Aide Memoire 31 January 2009

This is the first Aide Memoire in Occam's Donkey. It is aimed at reminding me of a variety of material that may be useful in future blog posts, also of information that may be some other use or just interesting. Readers of my blog will also find valuable links to material that I may never get around to blogging about.

Complex beginnings from Mind Hacks by Vaughan traces early thinking about the concept "complex" in Psychology. He has some interesting thought about Carl Jung.

Reconstructing the brain in action: Motor re-programming from Developing Intelligence about reductionism in neuroscience and motor re-programming.

Games result in real learning from Donald Brown Plan B about enhancing learning through games.

Concussion In Former Athletes Can Affect Mental And Physical Processes Later In Life from ScienceDaily.

Giant killing from Mind Hacks by Vaughan about big pharmaceutical companies being caught out doing off-label marketing.

Google Google on the wall... Who's the Guru-est of them all? from Green Chameleon by Patrick Lambe about the criteria for determining the greatest leadership guru of them all. (Tongue-in-the-cheek).

Eating dirt is good for you from Deric Bownds' MindBlog reports on the negative effect on children's immune systems (lasting into adulthood) of too hygienic and sterile environments.

Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? This title from ScienceDaily is self evident.

Lessons from Bob Woodward: A call for evidence-based management. Bob Sutton supports a call for Pres. Barack Obama to follow the principles of evidence-based management.

The straight dope on learning styles from Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford. A balanced look at learning styles.

Physically fit kids do better at school. From ScienceDaily, self0evident.

Buffett from Frontal Cortex by Jonah Lehrer about Warren Buffett and Colin Powell recognising the importance to distinguish what you know from wat you don't know (an acknowledging wat you don't know".

Marching to the beat of the same drummer improves teamwork by ScienceDaily. On the value of synchronized activities to improve teamwork.

War trauma and brain impact from Mind Hacks by Vaughan. On PTSD in war. Thoughts on EMDR and NLP.

The connectome from Frontal Cortex by Jonah Lehrer on "slicing" the brain. Also an interesting discussion on an inductive vs. deductive model of science. Points out that the brain is so complex that generating theories a priory does not work.

How to avoid procrastination: Think concrete from PsyBlog by Jeremy. Self-evident.

Require new congressment to undergo science training from Socratic Gadfly. Reports on a call for British MP's to be trained in science and suggests extending to congressmen.

Towards a Post-Newtonian era in Psychology: SIMPLE from Developing Intelligence by Chris Chatham. On reductionism and complexity in Psychology.

Spaced practice in learning - at last! from Donald Clark Plan B by Donald Clark. Overjoyed to find that someone in education is at last applying scientific principles of learning.

Unstructured play from The Frontal Cortex by Jonah Lehrer on the value of unstructured play and daydreaming for young children.

President Obama on parental responsibility in education

We have a new American president and I hope he'll be a great one. From President Obama's brilliant Inaugural Address:

"Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them may be new, but those values upon which our success depends, honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old.

These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.

What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship."

Trusting that his words were not just political rhetoric, South Africans could do worse than to take note and apply them here. Such words, if acted upon, could restore the soul of a nation, not only America, but also South Africa.

Educational issues are obviously to a large extent country and culture specific, but Obama's view elsewhere on parental responsibility and is universally applicable (from Flypaper, the blog of the Fordham Foundation):

"There is no program and no policy that can substitute for a parent who is involved in their child’s education from day one. There is no substitute for a parent who will make sure their children are in school on time and help them with their homework after dinner and attend those parent-teacher conferences... And I have no doubt that we will still be talking about these problems in the next century if we do not have parents who are willing to turn off the TV once in awhile and put away the video games and read to their child. Responsibility for our children’s education has to start at home. We have to set high standards for them and spend time with them and love them. We have to hold ourselves accountable."

A commenter to the blog expanded on this with the following:

"Poorly educated parents can’t help their kids write a research essay or solve an algebra problem, but they should be able to set a time for homework or reading, enforce a bedtime, limit TV on school nights, teach manners and self-control to their children. Most can read aloud to young children or listen to them read."

As a school principal I can only concur.

Bullshit Blue Monday

Today (19 January 2009) is "officially" Blue Monday Day, the worst day of the year. I'm not sure whether it applies to the Southern Hemisphere though. It is "calculated" by means of a "mathematical" formula by a Dr. Cliff Arnall. The formula reads as follows:

where:

W = weather; d = debt; T = time since Christmas; Q = time since failing our new year’s resolutions; m = low motivational levels; Na = the feeling of a need to take action

D is not specified and no units are mentioned. My mathematics is somewhat rusty, but if this is considered mathematics, the discipline has surely changed since my varsity days.

Some apparently take the Blue Monday idea quite seriously. Vaughan from Mind Hacks reported on a transparent attempt by Green Communications, the PR company promoting it for mental health reasons, to anonymously delete criticism of the idea from Wikipedia. Vaughan (I think) has appropriately re-named the day Bullshit Blue Monday. Mind Hacks had a number of interesting posts on the Blue Monday idea up to now during January 2009.

Well, I thought to get in on the act and make Bullshit Blue Monday applicable to the Southern Hemisphere and the restaurant and the end of the universe, if you happen to be there. I have slightly changed Arnall's formula for universal application. As can be seen below, I have added a Quantum Consciousness Constant (QCC) to the formula. By just thinking about your current or preferred location, your thoughts will instantly through quantum mechanics generate the QCC and synchronize Bullshit Blue Monday over time and space with that location. Be careful though, it could ruin your day!

Have a good Bullshit Blue Monday, wherever you are!

Those English are crazy!

