January 13, 2009 at 2:19 am

Yes to all the above. It is a good well written article. Unlike this comment :-(

The reference to the 'National Shirt Service' was an obvious dig at the NHS. Which raises the question that market economies do create useful complexity that can best serve communities. But they may not always be best.

First we (in the form of governments) have a 'God role' in defining the physical laws within which they work. Minimum wages, pensions, money supply etc. Purists might argue that this impairs market performance leading to ungood consequences for people. However, many of these interventions were precisely as a consequence of market failure. Extinction of species may be nature's way but extinction of people is not ours!

Secondly anybody who has worked in system theory can point to areas where system design can outsmart individual autonomous development. This, sadly, does often lead to system designers becoming too carried away and imposing systems that don't (cf the average soviet 5 year plan).

Which brings me back to the NHS. Compare that to the market driven US medical system. Which is better? Well if you are a self interested US senator than the answer is obvious. So too if you are an unemployed social outcast. One provides more bangs per buck. The other can provide more comfort and the possibility of unlimited care.

Which way to go depends on what the community wants. Aha - the democratic process! An area so constrained by nationalist & tribal traditions that evolution rarely has a chance to improve the system. Or so any of us who remember 1968 may think ...

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39. Comment #318198 by Bonzai on January 13, 2009 at 2:30 am

bamboospitfire


Diacanu - and I have often noted the hypocrisy of Hampstead lefties who embrace Darwin and reject Smith. Regrettably, some people just seem to be incapable of intellectual consistency.


You sound as though consistency requires one to agree with Smith if he embraces Darwin. I fail to see the logical connection between the two beyond some common buzz words and some general allusions or suggestions that the two ideas share some vague common ethos.

While Darwin is vindicated by evidence there is not a shred of evidence that Smith's theory of free market works, or that his idealized free market has ever existed beyond very small economies of say, a few villages.

Yes, there is self organization, group dynamics and so on in economies, but towards what?

Note that Smith (or rather people who claim to be his disciples) claimed that self organizing activities unleashed by unrestrained market force would invariably lead to "greater good". There is no conceptual counterpart for "greater good" in Darwin. As Dawkins has emphasized many times, evolution merely tells us what is, not what is desirable. Evolution is blind, it doesn't lead to any predictable or cosmically speaking more desirable state. Evolution theory 101 really.

(Aside: Unpredictability for complex evolving systems in particular implies one cannot know if equilibrium would be attained in any ecology, say. But Smith and followers take for granted, without any proof, that economical equilibrium would be achieved by the "invisible hand" It is pure speculation)

Whether a state is more desirable depends on your purpose. It is value judgement. Evolution theory or "system theory" cannot tell you that. To pretend otherwise is either lying or sloppy thinking.

But the free market theologians not only attempt to tell us what is,--with poor empirical evidence, their theories largely based on arm chair theorizing while all premises and assumptions are demonstrably false. They furher pretend to know that the market machine, left to its own device, will lead to "better" conditions for all humans. This is an even greater leap of logic involving further, and some of the most naive assumptions about human nature,--like we are all possessed by insatiable greed,-- and ethics.

Darwinian evolution is science. Smith's free market gospel (as promoted by his self identified disciples anyway) is pseudoscience and a quasi religion. Pseudoscience often appropiates the form a vocabularies of real science to misrepresent itself. If Darwinism is like astronomy, Smith's dogma should be compared to scientology.

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40. Comment #318199 by George Lennan on January 13, 2009 at 2:32 am

Aha! I wrote this (below) yonks ago but never bothered posting it as I thought it had been implied adequately by Richard and others. Well - its not as good as Ridley's piece but it at least occurred to me...

Paley’s watch is often cited as an example of design, but I thought it might be more illuminating to think of it as a rather obvious piece of evidence for evolution. Professor Dawkins has often talking of designed objects as ‘honorary living things’ but I’d like to suggest an alternative.

