Avoidance of things past

Can we establish something right at the get-go?

Just because something is old doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Okay, ancient Greek sculpture is pretty awesome.  Ditto Roman architecture.  More recently, but still a while back, I find that music by Heinrich Ignaz von Biber (1644-1704) beats hollow any music from Justin Bieber (1994-present), and in fact I am inclined to think that music's pretty much been in decline since Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750.

But in general?  There are a lot of things from the past that we really should leave in the past.  Consider the Four Humors Theory of Medicine, in which all disease was thought to be due to an imbalance in the four "humors" of the body -- blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile.  It's what gave rise to the lovely idea of bloodletting to treat disease (not to mention the words sanguine, phlegmatic, bilious, and melancholy).

And that's hardly the only example.  There's trial by ordeal, sacrificing virgins in volcanoes, reading the future by looking at the entrails of chickens, and belief in witchcraft.  So while it's natural enough to venerate our ancestors, it bears remembering that they came up with some truly awful ideas.

Which is why I started rolling my eyes at the title of an article in Quartz, and pretty much didn't stop till the last line.

The article in question, "Horoscopes 2018: Astrology Isn’t Fake—It’s Just Been Ruined by Modern Psychology" by Ida C. Benedetto, claims that reading portents in the skies isn't wrong; the problem lies with the damn researchers trying to elucidate what's actually happening in the brain.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Benedetto spends a good bit of her article slamming the whole "Sun Signs" thing, which is what gives us the horoscope columns in the daily newspaper, wherein you can find out that if you're an Aquarius, while you're walking to work today you will trip over a curb and drop your cup of coffee down a storm sewer.  (Okay, I honestly don't have any clue what is going to happen to you if you're an Aquarius.  For one thing, I'm a Scorpio.  For another, it's a lot of bollocks in any case, so it doesn't really matter.)

Benedetto writes:

Don’t relate to your sign?  That might be because sun-signs astrology is a recent creation designed to appeal to mass audiences...

The sun-sign approach to astrology continued to grow in popularity through newspaper columns in the first half of the 20th century and boomed when New Age went mainstream in the 1960s.  Historian Nick Campion notes that “sun-sign astrology domesticated the universe” at a time when astronomy discovered that our galaxy was one small dot among billions in a perpetually expanding universe.  When modern science was making humanity look smaller and more insignificant than ever, people found it reassuring to think of their personalities as being reflected in the stars.

In which, so far, I find nothing to disagree with.  But then she tells us that we need to jettison modern sun sign astrology, and replace it with the astrology from the ancient Greeks.

Now, I don't mean to run down the ancient Greeks, who did some amazing stuff.  But their knowledge of the stars -- i.e., astroNOMY, not astroLOGY -- was pretty rudimentary.  After all, they're the ones who, presumably after drinking way too much ouzo, looked up at random assemblages of stars and had the following conversation, only in ancient Greek:

Ancient Greek Guy #1:  Dude.  Don't you think that bunch of stars over there looks just like a "sea goat?" 

Ancient Greek Guy #2:  What the fuck is a "sea goat?" 

Ancient Greek Guy #1:  It's a goat with the tail of a fish.  Here, have another shot of ouzo. 

Ancient Greek Guy #2:  Yeah, now I see the resemblance.  Let's call it "Capricorn." 

Ancient Greek Guy #1:  Isn't that name Latin?  We're ancient Greeks.

Ancient Greek Guy #2:  Hey, bro, you were just talking about "sea goats."  Don't come after me about accuracy. 

Ancient Greek Guy #1:  Oh, okay, fair enough.  [takes another slug of ouzo]  And hey, look at those stars!  That bunch looks like a virgin, don't you think? 

Ancient Greek Guy #2:  A virgin?  How can you tell at this distance? 

Ancient Greek Guy #1:  Why else would she be up there in the sky? 

Ancient Greek Guy #2:  Okay, that makes sense.

So it's not like I'm that inclined to take their knowledge of what was actually happening in the heavens all that seriously.  Benedetto, however, says that both the current astronomers and astrologers have missed the point entirely.  So what, exactly, does she believe?  It takes her a while to get to the point -- she seems much clearer on what she doesn't believe -- but she finally has this to say:

One of the greatest sticking points where traditional and modern astrology diverge is destiny.  Hellenistic astrology describes a causal relationship between the movement of planets and stars and the material world on earth.  The ancients also believed in the notion of fate.  Fatedness runs counter to our modern notion of free will, and therefore many find traditional astrology unpalatable.  However, we do not need to believe in a fatalistic view of planetary movements to revive some insights in the work of the ancient astrologers who espoused them.

Which sounds pretty mushy, but that's honestly the most solid thing she has to say about it.  She then quotes an astrologer whose name is (I'm not making this up) "Wonder Bright," who says that you can reconcile the old and new astrology if you look at it just right.

"Modern counseling methods," Bright says, "are a boon to the astrologer and probably account for the large percentage of women studying and practicing astrology nowadays, which would have been unthinkable in previous centuries."

And as far as that goes, I can easily reconcile old and new astrology:

They're both bullshit.  The end.

What strikes me about all of this is that both flavors of astrologer, old and new, don't ever ask what are really the only relevant questions here:

1. Is there scientifically admissible evidence for any of this?
2. Is there any plausible mechanism by which the motion of distant planets against even more distant stars could affect events here on Earth?

Of course, since the answer to both of them is "No," it's unsurprising she didn't address the issue.

She ends with a rather amusing statement: "Traditional astrology, with its wealth of ancient texts, deserves the same respectful suspension of disbelief as other old-world scientific fields."  Righty-o.  I'll start first.  You "respectfully suspend your disbelief" with respect to reading the future from patterns of sticks dropped on the floor, and I'll do the same with respect to what happens when Neptune is in Sagittarius.  (Once again, I have no idea either if Neptune is currently in Sagittarius, or if so what it means, and moreover, I don't give a damn about either one.)

So the whole argument is rather ridiculous.  It brings up the quote from Cicero, who wondered how "two augurs could pass on the street and look one another in the face without laughing."

As for me, however, I think I'm going to go listen to some music by Bach.  Whatever else you can say about those folks back in the past, they sure did know how to write a cool prelude and fugue.

The best part of waking up...

Ah, the early morning.  All is quiet, so it's time to put on the coffee, look forward to a nice hot cup of joe.  Because there's nothing better at this time of day than a dark French roast...

... which, I must state for the record, I would prefer to take by mouth.

The reason I have to specify is, unsurprisingly, because of noted scientific researcher Gwyneth Paltrow, who is now selling a device for $135 whereby you can get your morning coffee squirted up your ass instead.

For what it's worth, I'm not making this up, although I sure as hell wish I was.  The device, called the "Implant-O-Rama" (didn't make the name up either, I swear), is basically just a glass bottle with some silicone tubing.  So I can think of a great many other better uses for $135, and that includes using it to start a fire in my wood stove.

It will probably not shock you to hear that this is all in the name of "detoxification."  A coffee enema is supposed to "detoxify your blood," which should only be a concern if your liver and kidneys aren't working properly.  (And if this is the case, you need to see a doctor immediately, not put your morning Starbucks where the sun don't shine.)

[image courtesy of photographer Julius Schorzman and the Wikimedia Commons]

Why coffee, you might be asking?  Why not orange juice or iced tea or Snapple or Mountain Dew?  The answer: I have no fucking clue.  My guess is that Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't know, either.  If you asked her, she'd probably tell you it had to do with the quantum resonant frequencies of your chakras or something.  But we haven't worried about explanations from her before, so why start now?

At this point it will also come as no particular surprise that people have injured themselves administering coffee enemas.  Emergency rooms have reported colon inflammation, perforated rectums, sepsis, and blood electrolyte imbalances from people doing this to themselves, including at least two people who died of the aftereffects.  Then there were a couple of cases where people suffered severe internal burns, since folks who are stupid enough to squirt random liquids up their ass are evidently also stupid enough not to wait until said liquids are cool.

What's wryly funny about all this is the list of things they say a coffee enema can cure.  Implant-O-Rama, says the website, “can mean relief from depression, confusion, general nervous tension, many allergy related symptoms and, most importantly, relief from severe pain.  Coffee enemas lower serum toxins.”

If it gets rid of confusion, you have to wonder why people in the middle of a coffee enema don't suddenly frown and say, "Wait.  Why do I have a tube up my ass?  This is idiotic."

