Voilà!
*evil chuckle*
I really should get some work done now but I'll be back later for some
Moderators: kiore, Blip, The_Metatron
Does the absence of light always produce an increase in adrenaline and sympathetic activation all the time in every person? Surely that would make it incredibly difficult to sleep? Or did you mean that happens in people who are afraid of the dark? In which case, it is an effect of the fear, and not the fear itself. The "fear of light" you've described sounds more like, at most, a physical aversion to light. "Fears" are behavioral phenomena, and these effects may trigger or increase the level of fear, but describing "fear of the dark" as "an increase in adrenaline levels, etc" is looking at it bass ackwards.
Which part? My questioning of the use of the term "natural", my claim that you failed to catch perfectly as a kid, or that it requires years of pretraining? The first claim is perfectly reasonable given the vagueness of the term, the third is undeniably true, but arguably the second is on shaky ground - you bloody Indians probably do have a "cricket gene" in you so you might have always been able to catch perfectly..
But things like motion sensing requires a degree of skill in discriminating objects from the world, and discriminating pre and post positions of objects, and so on, and all these things are done through learning.
So we need the visual system that is capable of being able to see far enough to detect objects, with a "refresh rate" capable of being able to notice motion, etc etc., but the calculations are still learnt. We have a brain powerful enough to make the calculations, yes, but the actual equations we use are all developed over time through our experience with various situations.
And identifying what an object is, what a position is, how it behaves in 3D space has a lot of environmental components. Nature/nurture, you can't separate the two and pretend to have a meaningful discussion.
Doesn't have to be zero gravity, just a different gravity. I can't think of any way to ethically test this though. But if you describe your "inherited calculator" as the thing which requires a mass of environmental data and learning before it can start producing accurate results, then you need to reassess the usefulness of assuming the existence of an "inherited calculator".
On the basis of published Magnetic Resonance Images and the values of the specific fetal and amniotic fluid
weights, apparent weight of the fetus from the 18th week of gestation until term was determined. Up to the 21–22nd
gestation week the fetus is in conditions similar to neutral floating, while after the 26th gestation week the apparent
weight of the fetus is 60–80% of the actual weight. Decreased effect of the buoyant forces that affect the fetus in human
species during the last trimester has a number of implications for the colonization of the solar system. During space flight it
is impossible to apply the existing countermeasures against microgravity deconditioning of the muscular and
cardiovascular systems to the fetus. Absence of gravitational loading during the last trimester of gestation would cause
hypotrophy of the spinal extensors and lower extremities muscles, reduction in the amount of myosin heavy chain type I in
the extensor muscles of the trunk and legs, hypoplasy and osteopeny of the vertebras and lower extremities long bones,
and hypotrophy of the left ventricle of the heart muscle. Because of decreased capacity of postural and locomotor
stability, acquisition of the gross developmental milestones such as sitting, standing and walking could be delayed. In the authors’ opinion, only artificial gravity (rotating platform) during space flight will allow physiological development of the
human fetus. Independency of offspring’s of the guinea pig as regards locomotion and nursing increases probability of
successful breeding in microgravity compared with rat offspring’s, and make this species a candidate for future
experiments under conditions of microgravity and hypergravity. Examining the gestation of this species in different
gravities requires first the experimental determination of the amount of buoyant force to which the fetus is exposed in
physiological conditions.
True, they aren't mutually exclusive but given the variation and unpredictable nature of different environments, I imagine that having fixed rules for calculating certain things would be a disadvantage to any organism. Unless, as I said above, you're referring to extremely fundamental rules that facilitate the nature of future learning, then again such a claim is undeniably true.
I had never heard of him before, but he sounds like a jackass with shit experiments. Apparently he was measuring the behavior of his subjects by videotaping them and then coding their behavior. May as well sit them down on a leather couch and get them to talk about their feelings..
Anyway, I don't understand what claim you're trying to make by bringing him up. That because one scientist was fraudulent then all of science is flawed? Oh wait, you just wanted to take a specific jab at behavioral researchers...
But given that his papers were reviewed by journals like Science, Cognition, etc, then this is a reflection of science in general and not behavioral research. Also, the best rebuttal to people who claim that one bad apple in science refutes all of science (or part of it) is to point out that the misconduct was discovered and refuted by other behavioral researchers..
If that's what you think my position is then I haven't explained myself very well. I'm strongly arguing in favour of nature and nurture influences, I don't think arguing for one over the other, or claiming that one is "more" influential, is helpful at all. I do, however, think that people severely misunderstand the role that environmental factors and learning plays in how we understand the world. In other words, I take a similar approach to John Watson:Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.