It is unlikely in the extreme that any watchmaker however ingenious would design and create an accurate timepiece from scratch. He relies upon an extended prior history of incremental technological advance and adaptive improvements, not only in watchmaking but in auxilliary fields such as tooling, materials and mechanical theory. The same is true for all technology - motor cars, computers, and also for societies and surely for other systems. My Renault Clio is filled with technology and refinements that no 1970’s car manufacturer could have dreamed of – it is the current progressing terminator in Renault’s evolution of the motor car. As an aside, my Clio is indistinguishable from a Peugeot 206 from more than 100 metres, adequately demonstrating convergent evolution with the selection pressures being aerodynamics, ergonomics and so on.

With our common application of the terms 'evolution' to life and 'design' to non-living complex forms we inadvertently create an unwarranted dichotomy which is easily exploited by creationist rhetoric. Rather the term ‘evolution’ should be appplied to all adaptive change. Computers and cars evolve through the mechanisms of engineering, science and mathematics; societies evolve through the mechanisms of politics and economics. Life evolves by the mechanism of natural selection. With the exception of the mechanisms, the phenomena are at least analagous if not identical. It may be argued that engineering and politics miss out selection from a number of alternatives according to certain criteria. It’s true that engineers don’t make hundreds of alternative cars before selecting one (maybe they do…), but I don’t see this as critical in describing my more generalised idea of evolution as adaptive change, and anyway maybe that’s exactly what the engineer’s brain is doing during the design/improvement phase whether she’s aware of it or not!

It has been noted that new species have never been observed evolving in the laboratory but I disagree. The difference between my first Renault 5 and my Clio is a perfect example of speciation that has occurred since I passed my driving test.

Other Comments by George Lennan
41. Comment #318202 by Bonzai on January 13, 2009 at 2:41 am

brainsys


Secondly anybody who has worked in system theory can point to areas where system design can outsmart individual autonomous development. This, sadly, does often lead to system designers becoming too carried away and imposing systems that don't (cf the average soviet 5 year plan).


Actually the Soviet 5 year plans worked very well for their purpose of rapid industrialization. It was never the planners' intention to produce consumer goods. It is a question of setting piorities. It has nothing to do with "system theory", at least not in the way to try to get across.

As a system theorist would you see a doctor when you get sick, trusting the opinion and expertise of the doctor who uses targeted treatments or let the "system" (the body pathegeons) sort things out in its "smart" way?

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42. Comment #318213 by brainsys on January 13, 2009 at 3:11 am

Bonzai, That's why I said the 'average' Soviet plan. I agree the industrial side worked quite well but the agricultural collectivisation side did not and extincitivised many from benefitting from the other. Overall a planning failure methinks.

Getting back to the NHS again. That's the problem - how do develop the good system designs and lose the bad (as Stalin did not). I have a hope that the EU model may provide the required selective pressure. The UK can push on with its non-market (well sorta) healthcare model and so can the French & Germans. But in the end if one of these produces markedly poorer results than the others the countries will be shamed into adopting the better parts of other systems.

My wife says I hope too much ...

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43. Comment #318219 by Bonzai on January 13, 2009 at 3:19 am

Brainsys


But in the end if one of these produces markedly poorer results than the others the countries will be shamed into adopting the better parts of other systems


The U.S. system produces markedly poorer results by all indicators comparing to various forms of "socialized medicine". But as "socialism" is a dirty word there and anything that subjugates private profits to other social goals is considered "socialism", I won't hold my breath for radical changes as a result of comparing merits. Even Obama's health plan is rather timid in the big picture.

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44. Comment #318224 by Stephen Jones on January 13, 2009 at 3:27 am

George Monbiot on Matt Ridley

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/10/23/libertarians-are-the-true-social-parasites/

Other Comments by Stephen Jones
45. Comment #318233 by brainsys on January 13, 2009 at 3:43 am

Bonzai - so why are Americans so wedded to their socialised road system?