And about relief from severe pain -- I guess getting scalding hot coffee up your backside would take your mind off any pain you're experiencing elsewhere, just as smashing your toe with a hammer makes you temporarily forget you've got a headache.

Then, of course, we have the disclaimer:

The information contained in these pages and on this website is not intended to replace your medical doctor.  This information has not been evaluated or approved by the FDA and is not necessarily based on scientific evidence from any source...  These products are intended to support general well-being and are not intended to treat, diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or cure any condition or disease.

"Not intended to mitigate any condition?"  So what the fuck does "relief from depression etc. etc. etc." mean to you?

The whole thing is kind of maddening, but even more maddening than the idea that hucksters are trying to bilk you out of your hard-earned cash (that, after all, is what hucksters do) is the fact that there are bunches of people just kind of nod and go, "Oh.  Okay."  It apparently never occurs to them to ask how the hell a coffee enema could help you, or even to ask the person making the claim to name one specific toxic substance the body produces that your liver and kidneys are incapable of handling.

So anyway.  My general advice is "just don't."  There's a good reason that the slogan doesn't go, "The best part of waking up is Folger's up your butt."  There's nothing wrong with a good cup of coffee in the morning, but please put it into the correct orifice.

Rainbow DNA resonance

After yesterday's post, about Bodie Hodge, the creationist whose ideas are so loony they're almost inspired, today we take a look at his counterpart in the world of woo-woo.

Ever heard of Leonard Horowitz?  He's a guy who's been around a while, and who in fact is well-known enough to merit a page in The Skeptic's Dictionary, wherein he is described as "... an evangelical huckster.  The only people who love him are talk show hosts and the good people who are so paranoid that they will believe anything that supports their deranged thought processes."

Which is pretty unequivocal.

Horowitz himself was a dentist, who despite the medical training that is required for the field, evidently never absorbed much in the way of standard biological information, nor (for that matter) common sense.  He claims, for example, that flu vaccines cause sterility, which I know will come as a great shock to the thousands of individuals who get flu shots yearly and go on to have children.   Instead of getting a flu shot, Horowitz says, you should merely dose up on vitamin C and D, and purchase from his website (c'mon, you knew he was selling something) "alkalanizing water" and "covalently-bonded silver hydrosols" that will render you invincible.

Dr. Horowitz is nothing if not modest.  On his website, he says the following about himself: 

There is no more knowledgeable, credible, credentialed, and prolific professional in the world addressing the duplicity of geopolitics and economics influencing “healthcare,” and the solutions to these and other urgent problems affecting global populations, than Dr. Horowitz.

So there you are.  

He also has a lot to say about his own books, which are of course brilliant:

His 2007 decryption of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous drawing revealed the mathematics of LOVE: The Real da Vinci CODE; and his follow-up text, the most monumental of his 30-year career, The Book of 528: Prosperity Key of LOVE, reveals “God’s creative technology,” available for revolutionizing music, recording artistry, healthcare and medicine, environmental protection, natural resource restoration, along with civilization’s transformation as an “enlightened species” choosing peaceful sustainable collaboration versus murderous degenerative competition and lethal consumption.

Two other wonderful Horowitz creations are the "Water Resonator" (a sticker you apply to the water jug in your fridge) that "displays the precise sound frequencies of universal creation to restore nature's resonance energy and electromagnetic purity of water," and the "DNA Enhancer," another sticker that you place on your acupuncture points, which works because "DNA is nature's bioacoustic and electromagnetic (that is, 'spiritual') energy receiver, signal transformer, and quantum sound and light transmitter."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But by far my favorite Horowitz claim is that the standard musical tuning of A = 440 hertz is gradually turning music listeners into mindless zombies.  The problem, apparently, is that the "natural" tuning of A = 444 hertz was suppressed by the Rockefellers, who realized that tuning orchestral instruments to 440 would allow them control the minds of anyone exposed to music.  The whole thing involves the Illuminati, the Federal Reserve, Lucifer, Muzak, the Manhattan Project, Elvis Presley, Pat Robertson, the Nazis, Pythagoras, Nikola Tesla, and the Beatles.  Which, I believe, makes it the single most comprehensive conspiracy theory ever invented, needing only a mention of HAARP to make it a shoo-in for the Gold Medal of Woo-Woo.

