By Katherine Unger Baillie
University of Pennsylvania
Press Release
Originally released on November 24, 2014
Last year, University of Pennsylvania researchers Alexander J. Stewart and Joshua B. Plotkin published a mathematical explanation for why cooperation and generosity have evolved in nature. Using the classical game theory match-up known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, they found that generous strategies were the only ones that could persist and succeed in a multi-player, iterated version of the game over the long term.
But now they’ve come out with a somewhat less rosy view of evolution. With a new analysis of the Prisoner’s Dilemma played in a large, evolving population, they found that adding more flexibility to the game can allow selfish strategies to be more successful. The work paints a dimmer but likely more realistic view of how cooperation and selfishness balance one another in nature.
“It’s a somewhat depressing evolutionary outcome, but it makes intuitive sense,” said Plotkin, a professor in Penn’s Department of Biology in the School of Arts & Sciences, who coauthored the study with Stewart, a postdoctoral researcher in his lab. “We had a nice picture of how evolution can promote cooperation even amongst self-interested agents and indeed it sometimes can, but, when we allow mutations that change the nature of the game, there is a runaway evolutionary process, and suddenly defection becomes the more robust outcome.”
The entire press release is here.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Saturday, March 14, 2015
What pushes scientists to lie? The disturbing but familiar story of Haruko Obokata
By John Rasko and Carl Power
The Guardian
Originally posted February 18, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
Two obvious reasons spring to mind. First, unbelievable carelessness. Obokata drew suspicion upon her Nature papers by the inept way she manipulated images and plagiarised text. It is often easy to spot such transgressions, and the top science journals are supposed to check for them; but it is also easy enough to hide them. Nature’s editors are scratching their heads wondering how they let themselves be fooled by Obokata’s clumsy tricks. However, we are more surprised that she didn’t try harder to cover her tracks, especially since her whole career was at stake.
Second, hubris. If Obokata hadn’t tried to be a world-beater, chances are her sleights of hand would have gone unnoticed and she would still be looking forward to a long and happy career in science. Experiments usually escape the test of reproducibility unless they prove something particularly important, controversial or commercialisable. Stap cells tick all three of these boxes. Because Obokata claimed such a revolutionary discovery, everyone wanted to know exactly how she had done it and how they could do it themselves. By stepping into the limelight, she exposed her work to greater scrutiny than it could bear.
The entire article is here.
The Guardian
Originally posted February 18, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
Two obvious reasons spring to mind. First, unbelievable carelessness. Obokata drew suspicion upon her Nature papers by the inept way she manipulated images and plagiarised text. It is often easy to spot such transgressions, and the top science journals are supposed to check for them; but it is also easy enough to hide them. Nature’s editors are scratching their heads wondering how they let themselves be fooled by Obokata’s clumsy tricks. However, we are more surprised that she didn’t try harder to cover her tracks, especially since her whole career was at stake.
Second, hubris. If Obokata hadn’t tried to be a world-beater, chances are her sleights of hand would have gone unnoticed and she would still be looking forward to a long and happy career in science. Experiments usually escape the test of reproducibility unless they prove something particularly important, controversial or commercialisable. Stap cells tick all three of these boxes. Because Obokata claimed such a revolutionary discovery, everyone wanted to know exactly how she had done it and how they could do it themselves. By stepping into the limelight, she exposed her work to greater scrutiny than it could bear.
The entire article is here.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Bias, Black Lives, and Academic Medicine
By David A. Ansell and Edwin K. McDonald
The New England Journal of Medicine
Originally published February 18, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
First, there is evidence that doctors hold stereotypes based on patients' race that can influence their clinical decisions. Implicit bias refers to unconscious racial stereotypes that grow from our personal and cultural experiences. These implicit beliefs may also stem from a lack of day-to-day interracial and intercultural interactions. Although explicit race bias is rare among physicians, an unconscious preference for whites as compared with blacks is commonly revealed on tests of implicit bias.
Second, despite physicians' and medical centers' best intentions of being equitable, black–white disparities persist in patient outcomes, medical education, and faculty recruitment.
The entire article is here.