That's one benefit of europe these days. We live in such close proximity that while we still call each other frogs, sprouts, krauts or whatever we do have a greater experience of what other systems work better. France's TGV is great. The fact it is the result of central planning cannot reduce our envy. Whereas the UK's hybrid way of running railways doesn't have quite as many admirers and none standing on this platform ;-)

Remind me how many americans have passports? No see, no understand. Hence some of the problems understanding a secular world is not neccessarily a bad one.

Other Comments by brainsys
46. Comment #318251 by bamboospitfire on January 13, 2009 at 4:20 am

Bonzai - you have put an awful lot of words in my mouth. I have not claimed any ultimate goal for free trade. My comparison is based on the fact that both the environment and the market (whether unrestricted or not) result in selection pressures giving rise to progress within the context of themselves. Whether you regard that progress as beneficial will depend on your perspective within either system. Anyway, I don't see anything controversial about that.

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47. Comment #318254 by chinnus on January 13, 2009 at 4:24 am

Stephen Jones - Nice link. I wrote an article of my own unpublished - mainly, it seems, because I'm shite - on the Magna Carta that took a little look at the Northern Rock debacle. Didn't link the two names. Now I can't help but feel a pillock for enjoying this article. Ah well.

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48. Comment #318258 by brainsys on January 13, 2009 at 4:48 am

Yep, thanks Stephen too. I didn't know his history when I wrote (above) about none market systems sometimes being superior.

The Building Society example was in my head. My horror at the way demutalisation was sold (bribe the members, charge higher mortgages, offer lower interest rates, take market risks, create more opportunities for the managers). All gone now of course and us (and the remaining building societies) having to pick up the bill for Ridley et al's foolishness and greed.

As for his dismissal of a National Shirt Service. Well I guess it might not produce the shirt of his desire at the time and place of his desiring. But then tell that to Primark's clothing makers in Manchester ...

Sadly we seem unable to breed this type out of existence. Evolution might be right but that doesn't make it good.

Other Comments by brainsys
49. Comment #318259 by NMcC on January 13, 2009 at 5:02 am

BONZAI:

Well done! Some great posts, especially the first one.

CHINNUS:

Apology accepted! I'll not have to spend half an hour replying to you now. I can spend the time instead working out the nuanced difference between the words implied and inferred and educating myself as to how a pile of misconcieved drivel can form the basis of a master class in how to write good English.

By the way, Chinnus, don't consider yourself 'a pillock' at all - just don't believe everything you read solely because it's been written by a Darwinist and endorsed by Professor Dawkins. You're just as likely to discover that it's propagandist twaddle under these circumstances as under any other. Though, in spite of his little foibles of considering Darwin a candidate for Secular Sainthood, I must admit, Professor Dawkins is quite brilliant quite a bit of the time.

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50. Comment #318260 by InfuriatedSciTeacher on January 13, 2009 at 5:03 am

Brainsys> On the NHS as opposed to a market driven health care system: Having lived in both the US and UK, I can somewhat speak on both. I know that American conservatives don't like the idea of socialised health care because 1) they don't want to pay more taxes if it doesn't directly benefit them (in fact, they don't want to pay the taxes they're charged now. I suppose that hasn't changed much in 200 years.) and 2) they're afraid that it will result in less competent doctors due to a lack of revenue. (I find this to be a difficult debate point, as I don't know enough about the NHS to discuss pay scales). One can certainly argue that the NHS is beneficial to children, the elderly, and the unemployed, but I find it more challenging to demonstrate that middle or upper class workers would benefit from such a system. Based on the amount of money that employers spend on health care for those individuals, it seems economically advantageous to nationalise the system; the crux of the issue is that the taxation systems are also different, and the American system is in serious need of an overhaul to efficiently fund social programs.

edit: The above is largely an argument from personal experience. My apologies for the poor foundation, but it's all I have to go on at the moment.

Other Comments by InfuriatedSciTeacher

Потерянное звено эволюции человека открылось неожиданно тихо

5 апреля 2010
membrana

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Ископаемый скелет ребёнка, датированный примерно двумя миллионами лет, может заставить учёных переписать историю появления сапиенсов. Или подкорректировать. Пока ещё не ясно даже, как правильно именовать обнаруженное существо. Но специалисты считают, что перед нами новый вид человека, стоящий практически у самого корня нашего биологического рода.


