Sunday, February 28, 2010

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part IV

Perhaps I should change this series to the similarities between humans and animals. Either way, in the last couple of months I have been amazed at the intelligence of animals. Here are some more examples from the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science:

Chimps trump university students at memory task:
In 2004, Inoue and Matsuzawa started to teach 3 pairs of chimp mothers and children to play with numbers. One of the mums, Ai, was the first chimp to learn to use Arabic numerals to accurately number sets of real-life objects, but the other five had never done memory tasks involving numbers. Using at touch-screen computer, the duo eventually trained all the chimps to touch combinations of numbers from 1 to 9 in the right order.
When the youngsters reached their fifth birthday, Inoue and Matsuzawa taught them a more complicated task. When they touched the first digit, the others were replaced with white squares, and they had to rely on their memory to press the right sequence. The young chimps took to this task particularly well and amazingly, they finished the task more quickly than human adults.
Octopus can use a coconut shells as suit of armor:



Allison Foote and Jonathon Crystal searched for metacognition in rats by giving them a test that they could decline. If they passed, they received a big reward and if they failed, they got nothing. But the cunning part of their study lay in giving the rats a small reward if they declined the test. If they knew they were unlikely to succeed, they'd be better off bowing out. In this experiment, a measured attitude beats a gung-ho one.
The test asked the rat to classify a burst of noise as 'short' or 'long'. Noises that were very short or very long were easy to classify, but those of intermediate length were more challenging. After hearing the noise, the rat was offered two holes through which it could stick its nose - one for accepting the test and one for declining it. If it was up for it, it was then given two levers, one for a short noise, and one for a long one.
After some initial training, the results were clear. The rats were much more likely to opt out of the test if the noise they heard was challenging.

Here's Part I, Part II, and Part III of the series.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Futuristic Reason for Mandatory Health Insurance

Imagine a world where doctors can genetically predict what types of health problems you might have before you are born. That means before you even breath, you have a preexisting condition. You can already detect Cystic fibrosis, Hemophili, Sickle cell anemia, and whole host of other problems. The list is only going to get longer. Not only genetics, but geography may also play a factor. It seems economically beneficial for insurance companies to bar residents of areas where pollution greatly reduces life expectancy. Perhaps parents buying insurance for their kids before their born could work, but then what about their grandkids?

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Guilt Free Nap

On nights when I have to stay out late for improv, I usually try to get a nap in. It used to make me feel like a bum, but no longer:
scientists say naps are natural. Humans are bi-phasic sleepers, which means we're meant to sleep in bouts, not long stretches. About one-third of U.S. adults say they typically take a mid-day nap.

The new findings reinforce the researchers' hypothesis that sleep is needed to clear the brain's short-term memory storage and make room for new information
I still don't want students to sleep in class, but now I wouldn't mind if they slept in earlier classes.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

An Educator's Job

Justin Wehr shares what Craig Newmark paraphrases from Deirdre McCloskey:
Aside from helping the students through the occasional rough spot, the students have to teach themselves the material. What the college professor can do is model a lifestyle. She didn't, at least in the passage I read, provide a lot of detail, so I'll presume to fill in. The college professor's first responsibility is to demonstrate that curiosity is wonderful, that ideas are important, and that learning to master difficult ideas is worthwhile. Second, the professor should demonstrate how to think about a topic carefully and how to organize and present those thoughts well. And third, college professors should demonstrate intellectual integrity. They should admit what they don't know and when they have made a mistake. They should remind students that the conclusions they teach have limits and are almost always tentative.

--When I started teaching I thought that I was an educator who, if things went well, would at least occasionally entertain. Today I think I'm an entertainer who, if things go well, at least occasionally educates. I think the switch has made me more effective, and I'm pretty sure it's made me happier.
Although high schoolers need more pushes than the average college student, the job feels similar.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Emptying the Bottle: Late-February '10 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:
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Friday, February 19, 2010

Value of a Boring President

Last year I posted a pretty controversial rebuttal to what many believe to be our greatest presidents. As I teach US History again this semester, I can't help but revisit what makes a president great:
Presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman are regularly put at the top of lists of America's greatest presidents. This is true when both historians and the American public at large are polled. Yet these are presidents who did everything they could to expand the power of their offices, to extend the sphere of influence of the federal government and to bully through policies that met inconvenient hurdles otherwise known as checks and balances.

Woodrow Wilson ran for president on a peace platform, then dragged us through the bloody trench carnage of World War I. Oh, and he imprisoned thousands of critics and war protesters in the process. Teddy Roosevelt once lamented that he didn't have a war during his administration to make him great, and compared the stakes of his third-party run for the White House to the rapture and second coming of Jesus Christ.

Franklin Roosevelt broke the tradition set by George Washington of serving just two terms. When the Supreme Court rebuffed his attempts to pass unconstitutional legislation, he tried to expand the number of justices on the Court to ensure a friendly majority. Harry Truman was the first president to pull America into a protracted war without first consulting Congress. He then sought to nationalize private companies to ensure that war was properly outfitted.

These are odd men to call heroes.

Inexplicably, the presidents who knew and understood their constitutional limits, who respected those limits and who generally took a more laissez-faire approach to government get short shrift—even derision—from historians.

Men like Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Rutherford B. Hayes and Grover Cleveland merely exhibited what Healy calls "stolid, boring competence." Historians loathe them, Healy writes, because they had the audacity to "content themselves simply with presiding over peace and prosperity" and not seek to remake the world in their own image. The nerve of them.
Let me clarify that I'm not declaring Harding great and Lincoln evil. I'm just longing for a public that is satisfied with a unambitious president.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

TiVo is Bad for Most Viewers

Everyone I know who has TiVo has only good things to say. The only problem is, most people don't have it. As the Economic Logician explains, as more and more people fast forward through commercials, there will actually be an increase in commercials to make up for revenue. Those with TiVo are unaffected, but those without have to suffer. Another problem is that stations may actually leave advertising supported over-the-air TV, thereby hurting all penny-pinchers. The solution is to buy TiVo before everyone else and hope that the decreasing cost of providing free TV (like the analog to digital switch) will continue to give us free entertainment.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Different Kinds of Smart

I told my students on the first day of class that I would never praise them for their intelligence. