Would it be stupid to create something smarter than us? Over at Aeon, Ross Andersen considers the question: To understand why an AI might be dangerous, you have to avoid anthropomorphising it. When you ask yourself what it might do in a particular situation, you can’t answer by proxy. You can’t picture a super-smart version of […]
Continue reading →A team from the Antarctic Heritage Trust found some century-old negatives from the Shackleton’s 1914-1917 expedition. Some lovely photos, like that above, amidst them. Note the artful use of three men at varying distances to capture a sense of depth the photo would otherwise lack. Shackleton took some good photographers. Story at Imaging Resource. […]
Continue reading →For posterity and ease-of-finding, here’s a chrono list of my more substantial publications of 2013. Fifteen pieces published elsewhere; one here at Neuron Culture; 30,000 some-odd words, not counting the interviews. A lighter year than some, since I was working mainly on The Orchid and the Dandelion, which I should finish in 2014 for publication in 2015. […]
Continue reading →Does this add up? Everyday Math is drill free. It’s jargon full. Complaints are widespread that it is confusing for parents and children. And it doesn’t build on concepts or scaffold understanding. It has children learn 2 plus 2 in 500 different ways, many of which involve answering questions like, “How did Tanya add two […]
Continue reading →Below find my ever-growing annotated collection of online responses to the FDA’s recent shot across the bow of 23andMe, the consumer genetics company. Until today, I was adding these links to the bottom of my own first reaction to the FDA’s stern letter. (I published my broader, more studied take, How 23andMe Broke the Rules: The F.D.A. […]
Continue reading →I’ve a story at Slate today about how genetics stands in a bizarre but lovely state of confusion—taken aback, but eager to advance; balanced tenuously between wild ambition and a deep but troubling humility. It includes some discomfiting tweets from last week’s big human genetics conference in Boston; a walk around the campus of Cambridge University […]
Continue reading →Finally made time to create a list of selected reading/sources for my Pacific Standard article “The Social Life of Genes.” (A few of you had asked.) The list is below, and also at http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/selected-references-for-social-life-of-genes/. Alaux, C, S Sinha, and L Hasadsri. 2009. “Honey Bee Aggression Supports a Link Between Gene Regulation and Behavioral Evolution.” In PNAS, […]
Continue reading →It is surprising that it was not until 2006 that the first epidemiological study comparing England and the United States found a social health gradient in both. What was unanticipated was that America as a whole was sicker than England (10). Even those at the top of the U.S. social ladder, despite their access to […]
Continue reading →Neuroskeptic, one of the most insightful neuro-psycho-bloggers out there today, has a nice post at Discover on a Mark Brown article about whether it helps, if you’re fighting depression, to hear of famous role models who did so too. In general, Neuroskeptic shares the skepticism Brown feels about this. Where Brown asserts that where the […]
Continue reading →A few months ago I posted here about “Chasing Ice,” a film following photographer James Balog’s quest to document the shrinkage of ice fields and glaciers as climate change melted them away. I was quite moved, when I saw it in theater in my current hometown, not just by Balog’s efforts but by the electrifying […]
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