You can wade through his website, if you like; just the illustrations make it one of the most inadvertently hilarious things I've ever read.   But in case you don't have the time, inclination, or spare brain cells to kill, here's the abstract of a paper he wrote (yes, it's set up like a traditional scientific paper, with an abstract, introduction, background, methodology, and so on):

This article details events in musical history that are central to understanding and treating modern psychopathology, social aggression, political corruption, genetic dysfunction, and cross-cultural degeneration of traditional values risking life on earth.  This history concerns A=440Hz “standard tuning,” and the Rockefeller Foundation’s military commercialization of music.  The monopolization of the music industry features this imposed frequency that is “herding” populations into greater aggression, psychosocial agitation, and emotional distress predisposing people to physical illnesses and financial impositions profiting the agents, agencies, and companies engaged in the monopoly.   Alternatively, the most natural, instinctively attractive, A=444Hz (C5=528Hz) frequency that is most vividly displayed botanically has been suppressed.  That is, the “good vibrations” that the plant kingdom obviously broadcasts in its greenish-yellow display, remedial to emotional distress, social aggression, and more, has been musically censored.  Thus, a musical revolution is needed to advance world health and peace, and has already begun with musicians retuning their instruments to perform optimally, impact audiences beneficially, and restore integrity to the performing arts and sciences.  Music makers are thus urged to communicate and debate these facts, condemn the militarization of music that has been secretly administered, and retune instruments and voices to frequencies most sustaining and healing.

Myself, I like the "greenish-yellow good vibrations" part the best, and will now immediately re-tune my flute to A = 444 hertz.  (I'd also attempt to do the same with my bagpipes, but given that "soothing psychosocial agitation" is really not something most people associate with bagpipe music, I probably shouldn't bother.  Besides, tuning bagpipes is kind of a losing proposition in the first place.)

Oh, yeah, and he says that 528 Hertz vibrations "resonate the heart of rainbows."  Whatever the fuck that means.

His "About the Author" bit (in case you didn't get that far) also makes for good reading, and includes a mention of various accolades he's received:  "Dr. Horowitz has been honored as a 'World Leading Intellectual' by officials of the World Organization for Natural Medicine for his revelations in the musical mathematics of creationism that are impacting the fields of metaphysics, creative consciousness, sacred geometry, musicology, and natural healing according to his life’s mission―to help fulfill humanity’s Divine destiny to actualize world peace and permacultural sustainability."

Whoooo.  Those are some serious credentials, dude.  You had me at the "revelations in the musical mathematics of creationism" part, not to mention the whole "sacred geometry" thing, which always makes me picture people worshiping equilateral triangles and chanting Euclid's Postulates while burning incense.

Anyway.  That's our woo-woo of the day, and one of my particular favorites.  Whatever else you can say about Dr. Horowitz, he's certainly earnest, and one should never discount the humor value of some of these people.  So thanks for the chuckles, Lenny.  Keep up the good work.

Flood rock of ages

I've tended to shy away from posting about creationists lately.

For one thing, I've said all I really intend to say on the subject, and it's extremely unlikely that either of us is going to change our mind significantly.  We come at knowledge from different angles, ones that really aren't reconcilable, so argument would be a complete waste of time.

For another, it's not like they've had a lot of new developments to contribute.  The bible doesn't change, sort of by definition, and any scientific discoveries are automatically ignored if they don't support young-earth creationism.  (Which, of course, is 99.9% of them.)

But every once in a while there's something that's so crazy, so off the deep end, that it almost seems like an inspired self-parody.  And I figure that anything that gives my readers a laugh, even if it's a rueful one, is worth writing about.

Which is why the article called "They Are Digging in the Wrong Place!" by Bodie Hodge that appeared over at Answers in Genesis is the topic of today's post.

It starts out in the usual fashion, that is, "you evolutionists sure are dumb."  He opens with a quote from the historical documentary Raiders of the Lost Ark, wherein a creepy Nazi guy ends up digging in the wrong place because he only had half of the inscription needed to decode where the Ark of the Covenant was buried.  Thus far, I was kind of yawning, because it seemed like it was more of the same-old, same-old.

But then he veers off into the aether with an argument that is as amusing as it is bizarre.

Um, Noah?  I think we might have a problem with the lions.