That is, I do sometimes argue for, or emphasise, the side of nurture but this is simply an attempt to balance the scales, not because I think that we can discuss behavior without reference to genetics.
natselrox wrote:I don't. I perform like shit at the Iowa gambling task. Must be an orbitofrontal cortex damage and not the way I was brought up, you nurturist!
Maybe you have a testicular problem, otherwise known as "Big Balls Syndrome"
And just to clarify, my position in no way represents a nurturist position!
natselrox wrote:Suppose a man is standing in a brightly lit room when the light suddenly turns off. His sympathetic system is stimulated. But he is soon accustomed with the darkness. Similarly, a person is looking at a dim light when suddenly a bright light is put on his retina, his pupils contract. But after a while he accommodates. What I tried to say, was that there was no fundamental difference between the two phenomena. The point is, we have different fears that serve an evolutionary purpose. When exposed to the right stimulus, a specific set of neurons fire. Pupillary reflex is the simplest of this type of aversion response. Being afraid of an incoming Samsa response is on the more complicated end of this spectrum.
natselrox wrote:And like I said before, if there is indeed a gap in this graph where modifiability creeps in, still I'd say that the graph is continuous on either side of that gap.
natselrox wrote:But things like motion sensing requires a degree of skill in discriminating objects from the world, and discriminating pre and post positions of objects, and so on, and all these things are done through learning.
Nyah. Discriminating objects from the world and estimating their pre and post positions require training? This is getting absurd! In a world where you have to make split second decisions, relying on LTPs and other synaptic modification mechanisms that probably occur on a timescale of seconds would mean that the tiniest of frog would have to live for 200 years.
natselrox wrote:And identifying what an object is, what a position is, how it behaves in 3D space has a lot of environmental components. Nature/nurture, you can't separate the two and pretend to have a meaningful discussion.
You can. Nurture is trivial but it is the bit under our control hence its perceived over-importance.
natselrox wrote:Really? More the amount of data a calculator is able to process, technically the more complicated it is. I was actually being generous in saying that the calculator is less of a calculator and more of a connection of wires.
natselrox wrote:Anyway, the closest to this experiment that I can remember is one that was published a while back. Apparently, life has totally adapted to this third planet around the sun.On the basis of published Magnetic Resonance Images and the values of the specific fetal and amniotic fluid
weights, apparent weight of the fetus from the 18th week of gestation until term was determined. Up to the 21–22nd
gestation week the fetus is in conditions similar to neutral floating, while after the 26th gestation week the apparent
weight of the fetus is 60–80% of the actual weight. Decreased effect of the buoyant forces that affect the fetus in human
species during the last trimester has a number of implications for the colonization of the solar system. During space flight it
is impossible to apply the existing countermeasures against microgravity deconditioning of the muscular and
cardiovascular systems to the fetus. Absence of gravitational loading during the last trimester of gestation would cause
hypotrophy of the spinal extensors and lower extremities muscles, reduction in the amount of myosin heavy chain type I in
the extensor muscles of the trunk and legs, hypoplasy and osteopeny of the vertebras and lower extremities long bones,
and hypotrophy of the left ventricle of the heart muscle. Because of decreased capacity of postural and locomotor
stability, acquisition of the gross developmental milestones such as sitting, standing and walking could be delayed. In the authors’ opinion, only artificial gravity (rotating platform) during space flight will allow physiological development of the
human fetus. Independency of offspring’s of the guinea pig as regards locomotion and nursing increases probability of
successful breeding in microgravity compared with rat offspring’s, and make this species a candidate for future
experiments under conditions of microgravity and hypergravity. Examining the gestation of this species in different
gravities requires first the experimental determination of the amount of buoyant force to which the fetus is exposed in
physiological conditions.
Someone from RDF mailed me the whole pdf. I don't remember who though. Another example that comes to mind (because I studied them recently) are the clockwork genes that have a time period roughly coinciding with the light-dark phase of the day/night. Completely extraterrestrial conditions would be impossible for a fetus to adopt into.
natselrox wrote:True, they aren't mutually exclusive but given the variation and unpredictable nature of different environments, I imagine that having fixed rules for calculating certain things would be a disadvantage to any organism. Unless, as I said above, you're referring to extremely fundamental rules that facilitate the nature of future learning, then again such a claim is undeniably true.