Кости нашего далёкого прапращура откопал недавно в южноафриканской пещере Малапа (Malapa) профессор Ли Бергер (Lee Berger) и его коллеги из университета Витватерсранда в Йоханнесбурге (University of the Witwatersrand). Находка сразу вызвала повышенный интерес антропологов. Ведь чаще всего учёным попадаются лишь скромные фрагменты древних предшественников человека разумного, отдельные кости конечностей или зубы, к примеру, а здесь — почти полный скелет (и как бонус — ещё несколько отдельных костей взрослых особей).

Палеоантрополог Филлип Тобиас (Phillip Tobias) из того же университета пояснил ценность ископаемого: "Одно дело найти нижнюю челюсть с парой зубов, и совсем другое найти челюсть, соединённую с черепом, а тот, в свою очередь, с позвоночником, далее — тазом и костями конечностей".


Исследователи полагают, что изучение новичка поможет ответить на кучу вопросов, как связанных с прямохождением, так и с бурным развитием мозга.






Место находки (чёрный квадратик) на эволюционном древе человека. Оранжевые прямоугольники – австралопитеки, серые – люди. Шкала внизу – миллионы лет назад (иллюстрация с сайта dailymail.co.uk).


Благодаря окаменелым останкам древних существ антропологам удалось довольно неплохо выстроить фамильное древо людей. Многие ступени эволюции ясны, некоторые — спорны, и немало связей ещё предстоит уточнить, или даже переосмыслить.


А складывается примерно вот такая картина: от маленьких приматов, наподобие Иды, бегавшей по планете 47 миллионов лет назад, природа пришла к животным, чья эволюция раскололась на несколько ветвей, одна из которых привела к людям, остальные — к современным человекообразным обезьянам.


Шесть миллионов лет назад "дорожка" наших непосредственных предков разошлась с линией шимпанзе, ближайших родственников из животного мира. Позже природа призадумалась и перекроила "нашу модель", что привело к появлению ардипитеков (особенно важного Ardipithecus ramidus), уже научившихся ходить на двух ногах, хотя эпизодически помогавших себе руками (такую смешанную походку и сейчас демонстрируют некоторые обезьяны).


Через 4,5 миллиона лет антропологи всего мира оказались очень воодушевлены данной находкой в лице Арди и даже "изгнали" из-за неё первых прямоходящих из саванн.






Малапа входит в систему пещер Стеркфонтейн (Sterkfontein), которые из-за многочисленных находок древних гоминидов разных периодов времени были причислены к списку Всемирного наследия (World Heritage Site), а также названы "колыбелью человечества". Возможно, новая находка лишь укрепит такую репутацию этих мест (фото Tim Hauf, Denis Farrell/AP).


Четыре с небольшим миллиона лет назад рамидусы породили австралопитеков, внешне всё ещё довольно похожих на обезьян. Сначала — Australopithecus anamensis. А то уже существо, по некоторым оценкам, трансформировалось в австралопитека афарского (Australopithecus afarensis). Последний возник примерно 3,8 миллиона лет назад, добавив учёным массу дополнительных кусочков мозаики.


От этого вида, по существующим пока представлениям, примерно 2,5 миллиона лет назад и пошёл род Homo в лице "основоположника" Homo habilis — человека умелого. По всей видимости, именно H. habilis совершил один из важнейших скачков в эволюции мозга и изготовил первые орудия труда и охоты (старейшие находки такого рода датированы 2,4 миллионами лет), ну а чуть позже — 2 млн лет назад — перебрался жить в пещеры.


Примерно в это же время от него "отпочковался" человек прямоходящий — Homo erectus . Последний, несмотря на крайнюю свою немногочисленность, отважно отправился покорять Европу и Азию. А примерно 800 тысяч лет назад он отметился приручением огня.


