Peak Improbability Alcoholics Make Mental Digging
How True Is The 1-In-4 Mental Health Statistic? by Jamie Horder (The Guardian): You hear statistics in the press coming from mental health advocates saying that 25% of us will suffer a mental illness. Horder, however, gently questions the validity of this kind of statement: does it say more about rates of depression, etc, or more about the way society works? [via Vaughan Bell of Mind Hacks, whose commentary is probably more insightful than the Guardian article.]
The Improbability Pump by Jerry Coyne (The Nation): From the author of Why Evolution Is True, this is an implacable and elegant demolition of What Darwin Got Wrong by Fodor and Piaretti-Palmarini. Logical argument is only as good as the foundations of an argument, and Coyne, in showing the shaky foundations of F&PP’s argument, gives a lucid explanation of why the theory of natural selection is so powerful.
Peak Phosphorus by James Elser & Stuart White (Foreign Policy): At current rates, the world’s supply of phosphorus will run out in 40 years. Big whoop, no more sparklers, you say? Phosphorus is a vital fertilizer, and if it all vanished tomorrow billions would die of starvation.
How Our Brains Make Memories by Greg Miller (Smithsonian): As a cognitive psychologist who studied memory quite extensively, I’ve always been kind of bemused by the work of neuroscientists who look at what individual neurons do in rats when new things are learned. This is mostly because they have this strange tendency to announce that they’ve discovered how memory works based on very basic animal work. Looks like the neuroscientists have recently discovered that memory is reconstructive, judging by Miller’s article: you probably have a memory of having a memory of your first experience, rather than actually having a memory of your first experience. Cognitive psychologists only figured this out in the late 70s. [via]
Digging by Don Watson (The Monthly): A thoughtful reflection on who the Anzacs were (Australian and Kiwi fighters in World War I), and what they’ve come to mean today (kitsch religion); Watson provides a neatly sensible third way between Catherine Deveney and John Howard.
An Alcoholic’s Savior: God, Belladonna, Or Both? by Howard Markel (New York Times): William Griffith Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, said that God showed himself to Wilson in a flash of blinding light after Wilson cried he would do anything to be rid of alcoholic. So was this a miracle or a result of the psychedelic compounds being fed to Wilson by his doctor? [via]