But I think we have fixed rules that are disadvantageous to us.
natselrox wrote:I had never heard of him before, but he sounds like a jackass with shit experiments. Apparently he was measuring the behavior of his subjects by videotaping them and then coding their behavior. May as well sit them down on a leather couch and get them to talk about their feelings..
Have you read his 'Moral Minds'. I thought of borrowing it from the library but after the scandal, I feel odd. Prejudice can be a deadly thing in science.
natselrox wrote:Absolutely. I was just kidding. Some of the strongest critics of him have been his own colleagues.
natselrox wrote:If that's what you think my position is then I haven't explained myself very well. I'm strongly arguing in favour of nature and nurture influences, I don't think arguing for one over the other, or claiming that one is "more" influential, is helpful at all. I do, however, think that people severely misunderstand the role that environmental factors and learning plays in how we understand the world. In other words, I take a similar approach to John Watson:Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.
That is, I do sometimes argue for, or emphasise, the side of nurture but this is simply an attempt to balance the scales, not because I think that we can discuss behavior without reference to genetics.
I totally understand the sentiment. But I somehow don't trust what John Watson said.
There is one point I'd like to make here and it's that environmental determinism (like the John Watson quote) is as fatal (as in the verb-form of 'fate'. English is my second language so boo!) as genetic determinism. What Watson implies is that every thief has been made so by his environment and this is the same as blaming his genome IMO. Every non-Einstein/non-Picasso/non-Obama has his parents/environment to blame. Sounds weird to me.
natselrox wrote:Problems arise when people politicise the issue. Nature might indeed be a racist/sexist/whatever but that does not imply that we should be. (Mind you, I'm not saying that nature is any of these.)
natselrox wrote:I know. Consider this my lame attempt at pulling your leg.
natselrox wrote:I have managed to royally fuck up the reply. The top 3 paragraphs are missing!
Ignore me, Samsa. I'm totally worthless.
Mr.Samsa wrote:But you're still looking at it backwards.. When someone is scared then there might be a pupil response, so there is some correlation between the two actions, but it doesn't mean that pupil response is fear, nor does it even suggest that pupil response is an accurate measure of fear.
And evolutionary fears, you say? I'd be very interested in hearing some of them. Because I'm a nice person I'll give you a hint: there is no evolutionary fear of things like spiders or snakes, certain colours, or heights, and if there is a fear of the dark, it's an incidental effect of another factor and not technically a fear of the dark itself.
Have at thee.
natselrox wrote:And like I said before, if there is indeed a gap in this graph where modifiability creeps in, still I'd say that the graph is continuous on either side of that gap.
And I still think you are severely misunderestimating ( ) the size of the gap.
Why would it need to live for centuries? Modification happens as experience happens and the discrimination, once learnt, requires almost no time to occur. To be honest, I think you're really misunderstanding what learning is and how it manifests in organisms. When I say that organisms need to learn to separate objects from the world, I don't mean that they sit there mentally figuring out where the contours of one thing separate it from another and then ponder their future possible actions.. Learning results in split second decisions.
To be fair, some animals are born with some of these "calculations" in-built, like sharks which are forced to swim the moment they are born.
But humans are fundamentally different in this respect, we don't have these same defences.
We are born as 'learning machines' whose evolutionary strength is the extent to which we can adapt and learn.
Sure, but my point is that your "calculator" is something we need to build before we can use it. It's like me telling you that I have this super awesome calculator, here's the plastic and a few buttons, all you need to do is create the PCB, stick it all together then write the software. It's not a calculator, it's a lump of stuff with the future potential to calculate if assembled correctly.
Uh... yeah, but that completely misses the point of my hypothetical. My point wasn't that if you remove all the muscles and tendons from a person's body then they would still be able to catch a ball. Obviously different environments will have different effects on the body, but attacking my hypothetical on the grounds of an unrelated factor is surely irrelevant? It's like me presenting the hypothetical: "If a homicidal maniac held two people at gun point, an old man and a child, and asked you to pick which one should die, which would you choose?" and you replying, "Why would he be asking me? Surely the police would have a negotiator on hand to deal with situations like that? Why don't they just set up a sniper to shoot him?".
In other words, my point was that the calculations we make to judge objects are malleable and in my example of different gravities there was the implicit assumption that the people would not be dead - as obviously no learning could take place then.