От эректуса рукой подать до гейдельбергского человека — Homo heidelbergensis, появившегося примерно 800-600 тысяч лет назад, а от него и к нам, Homo sapiens. Наш вид возник порядка 200 тысяч лет назад.






Филлип Тобиас (слева) и Ли Бергер уже давно получили широкую известность по целому ряду работ, связанных с удивительными находками на Чёрном континенте (фото wikipedia.org).


В этой грандиозной картине то и дело возникают разночтения. Это только в массовом сознании учёным много лет никак не удаётся найти промежуточное звено между "обезьяной" и человеком. Мол, найдут — и всё сразу станет ясно. Куда там. Мозаика связей гораздо сложнее, и неясности остаются во многих местах эволюции наших предков. И будут оставаться ещё долго.


Исследователи спорят и о точных датах разделения тех или иных ветвей, и о подлинных взаимоотношениях между уже известными представителями гоминид. Судя по последним находкам, у нас с вами было немало не только двоюродных братьев (вроде неандертальцев), но и троюродных, и вообще куча людей-сородичей разной степени генетической близости ("Икс-женщина" 48-тысячелетней давности — последний пример такой "параллельной веточки" человеческой расы).


Неудивительно, что процесс ответвления нашего "ствола" от остального животного мира, отстоящий во времени куда дальше, — остаётся ещё не вполне прояснённым. И вот тут-то появляется нынешний герой дня — существо, которое, по предварительным оценкам, может представлять собой промежуточное звено между австралопитеками и человеком умелым.


Команда Бергера до недавнего времени хранила находку в секрете, лишь немногие учёные уже успели осмотреть образцы. Зато на днях университет Витватерсранда с целью знакомства с новым гоминидом посетил президент ЮАР Джейкоб Зума (Jacob Zuma).


Ходили ли "промежуточные звенья" на двух ногах постоянно или ещё иногда лазили по деревьям, как у них были устроены кисти рук и стопы... То, что учёным попался почти полный скелет и несколько останков других особей того же вида, — огромная удача.


Сравнение особенностей гоминида из Малапы с его эволюционными предшественниками и последователями должно раскрыть специалистам очень много тайн. И хотя слова "потерянное звено" по большей части это просто расхожий журналистский штамп, хочется верить, что на этот раз перед нами именно оно.

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No harm, no foul
Study of moral judgment finds that patients with a specific brain defect lack the emotional reaction necessary to find fault with attempted murderers
Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

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As America’s decennial headcount gets under way, an MIT political scientist discusses the history of race and ethnicity in the U.S. Census.

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email comment print share Imagine this scenario: A woman and her friend are touring a chemical factory. They come to a coffee machine and, next to it, a container labeled “toxic.” The woman sees the label but goes ahead and scoops a powdery white substance from the container into a cup of coffee she has brewed for her friend. The friend drinks the coffee but is unharmed, because it turns out the powder was only sugar.

Most people would say the woman’s actions were morally repugnant. However, in a new study, patients with damage to a part of the brain known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) reacted very differently. They were unable to conjure a normal emotional response to the situation, and based their judgment only on the outcome — that is, no harm was done. In their view, the friend’s actions were morally permissible.

That suggests that the human brain’s ability to respond appropriately to intended harms — that is, with outrage toward the perpetrator — is seated in the VMPC, a brain region associated with regulating emotions.

The finding offers a new piece to the puzzle of how the human brain constructs morality, says Liane Young, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and lead author of a paper describing the findings in the March 25 issue of the journal Neuron.

“We’re slowly chipping away at the structure of morality,” says Young. “We’re not the first to show that emotions matter for morality, but this is a more precise look at how emotions matter.”

Judging others

Working with researchers at the University of Southern California, led by Antonio Damasio, Young studied a group of nine patients with damage (caused by aneurisms or tumors) to the VMPC, a plum-sized area located above and behind the eyes.