The New England Journal of Medicine
Originally published February 18, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
First, there is evidence that doctors hold stereotypes based on patients' race that can influence their clinical decisions. Implicit bias refers to unconscious racial stereotypes that grow from our personal and cultural experiences. These implicit beliefs may also stem from a lack of day-to-day interracial and intercultural interactions. Although explicit race bias is rare among physicians, an unconscious preference for whites as compared with blacks is commonly revealed on tests of implicit bias.
Second, despite physicians' and medical centers' best intentions of being equitable, black–white disparities persist in patient outcomes, medical education, and faculty recruitment.
The entire article is here.
#BlackLivesMatter — A Challenge to the Medical and Public Health Communities
By Mary T. Bassett
The New England Journal of Medicine
Originally posted February 18, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
As New York City's health commissioner, I feel a strong moral and professional obligation to encourage critical dialogue and action on issues of racism and health. Ongoing exclusion of and discrimination against people of African descent throughout their life course, along with the legacy of bad past policies, continue to shape patterns of disease distribution and mortality. There is great injustice in the daily violence experienced by young black men. But the tragedy of lives cut short is not accounted for entirely, or even mostly, by violence. In New York City, the rate of premature death is 50% higher among black men than among white men, according to my department's vital statistics data, and this gap reflects dramatic disparities in many health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and HIV. These common medical conditions take lives slowly and quietly — but just as unfairly. True, the black–white gap in life expectancy has been decreasing, and the gap is smaller among women than among men. But black women in New York City are still more than 10 times as likely as white women to die in childbirth, according to our 2012 data.
The entire article is here.
The New England Journal of Medicine
Originally posted February 18, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
As New York City's health commissioner, I feel a strong moral and professional obligation to encourage critical dialogue and action on issues of racism and health. Ongoing exclusion of and discrimination against people of African descent throughout their life course, along with the legacy of bad past policies, continue to shape patterns of disease distribution and mortality. There is great injustice in the daily violence experienced by young black men. But the tragedy of lives cut short is not accounted for entirely, or even mostly, by violence. In New York City, the rate of premature death is 50% higher among black men than among white men, according to my department's vital statistics data, and this gap reflects dramatic disparities in many health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and HIV. These common medical conditions take lives slowly and quietly — but just as unfairly. True, the black–white gap in life expectancy has been decreasing, and the gap is smaller among women than among men. But black women in New York City are still more than 10 times as likely as white women to die in childbirth, according to our 2012 data.
The entire article is here.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Why We Ignore the Obvious: The Psychology of Willful Blindness
By Maria Popova
BrainPickings.org
Here is an excerpt:
The concept of “willful blindness,” Heffernan explains, comes from the law and originates from legislature passed in the 19th century — it’s the somewhat counterintuitive idea that you’re responsible “if you could have known, and should have known, something that instead you strove not to see.” What’s most uneasy-making about the concept is the implication that it doesn’t matter whether the avoidance of truth is conscious. This basic mechanism of keeping ourselves in the dark, Heffernan argues, plays out in just about every aspect of life, but there are things we can do — as individuals, organizations, and nations — to lift our blinders before we walk into perilous situations that later produce the inevitable exclamation: How could I have been so blind?
The entire blog post is here.
BrainPickings.org
Here is an excerpt:
The concept of “willful blindness,” Heffernan explains, comes from the law and originates from legislature passed in the 19th century — it’s the somewhat counterintuitive idea that you’re responsible “if you could have known, and should have known, something that instead you strove not to see.” What’s most uneasy-making about the concept is the implication that it doesn’t matter whether the avoidance of truth is conscious. This basic mechanism of keeping ourselves in the dark, Heffernan argues, plays out in just about every aspect of life, but there are things we can do — as individuals, organizations, and nations — to lift our blinders before we walk into perilous situations that later produce the inevitable exclamation: How could I have been so blind?
The entire blog post is here.
Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement
By Caviola Lucius, Mannino Adriano, Savulescu Julian, Faulmüller Nadira
Front. Syst. Neurosci., 15 October 2014 | doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2014.00195
Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making.
The entire article is here.
Front. Syst. Neurosci., 15 October 2014 | doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2014.00195
Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making.