But how about a more simple example, take the world cup that just went past. Players have learnt to calculate the path of a soccer ball for their entire lives but suddenly the physics of the ball changes, the jabulani. At the beginning of the world cup people were shit at kicking the ball and the goalkeepers made horrific mistakes because they couldn't figure out how it was moving (like a child initially learning how to catch). Eventually, however, they learnt how to judge all the variables necessary to catch and kick the ball despite the physics of the situation being different from what they have encountered before and unlike anything you'd find in nature.
Absolutely. However, the disadvantage I was talking about is the fact that I doubt many organisms would live to reproductive age if they had specific fixed rules for dealing with situations. They'd just be absolutely useless as soon as the environment changed slightly and it would require a massive evolutionary shift each generation just to keep the rules relevant. Instead, evolution took the simple path and gave organisms the ability to learn from experience.
Now, this doesn't mean we don't have fundamental fixed rules (we certainly do) and it doesn't mean that they are always advantageous (as they certainly aren't) but it does mean that the specific rules that you are arguing for are simply untenable.
I just read through the wiki page for "Moral Minds". His premise sounds ridiculous, like he's been talking to Sam Harris or something..
John Watson wasn't arguing for environmental determinism though? The whole point of his quote was to point out the obvious (nature and nurture are inseparable) but to emphasise the fact that his focus is on environmental factors due to the historical ignorance that has plagued science in that area. The key part you need to read is the last line: "I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years." In other words, he's absolutely not saying that he could create a thief out of any baby. He's making a completely wild claim that is aimed to produce a backlash and outrage, then he counters it with what amounts to: "But you guys have been making stupid claims about biology and nature for centuries and no one bats an eyelid". He's highlighting the fact that ignoring an entire half of what constitutes a living organism is a surefire way of fucking things up.
Tajfel tested subjects by having them perform a more or less meaningless task, like choosing between one of two painters or guessing a number of dots shown on a screen. Then, each subject was assigned to a group, ostensibly based on their answer. When the groups were formed and asked to distribute real rewards, they became loyal to their own group and were stingy with the other group. Many variations on this experiment have been performed subsequently, and they have shown that people can develop group loyalty very quickly even in the absence of real differences. Subjects even became emotionally invested in their meaningless groups, cheering for their own group’s rewards and mocking the other group
(Oh, and your English is perfect, by the way. Far better than most native speakers I know, even university educated ones, so I wouldn't worry if I were you. My Hindi is much worse, all I can say is "You like sex in the bum" and I don't even know how to write it down ).
natselrox wrote:Problems arise when people politicise the issue. Nature might indeed be a racist/sexist/whatever but that does not imply that we should be. (Mind you, I'm not saying that nature is any of these.)
Yeah certainly, no arguments there.
natselrox wrote:That's not what I said. I said that response to any fearful stimulus is like the pupillary reflex. Only more complicated.
natselrox wrote:Do babies have to fall from a height before they learn to fear height? How do you explain the fact that all the common phobias indicate a strong evolutionary heritage?
natselrox wrote:Imagine a frog throwing out its tongue to catch a fly. This involves the muscles of the tongue and their precise contraction preceded by an accurate measurement of the location of the fly. Now do you seriously think that this involves tiny adjustments at every synaptic connections involved in the whole process? As a matter of fact, I think we know that it doesn't. It's a reflex phenomenon involving the superior colliculus (that which is involved in visual reflexes in human). Adjusting every synapse by LTP or else seems too slow for the lifetime of the frog.
natselrox wrote:But humans are fundamentally different in this respect, we don't have these same defences.
As a matter of fact, I was just looking at images of the shark-brain and the human brain. The missing part is the neocortex. The basic survival arsenal remain the same. So swimming might not come naturally to the primate but catching a ball surely does.
natselrox wrote:We are born as 'learning machines' whose evolutionary strength is the extent to which we can adapt and learn.
We are born as machines that are capable of learning a few things. (Btw, that was a pretty strong claim! Speak of big balls!)
natselrox wrote:You didn't say that humans would be able to adapt to an environment with altered gravitational parameters, I know. You just said that they'll be able to solve the dynamics equations in a zero gravity space. I was trying to show how intricately related gravity is to our normal development. And I bolded the part where it said that "Because of decreased capacity of postural and locomotor stability, acquisition of the gross developmental milestones such as sitting, standing and walking could be delayed" trying to emphasize the fact that gravity is an integral part in our learning phase of motor control. A baby raised in space would not be able to stand up properly, let alone catch a ball. Your claim that a human brain is a bunch of raw material that will be able to assemble itself to fit any circumstance does not stand.
