Now on ScienceBlogs: Iconic? "Science" says your brain doesn't buy it. . . at least according to Campbell's
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.) Right now I'm writing my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which explores the hypothesis that the genetic roots some of our worst problems and traits — depresison, hyperaggression, violence, antisocial behavior — can also give rise to resilience, cooperation, empathy, and contentment. The book expands on my December 2009 Atlantic article exploring these ideas.
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
Category: Journalism
was thrilled this morning to learn that this humble, erratic blog was named one of Top 30 Science Blogs by Eureka, the new monthly science magazine recently launched by the Times of London.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:15 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
The week's best -- with new features!
Posted by David Dobbs at 2:14 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Art
I respectfully differ from Mr. Lehrer: In Avatar, Cameron has not deftly realized the potential of his medium; he has deftly exploited its crudest powers of visual seduction while leaving its full potential untapped.
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:48 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Digital culture
Agreed: There's robust supply of writing. But is there an oversupply of GOOD writing? If not, how to tap the people still willing to pay for it?
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:21 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Brian Cox teaches the soliloquy to a toddler. If you need a neurohook, think language acquisition, attention, mirror neurons, make your pick. No need. This one wins on entertainment value alone.
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:12 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
I can finally broadcast the news with which I've been bursting for two weeks now: Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt, publisher of many a fine book over the decades, will be publishing "The Orchid and the Dandelion" (working title), in which I'll explore further the emerging "orchid-dandelion hypothesis" I wrote about in my recent Atlantic story.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:33 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Ricks -- who earlier wrote Fiasco , a devastating indictment of the run-up to the war, makes three things quite clear: The surge was not about more soldiers, but soldiers doing different things -- protecting the populace rather than hunting the enemy. ... First-rate history of science here, and a fascinating look at Harry Harlow, a monkey researcher whose powerful but sometimes disturbing experiments in the middle decades of last century helped replace a cold behavioralist view of infancy and childhood with the theories of attachment and bonding that still rule today.
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:00 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Digital culture
In the intro to his self-published (on Lulu.com) collection of blog posts, The Wreck of the Henry Clay, New Yorker contributor Caleb Crain sums up nicely the anxieties shared by at least one other writer-with-blogging-addon about blogging, and, by extension about self-publishing books.
Posted by David Dobbs at 2:23 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
On citing papers you haven't read; writing better cuz U write more; the merits of merit pay; placebo effect versus placebo effect; and for fun, fire towers.
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
What's been distracting me lately from the big story I need to finish writing ...
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:25 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
PZ Myers 03.04.2010
PZ Myers 03.04.2010
Tim Lambert 03.01.2010
Ed Brayton 03.04.2010
Orac 03.03.2010