The entire article is here.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
The twisted morality of climate denial: How religion and American exceptionalism are undermining our future
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus, Americans remain split on climate change. Here's why
By Edward L. Rubin
Salon.com
Originally posted March 8, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
Ever since the Western world became Christian, people in our society have regarded nature as God’s exclusive handiwork; and ever since St. Francis, they have regarded it as evidence of His benevolence. Climate change indicates that the entire natural order is turning against us, and that it is doing so because of our actions. God seems absent from this process, either as a controlling force or as a protecting presence. We find ourselves in an empty, fragile environment that we alone must manage. Sen. Inhofe is probably speaking for a significant number of Americans when he declares himself unwilling to accept this: “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
The entire article is here.
By Edward L. Rubin
Salon.com
Originally posted March 8, 2015
Here is an excerpt:
Ever since the Western world became Christian, people in our society have regarded nature as God’s exclusive handiwork; and ever since St. Francis, they have regarded it as evidence of His benevolence. Climate change indicates that the entire natural order is turning against us, and that it is doing so because of our actions. God seems absent from this process, either as a controlling force or as a protecting presence. We find ourselves in an empty, fragile environment that we alone must manage. Sen. Inhofe is probably speaking for a significant number of Americans when he declares himself unwilling to accept this: “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
The entire article is here.
Impact of Burnout: Clinicians Speak Out
Deborah Brauser
Medscape
Originally posted February 10, 2015
Professional burnout has serious negative consequences not only for affected clinicians but potentially for patient care and outcomes as well, new research suggests.
(cut)
In addition, those who reported higher levels of depersonalization were significantly more likely to report that burnout affected their interaction with patients.
Interestingly, emotionally exhausted clinicians were significantly less likely to report an impact on patient outcomes.
The entire article is here.
Medscape
Originally posted February 10, 2015
Professional burnout has serious negative consequences not only for affected clinicians but potentially for patient care and outcomes as well, new research suggests.
(cut)
In addition, those who reported higher levels of depersonalization were significantly more likely to report that burnout affected their interaction with patients.
Interestingly, emotionally exhausted clinicians were significantly less likely to report an impact on patient outcomes.
The entire article is here.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Identifying mentally ill 'frequent fliers' first step to reducing police contact
Press Release
Oregon State University
Originally published February 11, 2015
Identifying the population of people with mental illness who have frequent contact with police could help law enforcement officials and community agencies allocate limited resources to those with the highest needs, new research from Oregon State University indicates.
These individuals, often referred to as “frequent fliers” because of their repeated interaction with law enforcement, can consume a large amount of police time and resources, according to researchers in the School of Public Policy in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts.
Identifying and understanding the population can aid policymakers as they work to reduce the frequent and time-consuming interactions, sociologists Scott Akins and Brett Burkhardt said.
“This contact is rarely criminal in nature at the outset,” said Burkhardt, an assistant professor of sociology. “It’s usually a peace officer custody arrest, which is a type of arrest that occurs because a person is believed to be a danger to themselves or others due to a suspected mental illness. But there’s a limited amount of resources, so if we identify people with the highest needs, we can focus resources on those folks.”
Once a local region has identified its population of frequent fliers, community agencies and policy-makers can use the information to change or implement policies to assist those with the highest needs, the researchers said.
“It’s a strategic way to create a more cost-effective and humane way to assist the mentally ill,” said Akins, an associate professor of sociology.
The entire press release is here.
Oregon State University
Originally published February 11, 2015
Identifying the population of people with mental illness who have frequent contact with police could help law enforcement officials and community agencies allocate limited resources to those with the highest needs, new research from Oregon State University indicates.
These individuals, often referred to as “frequent fliers” because of their repeated interaction with law enforcement, can consume a large amount of police time and resources, according to researchers in the School of Public Policy in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts.
Identifying and understanding the population can aid policymakers as they work to reduce the frequent and time-consuming interactions, sociologists Scott Akins and Brett Burkhardt said.
“This contact is rarely criminal in nature at the outset,” said Burkhardt, an assistant professor of sociology. “It’s usually a peace officer custody arrest, which is a type of arrest that occurs because a person is believed to be a danger to themselves or others due to a suspected mental illness. But there’s a limited amount of resources, so if we identify people with the highest needs, we can focus resources on those folks.”
Once a local region has identified its population of frequent fliers, community agencies and policy-makers can use the information to change or implement policies to assist those with the highest needs, the researchers said.
“It’s a strategic way to create a more cost-effective and humane way to assist the mentally ill,” said Akins, an associate professor of sociology.
The entire press release is here.
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