My example was not the best one but it was the only one I could remember.In other words, my point was that the calculations we make to judge objects are malleable and in my example of different gravities there was the implicit assumption that the people would not be dead - as obviously no learning could take place then.
Or without a mal-developed cerebellum, an improper muscle growth etc.
natselrox wrote:But how about a more simple example, take the world cup that just went past. Players have learnt to calculate the path of a soccer ball for their entire lives but suddenly the physics of the ball changes, the jabulani. At the beginning of the world cup people were shit at kicking the ball and the goalkeepers made horrific mistakes because they couldn't figure out how it was moving (like a child initially learning how to catch). Eventually, however, they learnt how to judge all the variables necessary to catch and kick the ball despite the physics of the situation being different from what they have encountered before and unlike anything you'd find in nature.
1. Not really. Up to the quarter final, there were more misplaced passes than at any of the last four tournaments.. If you look at the statistics more than 80% of passes to the far post have been over hit.
natselrox wrote:2. But this is getting trivial. Obviously, you have natural counterparts of objects with different shapes. A falling banana is different from a falling coconut. Try teaching a man catching a bullet.
natselrox wrote:We are both coming off as extremists. I'm not as rigid as you think.
natselrox wrote:I just read through the wiki page for "Moral Minds". His premise sounds ridiculous, like he's been talking to Sam Harris or something..
What do you and Jerome have against Sam Harris? He's smart and eloquent.
natselrox wrote:It's like what Dawkins says. When the pendulum has swung too far in a direction, you have to push it to other extreme so as to restore the equilibrium.
natselrox wrote:Tajfel tested subjects by having them perform a more or less meaningless task, like choosing between one of two painters or guessing a number of dots shown on a screen. Then, each subject was assigned to a group, ostensibly based on their answer. When the groups were formed and asked to distribute real rewards, they became loyal to their own group and were stingy with the other group. Many variations on this experiment have been performed subsequently, and they have shown that people can develop group loyalty very quickly even in the absence of real differences. Subjects even became emotionally invested in their meaningless groups, cheering for their own group’s rewards and mocking the other group
And that is one of the reasons for most conflicts IMO. But that's another discussion.
natselrox wrote:(Oh, and your English is perfect, by the way. Far better than most native speakers I know, even university educated ones, so I wouldn't worry if I were you. My Hindi is much worse, all I can say is "You like sex in the bum" and I don't even know how to write it down ).
My first language is not Hindi btw. It's Bengali! That actually makes English my third language. (Beng, Hindi, Eng)
natselrox wrote:natselrox wrote:Problems arise when people politicise the issue. Nature might indeed be a racist/sexist/whatever but that does not imply that we should be. (Mind you, I'm not saying that nature is any of these.)
Yeah certainly, no arguments there.
Can you type that in the racism-thread?
Mr.Samsa wrote:natselrox wrote:That's not what I said. I said that response to any fearful stimulus is like the pupillary reflex. Only more complicated.
Oh I see. On a very general level, perhaps, in the sense that they are cause-effect relationships. But it seems overly simplistic to describe it as such.
natselrox wrote:Do babies have to fall from a height before they learn to fear height? How do you explain the fact that all the common phobias indicate a strong evolutionary heritage?
Place a new born in a situation with a contraption where there appears to be a large drop off (obviously with some transparent material to prevent any possible injury to the child) and they will happily move toward it. These studies tend to be hampered by the motor abilities of babies though - obviously new borns don't possess the ability to move toward things so they have to be placed toward it and you have to measure their responses (which is an inaccurate measure), and by the time babies can crawl they've had experience with heights. Fortunately, people don't really care about animals and as far as I'm aware new born animals will happily walk toward, and fall, off the side of large step.
As for common phobias indicating a strong evolutionary heritage, this is explained by the fact that evolutionary psychologists are brilliant at telling just-so stories.
Seriously, name absolutely any real or imagined behavior in humans and I will give you a decent explanation as to how it conferred an advantage to our ancestors.
That discussion would be a waste of time though, as there is absolutely no evidence that common phobias are present in children. Seriously, do a literature search for it and all you'll get is articles from the 70s. In the late 70s people starting questioning the idea that we are innately scared of spiders and snakes due to a slightly odd observation that was consistently being made - children love playing with spiders and snakes. They'll put them in their mouths and everything.
I don't know much about frogs to be honest, are they perfect at this from birth? If so, then they probably do have a mechanism for this like sharks. Likely, it will be a FAP; the presence of the fly will elicit the tongue response.
natselrox wrote:But humans are fundamentally different in this respect, we don't have these same defences.