He explains that the big mistake we evolutionary biologists are making is that we're looking for fossils in the wrong place.  He correctly states that paleontologists look for proto-hominid fossils in strata dating from the Pleistocene and Pliocene Epochs, and for connections between dinosaurs and birds in strata dating from the Cretaceous Era and Paleocene Epoch.  So far, so good.  But then he said that this is wrong, because we're using the wrong timetable, and I'm not just talking about shortening everything up to fit in 6,000 years.

With no further ado, allow me to present Hodge's timetable of geological strata:

	Rock layer	Timeline
1	Recent	Post-Flood
2	Pleistocene	Post-Flood
3	Pliocene	Post-Flood
4	Miocene	Flood
5	Oligocene	Flood
6	Eocene	Flood
7	Paleocene	Flood
8	Cretaceous	Flood
9	Jurassic	Flood
10	Triassic	Flood
11	Permian	Flood
12	Pennsylvanian	Flood
13	Mississippian	Flood
14	Devonian	Flood
15	Silurian	Flood
16	Ordovician	Flood
17	Cambrian	Flood
18	Precambrian	Pre-Flood

And yes, he's saying what it looks like he's saying.  The Pre-Cambrian Era was before the Great Flood, so presumably dates from the time of Adam and Eve and company.  From the Pliocene on are strata formed after the Ark touched down on Mount Ararat and the wombats waddled their way from the Middle East back to Australia.

And everything else -- all other rock strata -- were formed in forty days during the Flood.

Hodge writes:

Biblical creationists presuppose the Bible’s truth and subsequently the true history of the earth—including Noah’s Flood.  Evolutionists have presuppositions too, albeit, false ones, but presuppositions nonetheless.  This is why when evolutionists look at Flood rock they unwittingly believe that the rock was actually laid down slowly and gradually over long ages.  I suggest they have been indoctrinated to believe such stories as gradual rock accumulation over millions of years which has never been observed or repeated.  Thus, the concept of millions of years is not in the realm of science but interpretation.

Yup, the creationists have presuppositions, all right.  They include the idea that the physicists, biologists, chemists, astronomers, and geologists -- who all agree on the Earth's age at about 4.5 billions years -- are wrong, and a bunch of illiterate Bronze-Age goat herders in a benighted desert east of the Mediterranean Sea are the only ones in the history of the world who got it right.

Okay, I know even commenting on this is a waste of time. Hodge is right about one thing (the only thing in the article that was within hailing distance of the truth, actually); we science-types have assumptions of our own.  Or, more accurately, one assumption, namely, that science works.  After that, we go where the data and evidence take us.

Which, trust me, is nowhere near "Flood Rock."

So I hope you got a good laugh out of Hodge's argument.  I did, too, although it did ring a bit hollow, as there are still people trying to shoehorn this nonsense into public school science curricula.  Which would mean that we have turned public schools into a place where students will find indoctrination into a mythological worldview instead of quality science education.

Talk about "digging in the wrong place."

Instability at the top

Let me say this as plainly as I can:

The President of the United States is a dangerously unstable man.

I do not say this lightly, and it's not simply that I disagree with his political agenda.  I've commented before on this administration's anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-environmental leanings, and that's not what I'm referring to here.

The issue I want to address today is that we are being led, being represented to the world, by a man who is temperamentally unfit to lead a Moose Lodge meeting, much less an entire nation.  He shows every sign of being paranoid, delusional, petty, hypersensitive, and childish.  Some have suggested he has dementia or narcissistic personality disorder.  I'm no psychologist and do not know enough to weigh in on those counts, but one thing I do know.

The behavior of Donald Trump recently is the product of a profoundly disturbed mind.  And this would be true regardless of what party he belonged to.

That point was brought home to anyone who was listening by his tweet day before yesterday, aimed at Kim Jong-Un, president of North Korea:

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.”  Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!

So we have a president for whom the possibility of nuclear devastation, costing tens or (more likely) hundreds of thousands of lives, has boiled down to a dick-measuring contest.

I find it astounding -- and appalling -- that this man has any support left, much less one-third of Americans and damn near every Republican Senator and Representative in Congress.  Look, folks, this goes beyond party affiliation and political expediency.  It might serve your agenda to keep Trump in office, pretend that the GOP is a unified front, see if you can accomplish your ends before the whole thing implodes.