Such patients have difficulty processing social emotions such as empathy or embarrassment, but “they have perfectly intact capacity for reasoning and other cognitive functions,” says Young.

A 2007 study by Damasio, Young and their colleagues showed that such patients are more willing than non-brain-damaged adults to judge killing or harming another person as morally permissible if doing so would save others’ lives. That led the researchers to suspect that the brain-damaged patients lacked appropriate emotional responses to moral harms and relied instead on calculating, rational approach to moral dilemmas.

In the new Neuron study, the researchers tried to tease out the exact role of emotional responses in making moral judgments. They gave the subjects a series of 24 scenarios and asked for their reactions. The scenarios of most interest to the researchers were ones featuring a mismatch between the person’s intention and the outcome — either failed attempts to harm or accidental harms.

“Every time we make a judgment, there are lots of factors that influence it, and two of the most important are what the agent wants to do, and what actually happens,” says Young.

When confronted with failed attempts to harm, the patients had no problems understanding the perpetrator’s intentions, but they failed to hold them morally responsible. The patients even judged attempted harms as more permissible than accidental harms (such as accidentally poisoning someone) — a reversal of the pattern seen in normal adults.

“They can process what people are thinking and their intentions, but they just don’t respond emotionally to that information,” says Young. “They can read about a murder attempt and judge it as morally permissible because no harm was done.”

This supports the idea that making moral judgments requires at least two processes — a logical assessment of the intention, and an emotional reaction to it, says Michael Koenigs, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin who has also studied patients with VMPC damage.

“There's no doubt that our moral sense is informed by our ability to infer the intentions of others, and to generate an affective response to those intentions,” says Koenigs. “This study implicates VMPC as a key area for integrating intention with affect [emotional feeling] to yield moral judgment.”

The ability to blame others who try to cause harm, even when they fail, may have evolved as a way to protect ourselves from those with malevolent intentions, says Young. “This information is critical for making judgments about whom to be friends with and whom to trust,” she says. “We don’t want people wishing harm on us, even if they fail.”

In future work, Young hopes to study patients who incurred damage to the VMPC when they were younger, to see if they have the same impaired judgment. She also plans to study patient reactions to situations where the harmful attempts may be directed at the patient and therefore more personal.

Воздействие на мозг изменило моральные нормы испытуемых

31 марта 2010





Учёные нарушили работу одной из зон мозга с помощью магнитного поля. Более ранние исследования, кстати, показали, что стимуляция аналогичной зоны левого полушария может вызывать призраков (иллюстрация Rebecca Sax).




Нейрологи из Массачусетского технологического института (MIT) нарушили у подопытных активность правого височно-теменного стыка (TPJ). Результат воздействия на зону, предположительно связанную с прогнозированием допустимости действий, весьма удивил учёных.


Как сообщается в пресс-релизе MIT, всего было проведено два эксперимента. В ходе первого участникам было предложено прочесть ряд сценариев — моральных головоломок и оценить по шкале от одного до семи (где 1 – "абсолютно запрещено", 7 – "совершенно допустимо"), насколько приемлемы действия персонажа. Перед началом этого теста в височно-теменную зону подопытных в течение 25 минут посылались магнитные импульсы (метод ТМС).


Во время второго опыта волонтёры выносили суждения под воздействием коротких очередей магнитных "помех", происходивших уже в реальном времени, с интервалом в 500 миллисекунд.


В обоих случаях было отмечено нарушение нормальной нейронной активности в зоне TPJ, что удивительным образом выключало у большинства испытуемых механизм принятия моральных решений. Иными словами, испытуемые с гораздо большей вероятностью оценивали попытки причинить вред другому лицу как допустимые. В контрольной группе, участники который не подвергались воздействию на мозг, подобного перегиба не наблюдалось.


Статья учёных опубликована в PNAS. Кстати, одновременно в Neuron вышел материал той же команды из MIT, где исследуется сходный вопрос, но теперь уже в связи с вентромедиальным префронтальным участком коры (VPC), подробности можно узнать в пресс-релизе.



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