As a matter of fact, I was just looking at images of the shark-brain and the human brain. The missing part is the neocortex. The basic survival arsenal remain the same. So swimming might not come naturally to the primate but catching a ball surely does.
So because we have similar parts of the brain to sharks, and sharks have an innate tendency to swim when born, we can automatically catch balls?
Really? I don't know of any evolutionary biologist that would disagree. Humans are pathetically weak creatures, we don't have talons, or deadly incisors, we have no venom or poisons, we can't fly, we can't run particularly fast, and we tend to drown a lot in water - we are generally failures of evolution. Except for one thing, the fact that we can learn so much.
Sure, but in my defence, I didn't say zero gravity, you did. Obviously learning is dependent on normal bodily functions and needs being met.
That just proves the point I was making. At the beginning of the tournament, everyone sucked but by the end they improved.
natselrox wrote:2. But this is getting trivial. Obviously, you have natural counterparts of objects with different shapes. A falling banana is different from a falling coconut. Try teaching a man catching a bullet.
Well that would just be silly, only Ozymandias can do that.
It just seems like your approach to calculating the physics of objects requires so many assumptions and it seems incredibly unparsimonious.
natselrox wrote:I just read through the wiki page for "Moral Minds". His premise sounds ridiculous, like he's been talking to Sam Harris or something..
What do you and Jerome have against Sam Harris? He's smart and eloquent.
Anybody who has read an introduction to morality understands why Sam Harris is an idiot. His work on neuroscience is cringeworthy as well - he makes the same mistakes as creationists, just from the opposite angle (that is, starts with his conclusion and attempts to prove it). His arguments for the 'science of morality' essentially amount to: "I'm going to show you all how we can objectively determine morality without the use of philosophy! Okay, first I'm going to assume that utilitarianism is true, next we're going to....".
Basically, all he's said is what everybody already knew. If we can decide on a philosophical position to take then we can use science to help us make judgements. So if we decide that abortion is only morally wrong when the little thing is "alive" and we define "alive" as having brainwaves, then science can tell us that this is around 20(?) weeks.
Hmm.. it's a slightly old paper but I'm not sure what the current thinking is on this topic. I think people generally do pigeon hole themselves and defend "their side" and attack "the enemy". I don't think that's what I'm doing though, my position is firmly the idea that nature and nurture are inseparable forces - I've taken the emphasised side of nurture partly because it's what I know, but also because you've swung a bit too far in the other direction (in my opinion). If someone would have entered this thread and claimed that the water striders' behavior from the OP (yeah, remember that topic! ) was caused completely by the environment and had no genetic basis, or if someone made the argument that people are blank slates, then I would swing into the side of nature and argue what idiots they are because Skinner was clearly wrong. And I have done this before, the advantage of knowing your "side" quite well is that you know all the flaws with it too
Generally though, on boards like this people will strongly argue that any behavior that exists in humans or animals is a result of evolution. A thread about attraction? "Oh yeah, I heard people are attracted to symmetry, it's evolutionary!". A thread about phobias? "People are scared of snakes because in the past those who were scared of snakes survived". Basically every topic that comes up is "explained" with a just-so story and it seems like everyone forgets to ask the basic question of - is this effect even real? It's something that even evolutionary psychologists (and sometimes biologists) miss quite often, which is why we always get ridiculous stories like, "Scientists explain why women speak more than men!" or "Research discovers why men can't multitask!".
The experiments are always 'interesting', their speculations are always more thrilling than a Dan Brown novel, but the actual thing their looking at, the thing they're trying to explain, usually doesn't even exist. People aren't attracted to symmetry, nor scared of snakes, there are no differences between the amount men and women speak, nor in their multitasking skills...
/rant
Wouldn't make any difference. Half of the people in that thread think I'm a bleeding heart liberal with an agenda against scientific honesty, and the other half think I'm a cold-hearted racist bastard.
However, I take pride in the fact that there are such conflicting thoughts on what my position is, I assume that it's evidence of my impartiality.
natselrox wrote:
And when you say animals I take it that you mean to include all the animals that there are. All of them need to learn to fear a fall from a height? I remain highly skeptical of this claim.
natselrox wrote:Even in case of humans, how do you propose a possible neural mechanism in an infant that enables it to learn a fear of height before it can even crawl? The baby learns it by watching other people falling from heights? Let's see how minimalist can you be in proposing the requisite materials in the human brain...
natselrox wrote:That discussion would be a waste of time though, as there is absolutely no evidence that common phobias are present in children. Seriously, do a literature search for it and all you'll get is articles from the 70s. In the late 70s people starting questioning the idea that we are innately scared of spiders and snakes due to a slightly odd observation that was consistently being made - children love playing with spiders and snakes. They'll put them in their mouths and everything.
