Social Sciences

I was inadvertently exposed to the filth and depravity of VH1's "Rock of Love Bus," also known as STDs on Wheels, when I turned on my TV to watch the (relatively) innocent and science-fueled Big Bang Theory.

If you feel like dropping 150 IQ points, here's the clip in all its intellectual and classy glory. If you don't have any neurons to spare, here's a quote that sums up the few minutes' worth of the show I saw (and that's all I ever want to see), as Bret Michaels expresses his heartfelt emotions with lyricism inspired by the deep wells of pure love: "You are this rocking hot centerfold, ok?"

Love and Being in Love: Love is in our mind and is fueled by chemicals and chemistry.
New love produces the chemistry in love we all seek.

Throughout history, mankind has deemed the heart the center of love. But scientists tell us love is all in our mind or brain. And fueled by chemicals and chemistry.

Infatuation

When two people are attracted to each other, a virtual explosion of adrenaline-like nuerochemicals gush forth. Fireworks explode and we see stars. PEA or phenylethylamine is a chemical that speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells.

David Chalmers is a philosopher of mind, best known for his argument about the difficulty of what he termed the “hard problem” of consciousness, which he typically discusses by way of a thought experiment featuring zombies who act and talk exactly like humans, and yet have no conscious thought (I explained clearly what I think of that sort of thing in my essay on “The Zombification of Philosophy”).

Let me describe two very different academic careers.

Everybody understands that good parents have to lay down rules for their children as they grow up. However, too many rules can be a bad thing, says a new report in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

According to the authors, numerous studies have found that in Western countries, when parents are too strict with their children, they can impede their psychological development. It has also been suggested that this effect may not be as strong in East Asian countries — researchers have posited that certain aspects of East Asian culture may make children more accepting of their parents' intrusive behavior.

Hormones called androgens are considered important in the development of masculine characteristics like aggression and strength and some believe that prenatal androgens affect finger length during development in the womb.

High levels of androgens, such as testosterone, increase the length of the fourth finger in comparison to the second finger. Some archaeologists and anthropologists are using finger ratios as an indicator of the levels of exposure to the hormone and recently compared this data with social behavior in primate groups. 

While more than half the academic life science researchers responding to a 2007 survey indicated having some relationship with private industry, the prevalence of such relationships – particularly direct funding for research studies – appears to be dropping.

The Results of a survey, appearing in the November/December 2009 issue of Health Affairs,
also suggest that interest in commercial applications of research appears to be growing, even among investigators without industry funding. The new study is a follow-up to 1985 and 1995 surveys by members of the same team.

"On Bullshit" sounds a lot better in Latin, doesn't it. Harry Frankfurt has a very interesting take on intellectual bullshit* (not agricultural bullshit) and its relationship to lying.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the
truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who
lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent
respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he
believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly
indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the

With the publication of a paper in the upcoming issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, science has finally confirmed what most people have long thought. According to the study, physical appearance says a lot when seeing someone for the first time. What most people likely don't know, however, is that first impressions based solely on appearance are actually fairly accurate.

According to a new report published in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, individuals who experience both adversity as children and traumatic events as adults are more
likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than those individuals who experience
only one of these kinds of incidents.

The report also found that the risk was greater for individuals with a particular genetic mutation that may influence the way the brain processes the neurotransmitter serotonin, affecting an individual's anxiety levels and changing the way neurons react to fearful stimuli.