But if you're doing that, you're responsible for the outcome of leaving him in office.

On some level I understand the impulses that drive people to a charismatic populist like Donald Trump.  If you're not frustrated with governmental gridlock, with lobby-driven, back-room politics, with lawmakers who pay more attention to their corporate sponsors than to their constituents, you haven't been paying attention.

But there comes a time when the ethical thing is to admit you made a mistake.  Trump has done nothing to end any of the things he ranted about on the campaign trail, and contrary to what you'll hear on Fox News, it's not because of stonewalling by the Democrats.  How could it be?  The Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress, governorships state-by-state, and the United States Supreme Court.  If Trump et al. haven't done what they promised -- "draining the swamp" -- it's because they had no intention of doing so in the first place.  They followed up a pledge to end corporate cronyism by appointing the richest, most pro-corporate, most avaricious set of government appointees since the Robber Baron Era.

The most pressing problem, however, is Trump himself.  Besides his incendiary playground taunting of people like Kim Jong-Un, he also has a capacity for lying that makes me wonder if he even realizes he's doing it.  The non-partisan site PolitiFact -- winner of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism -- has fact-checked Trump's statements, and found that 54% of them rate as "false" or "mostly false."

But no one in his own party calls him on it.  His spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, dodges and weaves every time the topic comes up, and in fact stated outright in an interview on The View that "ninety-five percent of what the President says is not a lie."

I'd love it if someone could print out a list of all two-thousand-odd lies Trump has told in his first year as president, and ask Sanders to provide evidence for each of them that he was telling the truth.

Except, of course, for the five percent where she admits he was lying.

Instead, they've claimed that it's the media that's making it all up, despite the fact that most of the statements in question are recorded either on tweets or on video.  The response makes sense, I guess; the easiest way to bamboozle the general populace is to accuse your opposition of what you're doing yourself.  It means that most everyone will fall back on confirmation bias -- cherry-picking statements so that they only listen to the ones that conform to what they already believe.

The bottom line is that this man is jeopardizing the country with his bellicose taunts and continuous lying.  I don't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Socialist, or anything else.  If you evaluate not the spin of the policy wonks, but what Trump himself has said and done, there is no other possible conclusion.

Which means that the Senators and Representatives who are sitting in Congress, pretending everything is all right so they can maintain their power and achieve their ends, are responsible for every bit of the chaos, instability, and loss of human lives that his irresponsible and juvenile statements will ultimately cause.

All by myself

A couple of days ago, a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link, and asked, "What would an introvert make of this?"

He asked me for good reason.  I've been an introvert all my life, but it's only gotten more pronounced as I've aged.  I can be shy and socially awkward to the point of deer-in-the-headlights panic.  I go to parties, mostly on my (much more outgoing) wife's urging, but unless I know everyone there -- not that likely -- I'll be the guy with a glass of scotch in my hand, looking around for a dog to socialize with.  I've been known to spend an entire evening at a social gathering, and speak twice -- "Hi, thanks for inviting me," and "Thanks, it was great."

The upside: I'm a good listener.  But still.

In any case, the link was to a paper in the journal Current Opinion in Psychology called "Social Baseline Theory: The Social Regulation of Risk and Effort," by James A. Coan and David A. Sbarra, which makes an interesting claim; that humans are basically social animals, so if you want to see someone acting in the normal way -- his/her "social baseline" -- don't use the usual psychological norm of observation in solitude, see how (s)he behaves in a group.

The authors write:

According to [social baseline theory], the human brain assumes proximity to social resources—resources that comprise the intrinsically social environment to which it is adapted.  Put another way, the human brain expects access to relationships characterized by interdependence, shared goals, and joint attention.  Violations of this expectation increase cognitive and physiological effort as the brain perceives fewer available resources and prepares the body to either conserve or more heavily invest its own energy.  This increase in cognitive and physiological effort is frequently accompanied by distress, both acute and chronic, with all the negative sequelae for health and well being that implies.