This is where they have overdone it. Spiders and snakes may not be inherently fear-evoking in humans but condors are to the hatchlings of certain birds. Height might be one in humans. So can be a host of other fears/phobias across species.
natselrox wrote:I don't know much about frogs to be honest, are they perfect at this from birth? If so, then they probably do have a mechanism for this like sharks. Likely, it will be a FAP; the presence of the fly will elicit the tongue response.
What's wrong with the hypothesis that catching a ball is a FAP in humans?
natselrox wrote:
So because we have similar parts of the brain to sharks, and sharks have an innate tendency to swim when born, we can automatically catch balls?
Basically, yes. When you subconsciously catch a ball you might be using those parts of the brain that are common in humans and sharks.
natselrox wrote:Really? I don't know of any evolutionary biologist that would disagree. Humans are pathetically weak creatures, we don't have talons, or deadly incisors, we have no venom or poisons, we can't fly, we can't run particularly fast, and we tend to drown a lot in water - we are generally failures of evolution. Except for one thing, the fact that we can learn so much.
The last part gives some of us the arrogance to think that if trained for some time we might even learn to fly! We are really arguing for the extremes.
natselrox wrote:Sure, but in my defence, I didn't say zero gravity, you did. Obviously learning is dependent on normal bodily functions and needs being met.
There is smooth curve that connects 9.8 m/s^2 to 0 m/s^2 and bodily functions would be hampered as you go along the curve in a linear (just simplifying. I don't know the exact relation.) fashion. So my point holds.
natselrox wrote:That just proves the point I was making. At the beginning of the tournament, everyone sucked but by the end they improved.
The first link said that starting from the quarter finals, there was a reduced incidence of missed free-kicks etc. Given that 8 of the best teams qualify for the QF and there are only 8 matches in that stage of the tournament, that claim does not hold. And the second link compared the misses across the whole tournament with previous ones.
natselrox wrote:natselrox wrote:2. But this is getting trivial. Obviously, you have natural counterparts of objects with different shapes. A falling banana is different from a falling coconut. Try teaching a man catching a bullet.
Well that would just be silly, only Ozymandias can do that.
It just seems like your approach to calculating the physics of objects requires so many assumptions and it seems incredibly unparsimonious.
On the other hand, I find your approach to be unparsimonious. A totally plastic neural circuit capable of calculating dynamic equations and modifying the motor responses accordingly is by definition a less parsimonious system than a rigid structure with limited abilities to act in a short range of variable parameters.
natselrox wrote:You are like a mercenary/lawyer! You can argue/play for any side you wish! I love people like that. Fluidity is my favourite character in a human. No absolute stances. Or am I hyperboling much?
If someone would have entered this thread and claimed that the water striders' behavior from the OP (yeah, remember that topic! ) was caused completely by the environment and had no genetic basis, or if someone made the argument that people are blank slates, then I would swing into the side of nature and argue what idiots they are because Skinner was clearly wrong.
Imadzaheer wrote:Great discussion, I think this is the only forum where I find as ardent behaviorist as my myself
Imadzaheer wrote:Just one quick point on what Mr. Samsa said which I could not resist commenting on.If someone would have entered this thread and claimed that the water striders' behavior from the OP (yeah, remember that topic! ) was caused completely by the environment and had no genetic basis, or if someone made the argument that people are blank slates, then I would swing into the side of nature and argue what idiots they are because Skinner was clearly wrong.
I must say I'm disappointed. Someone such as yourself certainly would not state that Skinner believed in any way that humans were blank slates :-p
ChH Says:
August 10th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
This is extortion, not blackmail.
charle Says:
August 11th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
A teen age woman confessed to me that a man had told her if she didn’t have sex with him, that he would tell her boyfriend that he had had sex with her. She had sex with him.
Mr.Samsa wrote:natselrox wrote:
And when you say animals I take it that you mean to include all the animals that there are. All of them need to learn to fear a fall from a height? I remain highly skeptical of this claim.
I just said those that I'm aware of. There might be some animal that has a genetic predisposition toward avoiding heights, but I personally haven't heard of any. Most animals do need to learn this though - or rather, they need to learn folk physics. That is, things that go up come down, and when you come down it hurts a little, and the greater the distance the more the hurt.
