[My book ‘Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation’ (Harvard UP) can be preordered from Amazon (.com) – more details at end of post] Orwell, in a 1944 essay on Koestler’s great novel of the show trials, “Darkness at Noon”, observes that the main protagonist, Rubashov “confesses because he cannot find in his own mind any reason for not doing… Read More
Month: October 2013
(Some) animal rights philosophers say the darndest things!
Originally posted on Speaking of Research:
Cheryl Abbate is a self-described feminist, philosopher and military officer. She is currently a Philosophy PhD student at Marquette University and obtained her MA in Philosophy with Bernard Rollin at Colorado State University. She was one of the animal rights activists who asked me questions during the discussion of my…
Electroconvulsive shock and transcranial stimulation as torture methods in George Orwell’s 1984
Sign up for my newsletter here, and have content delivered direct to your inbox I first read George Orwell’s 1984 while in hospital for a minor operation in my early teens. It horrified me at the time, and it continues to exert a powerful hold on my imagination. It is justly celebrated as possibly the… Read More
Physical Activity and the Prevention of Depression: A Systematic Review of Prospective Studies
Important systematic review evidence for the efficacy of physical activity on mood, adding further to the evidence base that exercise plays a very positive neuroregulatory role (see also this Cochrane systematic review downloadable here; and some of our own work here). Am J Prev Med. 2013 Nov;45(5):649-57. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2013.08.001. Physical activity and the prevention of depression: a systematic… Read More
Torture methods employed for perceptual, personality and behavioural modification in Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Koestler’s ‘Darkness at Noon’
[My book ‘Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation’ (Harvard UP) can be preordered from Amazon (.com) – more details at end of post] George Orwell and Arthur Koestler were perhaps the most important and celebrated political novelists of the mid-20th century. They were very different individuals, having lived very different lives. Koestler was a restless Hungarian émigré who spent time under… Read More
Make Better Decisions by Getting Outside Your Social Bubble
What is your moral baseline?
Originally posted on Speaking of Research:
I was recently invited to offer a moral justification for the scientific use of animals in medical research at the University of Wisconsin. After the talk we had over an hour of discussion where we saw everything from some thoughtful questions to nonsensical ramble. I presented an argument and I…
Resistance to Disconfirmation: Easily my favourite cognitive bias – some thoughts on why it persists
There are lots of cognitive biases – systematic deviations from logic and rationality present across a wide range of human information processing domains, including perception, judgement and reasoning. Resistance to disconfirmation is one of the most fascinating biases, where individuals and groups simply will not or can not believe that some belief they hold is simply, manifestly and verifiably untrue. It… Read More
Thanks, Neurocritic!
Neurocritic (who has a most excellent blog too) says: How have I not seen @smomara1's wonderful eponymous blog {'Shane O'Mara's Blog'} before now? http://t.co/NKPFnWj3Oh — sarcastic_f (@sarcastic_f) October 25, 2013
Economics may be a science, but it is not one of the sciences
Originally posted on neuroecology:
(Begin poorly-thought-out post:) Raj Chetty wrote an article for the New York Times that has been being passed around the economics blogosphere on why economics is a science: What kind of science, people wondered, bestows its most distinguished honor on scholars with opposing ideas? “They should make these politically balanced awards…