I’ll be on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show this morning, 11:06 to 11:25, discussing my Atlantic story about the “orchid gene” hypothesis, which recasts some of our most important vulnerability genes — depression, ADHD, hyperaggression and the like — as genes that can also underlie heightened function both as individuals and a species.
Monthly Archives: November 2009
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Best blog post title of the day: “I will suck your gruyere”
by David Dobbs •
I will suck your gruyere Tyler Cowen on why people love vampire tales: Vampire stories offer a platform for exploring the theme of pure, limitless, and eternal desire, yet without encountering the absurdities that might result from planting that theme in a realistic, real world setting, such as a man who loves cheese studded with…
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Roz Chast’s “finite filing cabinet model” of memory confirmed
by David Dobbs •
One of my favorite Roz Chast cartoons shows a woman dumping out the high-falutin’ contents of a filing cabinet drawer — 16th century art, or something like that — to make room for a new drawer full of information about new TV shows. This is the finite filing cabinet model of memory, in which you…
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The Neurocritic: Genomarketing!
by David Dobbs •
Is this the foreshadowing of a highly unethical marketing practice? Marketing based on MAO-A genotype, as determined from mailed-in credit card applications and payments? Credit card companies will have in-house labs to extract DNA from stamps and envelope flaps (Sinclair & McKechnie, 2000; Ng et al., 2007).1 Taking it one step further, entire marketing campaigns…
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Senator Asks Pentagon To Review Antidepressants
by David Dobbs •
This is a good example of how reflexive diagnoses, as PTSD has become for any combat veteran (and sometimes even prospective combat veterans — i.e., troops preparing to deploy), can do harm. They can lead you to ignore other possible causes of the symptoms on display.
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Raymond Tallis trashtalks some “Neurotrash”
by David Dobbs •
Ray Tallis takes to those who paint all things neuro.
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I’m not vulnerable, just especially plastic. Risk genes, environment, and evolution, in the Atlantic
by David Dobbs •
This is a transformative, even startling view of human frailty and strength. For more than a decade, proponents of the vulnerability hypothesis have argued that certain gene variants underlie some of humankind’s most grievous problems: despair, alienation, cruelties both petty and epic. The orchid hypothesis accepts that proposition. But it adds, tantalizingly, that these same troublesome genes play a critical role in our species’ astounding success.
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Fallows on the Fort Hood shootings: “Don’t mean nothing.”
by David Dobbs •
James Fallows gets the shootings right, as he does so much else: In the saturation coverage right after the events, the “expert” talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too. Looking back, we can see that all…
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Gorgeous thing of the day: Sky’s-eye view of the Maldives & other islands
by David Dobbs •
It was in this unique archipelago that Alexander Agassiz found the evidence he felt proved beyond doubt that Darwin’s theory of coral reef formation was wrong, dead wrong.
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“The male approaches with his thumbs (like the Fonz) and mounts the female (like the Fonz.)”
by David Dobbs •
Tell me that doesn’t leave you wanting more. Ed Yong delivers: Male bats create tents by biting leaves until they fall into shape. These provide shelter and double as harems, each housing several females who the male mates with. Fruit bat sex goes like this: the female approaches and sniffs the male, and both partners…
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