Cruel as it sounds, one of the simplest ways to determine whether depth perception is present in young animals is to ask whether they are willing to crawl off a “cliff.” To do this safely, an infant is placed on an elevated glass surface that is
patterned on one half and clear on the other. If an infant is willing to crawl out over the clear surface, off the “perceptual cliff,” then one assumes poor depth perception. By the time that they crawl, most infants do avoid the “cliff,” indicating that depth perception is present (Walk and Gibson, 1961). To determine whether infants can perceive depth before they
crawl, 1- to 4-month-old subjects were equipped with a heart rate monitor and suspended either above the shallow side or the deep side. Interestingly, the heart rate was lower when the infants were suspended above the deep side, suggesting that they were interested but not fearful. An accelerated heart rate was measured after the infants began to crawl (Campos et al., 1970).More precise measurements of depth perception obtained in nonhuman species show a rather sudden improvement. For example, binocular perception in cats goes from being rather poor to almost adult-like between 4 and 6 weeks postnatal (Timney, 1981).
natselrox wrote:
The testing device, called a visual cliff, consists of a
sheet of plexiglas that covers a high-contrast checkerboard pattern.
On one side of the device, the cloth is placed immediately beneath
the plexiglas, and on the other side it is placed 4 feet below. The
majority of infants would not crawl onto the seemingly unsupported
surface, even when their mothers beckoned them from the other
side. These results suggest that infants perceive depth by 6 months
of age. (Gibson and Walk, 1960)
natselrox wrote:Cruel as it sounds, one of the simplest ways to determine whether depth perception is present in young animals is to ask whether they are willing to crawl off a “cliff.” To do this safely, an infant is placed on an elevated glass surface that is
patterned on one half and clear on the other. If an infant is willing to crawl out over the clear surface, off the “perceptual cliff,” then one assumes poor depth perception. By the time that they crawl, most infants do avoid the “cliff,” indicating that depth perception is present (Walk and Gibson, 1961). To determine whether infants can perceive depth before they
crawl, 1- to 4-month-old subjects were equipped with a heart rate monitor and suspended either above the shallow side or the deep side. Interestingly, the heart rate was lower when the infants were suspended above the deep side, suggesting that they were interested but not fearful. An accelerated heart rate was measured after the infants began to crawl (Campos et al., 1970).More precise measurements of depth perception obtained in nonhuman species show a rather sudden improvement. For example, binocular perception in cats goes from being rather poor to almost adult-like between 4 and 6 weeks postnatal (Timney, 1981).
I was reading the 'Development of Nervous System' by Sanes and came across this. Thought I should share this.
So it seems that with the perception of depth coming with binocular vision which develops over a short period of time, comes the fear of height. Quite a short window for so much learning to occur. I'll get back on this with more research.
I have a vague recollection of a claim that it is not the case that forest dwellers view distant wildebeest as close insects. Nevertheless, the contrary claim exists.natselrox wrote:I think you didn't read the whole thing. Kids upto 4 months do not show a fear of height as shown by the heart rate measurements. But this fear appeared with the appearance of binocular vision which as shown by the studies in cat is a rather abrupt development (4-6 weeks of postnatal development). That's what I meant by a short time window- 2 weeks.
natselrox wrote:I think you didn't read the whole thing. Kids upto 4 months do not show a fear of height as shown by the heart rate measurements. But this fear appeared with the appearance of binocular vision which as shown by the studies in cat is a rather abrupt development (4-6 weeks of postnatal development). That's what I meant by a short time window- 2 weeks.
From here: http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/ber ... tation.pdfBertenthal & Campos (1990) report that perceptual sensitivity to objects
and surfaces changes significantly following some experience with crawling.
For example, Campos et al (1992) report a series of studies showing that
precrawling infants show no evidence of fear (as indexed by heart rate acceleration)
when lowered onto the deep side of a visual cliff (simulating an
apparent drop-off in height), whereas crawling infants show a significant
degree of fear. Fear is also shown by precrawling infants if they are given
sufficient experience with self-locomotion in baby-walkers. Apparently, such
experience with perceptual guidance of self-locomotion changes infants’ perceptual
appreciation of an apparent cliff. Precrawling infants do not show fear
of heights not because they cannot perceive depth (Yonas & Owsley 1987) but
because they do not yet need to coordinate the perception of surfaces with their
direction of heading.
“artificial” experience locomoting in a walker generates evidence of wariness of heights
Users viewing this topic: No registered users and 1 guest