The implications to psychological research, if this is true, are obvious.  Take, for example, how functional MRI research is generally conducted:

In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research, a standard convention is to compare an experimental treatment to a “resting baseline” characterized by simply lying alone in the scanner.  This convention is predicated on the reasonable assumption that experimental treatments present stimuli otherwise absent from the sensorium while participants are alone.  But inspection of brain activity in several studies... now suggests the brain responds to being alone as if sensory stimuli have been added, not taken away.  That is, the brain looks more “at rest” when social resources are obviously available.  This presents a puzzle potentially resolvable by considering proximity to a familiar other the brain’s true “baseline” state, and being alone as more like an experimental treatment—a context that adds perceived work for the brain to do.

Which certainly adds a layer of complication to studying the workings of the brain.

However, my friend's question is well taken.  Wouldn't there be considerable variation in this response, so much so that it wouldn't represent a baseline in any kind of general manner?  Taking myself as an example -- and other introverts I've talked to agree -- it requires far more energy to be with people than to be alone.  I love my family and friends, but I'm never completely relaxed when I'm around other people.  Interacting is work.  It's rewarding work, and the connections I've made to people are not something I'd ever want to give up, but it's definitely more taxing than being alone.

Solitude (2006) [image courtesy of photographer Aiko Matsuoka and the Wikimedia Commons]

I notice this especially given my day job as a high school biology teacher.  My students are wonderful, and I definitely enjoy their energy and their interest, but being around them is simply exhausting for me.  At the end of the day, usually the last thing I want is to be around more people.  What I really want is to shut myself in my office, and put on some music, and relax.

Preferably with a dog and a glass of scotch.

So it's an intriguing idea, but I'm inclined to question its conclusions, at least as they apply to humanity as a whole.  I suppose it will always be hard to come up with any broad-brush generalizations with which to characterize the human mind.  Part of what makes us so interesting to each other is that no two of us reacts precisely the same way.

And now I must draw this to a close, because I've got to go to work.  First week back at school after a long break.  We'll see how it goes.  I don't have any other options, of course, given that I need the paycheck and it's a little early in the day to start drinking.

Steve, Steve, Jennifer, and Onesimus

Do you think I look like a "Gordon?"

According to some recent research, I might not have at birth, but I sure do now.  A study, conducted by Yonat Zwebner (which name I am not making up), Nir Rosenfeld, and Ruth Mayo of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Anne-Laure Sellier of HEC Paris, and Jacob Goldenberg of Columbia University, found that the old idea that people are named to match their facial features may actually work in reverse -- the name they're given might actually influence their features.

The paper, "We Look Like Our Names: The Manifestation of Name Stereotypes in Facial Appearance," released a few months ago in the journal Attitude and Social Cognition, found a peculiar pattern when they looked at matching names with faces; a person's name apparently subtly alters such malleable traits such as hairstyle, style of glasses, and resting facial expression.  The authors write:

Research demonstrates that facial appearance affects social perceptions.  The current research investigates the reverse possibility: Can social perceptions influence facial appearance?  We examine a social tag that is associated with us early in life—our given name.  The hypothesis is that name stereotypes can be manifested in facial appearance, producing a face-name matching effect, whereby both a social perceiver and a computer are able to accurately match a person’s name to his or her face.  In 8 studies we demonstrate the existence of this effect, as participants examining an unfamiliar face accurately select the person’s true name from a list of several names, significantly above chance level.  We replicate the effect in 2 countries and find that it extends beyond the limits of socioeconomic cues.  We also find the effect using a computer-based paradigm and 94,000 faces.  In our exploration of the underlying mechanism, we show that existing name stereotypes produce the effect, as its occurrence is culture-dependent.  A self-fulfilling prophecy seems to be at work, as initial evidence shows that facial appearance regions that are controlled by the individual (e.g., hairstyle) are sufficient to produce the effect, and socially using one’s given name is necessary to generate the effect.  Together, these studies suggest that facial appearance represents social expectations of how a person with a specific name should look.  In this way a social tag may influence one’s facial appearance.

Which is interesting in and of itself, but it makes me wonder about how this might be reflected in the changing of naming patterns over time, not to mention the other factors that drive name choice -- such as the fact that some names "run in the family."

I can say from experience that it's hard to decide on a name, which probably explains the plethora of baby name books out there on the market.  Parents want something that will be a source of pride for the child, and will give the child a sense of identity.  (Except, apparently, in my own parents' case, as I was named after my dad, something for which I still haven't forgiven them.)  But sometimes, in that search for uniqueness, parents land on a name that falls into the "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time" department.

