Eric Michael Johnson takes an anthropologist’s look at the recent TIME magazine “attachment parenting” breastfeeding fiasco:
One thing I’ve learned in my research on human evolution is that people are quick to assume that what they do is “natural” simply because they don’t know of other examples where things are done differently. The primate brain is a pattern recognition machine and is adapted to quickly identify regularities in our environment. But when we are presented with the same pattern over and over again it is easy to fall victim to what is known as confirmation bias, or coming to false conclusions because the evidence we use does not come from a broad enough sample. In order to avoid falling for this bias on the question of extended breastfeeding the best way forward would be to draw from the largest sample possible: the entire primate lineage.
If we step back from the shock, what does our primate lineage have to say about the Western world’s view of breastfeeding behavior? When body weights, life stages and weaning ages were compared among 135 primate species, the results suggest that we in the west seem to be disregarding quite a bit of evolution by weaning our children early, with possible public health consequences. More at the link above.
(via The Primate Diaries, artwork by Nathaniel Gold)
Bill Nye traveling the speed of light with a can of whoop ass!
Incidentally, this is how Bill Nye plans to live forever. Time dilation, traveling near light speed and all that.
The Sails of Sydney Opera House
German design group URBANSCREEN transformed the Sydney Opera House into a playground for enormous digital dancers. There are so many layers of WOW to this. Not only to they project the images across multiple levels of the roof, but as the dancers move across the roof, tiles seem to open and we see the illusion of light shining through. I can’t begin to imagine the curve-fitting plots and 3-D computational design that went into this.
I love the finale, where the roof appears to collapse like a sail that’s lost its wind. Amazing combination of computer design, complex math and art.
(by SOHfestival)
Hubble Floats Free
Credit: STS-125 Crew, NASA
A New Gallup Poll On Americans’ Belief in Evolution Is Out Today …
… and it’s full of rather sad figures. A full 46% of those surveyed believe that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years. The number has essentially remained unchanged for the past 30 years (44% in 1982).
You can check the Gallup report for the detailed results, but a few things jumped out at me:
- Among people who never attend church, a full 25% still subscribe to creationist views.
- There’s only a 17% difference (58% vs. 41%) between Republicans and Democrats
- Almost four out of five Americans believe God had a hand in creating humans in some way
Now, I’m not bothered by the existence or acceptance of religion, when used for good. Nor do I believe that accepting evolution means that you must deny all other religious beliefs. Sure, the more one learns about science and the universe the more one will experience the pangs of cognitive dissonance and questioned faith. But those feelings and questions are part of the human journey. They carve the unique facets of your identity that make you truly you.
What bothers me is that evolution is at the core of so much of science, and to dismiss its truth is akin to a mathematician dismissing that 1 is half of 2 or a chemist refusing to acknowledge the existence of electrons. You simply can not fully immerse your brain in the workings of our living world without evolution. Medicine, biology, nature … any of it.
And in thirty years of bloody knuckled work to bring science into people’s lives, it feels like we still haven’t gotten anywhere.
(via Gallup)
The most telling chart from the last post.