Mad dogs and Englishmen ..., the song goes. Or to (mis)quote Obelix: "Those English are crazy!" Like in political correctness outweighs common sense crazy.


Consider these (possibly unrelated, certainly not causally related) issues:

Fairytales scare English parents

English teachers hesitant to restrain violent nursery school children for fear of being sued

More than 4 000 children aged 2 to 5 expelled fron English schools

Yes, I know that the Scots and Welsh would have me keelhauled for lumping them with the English, but from far-off South Africa all Poms look the same.

Fairytales are the latest victims of politically correct Pom parents. The Mail Online carried this list of the fairytales that English parents found less appealing.


Snow White is not PC, apparently because it is not nice to talk about dwarfs (I thought the dwarfs in Snow White referred to mythical creatures, i.e. knomes). Cinderella does not make it either, I suppose the USSA (Ugly Stepsisters Association) complained. Little Red Riding Hood? Way too scary for sensitive little ears. For the life of me, however, I can't imagine what the problem would be with the Emperor's New Clothes.

Consider that many of the fairytales we know are already heavily sanitized versions of traditional fairytales as captured by the Grimm brothers. Fairytales are typically good stories with good storylines, heroes, villains, tension, the possibility of exploring different outcomes, different storylines and so forth. I've never read one of the new favourite stories, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I somehow doubt it has these features of a good story.

In considering the role of fairytales in childhood, a starting point can be Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment. Be aware though of its Freudian slant.

As a passing shot, please read the origin of the story about British parents' views on fairytales on the TheBabyWebsite.com. Note that their survey showed that only one in four British moms rejected traditional fairytales. Put otherwise, four out of five had no problem with them. Many parents preferred to keep these fairytales for daytime reading and for when toddlers were slightly older. These seem good commonsense measures, but was not always reflected in press reports on the survey. Moral of the story, don't trust the press to get it right, check the evidence.

My blog title should therefore probably have read Some English (and Australians, Americans and South Africans) are crazy! But what the hell, to an Afrikaner of Irish descent, Those English are crazy!, is much more satisfying.

Occam's Donkey - the image

I've had numerous positive comments about the thinking donkey image used in this blog. It was drawn specifically for my blog by an excellent cartoonist, Rob Hooper of Flaming Pencil. The brief was to draw a thinking, skeptical donkey, based on Rodin's The Thinker. In line with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 South African License, you may use the image non-commercially. I do ask that Occam's Donkey be acknowledged and that a link to Occam's Donkey be provided. I can recommend Rob's work strongly.


I would prefer the blog not to become Occam's Ape, but here is another animal thinker, Hugo Rheinhold's Affe mit Schädel (ape with skull):

Image from Wikipedia.

According to Wikipedia:

"Hugo Rheinhold's original inscription "eritis sicut deus" (sometimes wrongly "eritus …."), either suggests that Darwinian understanding may lead to Frankenstinian abuse of life's essence, or a more inclusive innocence that recognises a place for other advanced life‑forms on our intellectual podium, if only we can just accommodate those guests."

Another "thinker" I recently came across on a farm in the Northern Transvaal (Limpopo). The two meter high figure was fashioned out of hardwood, probably by an illiterate Zimbabwean illegal immigrant (although you never know with the Zimbabweans, some of them are well educated, their education system was quite good before Mugabe destroyed it). The huge figure of the thinking baboon can be scary when your headlights suddenly illuminate it late at night on a dusty farm road.

Occam's Donkey makes radio appearance

For South African followers of Occam's Donkey, I shall be interviewed tomorrow on Radio Sonder Grense ("Radio without borders"), the national Afrikaans radio station. I shall be interviewed at 14:15 SA time by Fanie du Toit, the presenter of the programme Die leefwêreld van die gestremde ("The living world of the disabled"). I shall try to guide parents of children with disabilities, as well as adult persons with disabilities, on how to research and decide upon suitable therapies to deal with their child's or their own disability. I shall also touch on quackery and give guidelines on how to avoid it.

Readers of this blog who are not within range of RSG broadcasts will be able to follow the transmission on the internet at this link.

Prof Della Sala slates neuroscience quacks

Prof. Sergio Della Sala, a major figure in the fight against neuroscience quackery, was the first winner recently of the University of Edinburgh Tam Dalyell Prize for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science. On 10 December 2008, coinciding with the presentation of the award, he delivered a lecture entitled Tall Tales about the Mind and Brain. The video of the lecture is available online here on the University of Edinburgh website. Watch out for the thinking donkey image from this blog, which featured briefly in the presentation!

Prof. Della Sala is well known as the editor of two books on mind myths, the first one that featured extensively in some of my seven posts on mind myths up to now (three more to go). The books are:

Della Sala, S. (Ed.)(1999). Mind myths: Exploring popular assumptions about the mind and brain. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Della Sala, S. (Ed.)(2007). Tall Tales about the Mind and Brain: Separating Fact from Fiction. London: Oxford University Press.

Tall tales seems to be based on a conference Tall tales about the mind and brain that was held in Edinburgh in 2007. Based on the speakers and abstracts I would venture that it was excellent. Wish I could have been there!

Here is a list of just some of the stuff Della Sala addressed in his Tam Dalyell lecture and press interviews coinciding with the lecture:

The Mozart effect

Brain Gym

Institute of Neuro-physiological Psychology (INPP)

Left brain, right brain

Genetic Brain Profiling

Some of these I have previously blogged about, follow the links. Others I shall attend to later. It was good to see that academics are also weighing in on issues of quackery. Maybe we'll win the fight yet!

The newspaper articles reporting on his lecture and the interviews can be found at:

Is "Brain Gym" scientific? The Herald
Celebrated neuroscientist to set the record straight. The Journal
Brain exercises are 'waste of time'. The Guardian