Which probably explains why a recent study of 3000 parents in Britain revealed the startling finding that twenty percent of parents regret the name they chose for their children.

His name is Oliver, but you probably already knew that.  [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Even more common names sometimes have their downsides, suggests another study, done back in 2010 by David Figlio of Northwestern University.  Figlio and his team first did phonemic studies of thousands of names, to sort them into "masculine sounding" and "feminine sounding" names.  They then looked at data from schools, and came up with the amazing trend that boys given feminine-sounding names (e.g. Ashley, Shannon) were significantly more likely to cause discipline problems, and girls given masculine-sounding names (e.g. Madison, Morgan) were far less likely to choose academically rigorous courses of study.

Are names destiny?  There certainly have been general shifts in naming patterns; what is popular with one generation is out in the next, which is why some names end up sounding "old fashioned."  I recall a comic strip from the 1970s, depicting the typical group photo shot of a first grade class, the teacher sitting primly at the end of the first row.  The caption read: "Top Row: Steve, Steve, Jennifer, Steve, Jennifer, Jennifer, Steve.  Middle Row: Jennifer, Jennifer, Steve, Jennifer, Steve, Steve, Steve.  Bottom Row: Jennifer, Steve, Jennifer, Jennifer, Steve, Jennifer, Steve, and Mrs. Bertha Q. Wackenhorst."

This one struck a special note for me.  My grandmother's given name was Bertha Viola, and amongst her siblings were Roxzella Vandell, Orsa Osburne, Flossie Doris, Fanny Elinore, and Clarence Arnold.  Thank heaven their last name was Scott; with an odd-sounding last name, any of those combinations would have been unfortunate indeed.

I find it interesting to consider why the rather harsh-sounding, mostly Germanic names that were in vogue in the late 19th century are mostly gone.  These days you see few, if any, children named Hilda, Ethel, Edgar, Harold, Arthur, Gertrude, Archibald, and so on.  These were amongst the most popular names during the last decades of the 1800s and the first of the 1900s, and yet by the 1950s all of them were virtually gone from the baby name books.  Did parents of that era think that giving a child a strong-sounding name would be an asset in their making their way in the world?  If so, that gives us an interesting insight into the worldview of turn-of-the-century America.

Some names make you wonder what the parents were thinking at the time.  The parents of Chanda Lear, should, in my opinion, be kicked.  I also find myself wondering why parents would choose a relatively common name and then spell it strangely.  I suppose the desire is to impart a sense of uniqueness and individuality to the name, but the sheer inconvenience of it would (for me, at least) outweigh any sense of pride in having a name that has a twist in the way it's spelled.  This seems to be more common with girls' names, for some reason.  Naming a child Khrystee, Liane (pronounced like Leanne), or Erykah -- all monikers borne by former students of mine -- just seems to be asking for a lifetime of having your name misspelled.

However, it's not always the given name that results in a cross to bear for the individual, and a humorous effect for the rest of us.  Working for a registrar's office, one of my first jobs after graduating from college, I ran into transcripts for Turki Hasher, Celestina Crapp, Timothy Turnipseed, Carl Tolfree, and James Hollopeter.  Family allegiance notwithstanding, I can't imagine why Cloyd Dick IV wouldn't change his name.

Then, there's the never-to-be-forgotten woman I heard about because when she got married, it made the national news.  Her maiden name was Phoebe P. Peabody.  She married a guy named Paul Beebe, and decided to go with a hyphenated married name, so she became Phoebe P. Peabody-Beebe.  Which to my ears sounds like Morse Code.  I guess even without the hyphen, she'd still have been Phoebe Beebe, so I guess it's commendable that she decided to go big or go home.

As I mentioned earlier, I rather dislike my own first name, but not enough to go through the hassle of changing it.  But just considering what it would be like to go through life as Basile Bastard or Nancy Anne Seancey or Earless Romero (all real names, I swear) makes me unlikely to complain.  And if you think things are bad now, go back in history, and you run into some truly wacky ones.  My wife's ancestry boasts a woman named Albreda de Brumpton.  My own includes a German dude named Poppo von Rot.  My cousin in New Mexico descends from a Georgia plantation owner named Onesimus Futch.  My son thinks this sounds like an insult. ("You... you... onesimus futch, you!!!")  So, it could be worse.

A great deal worse.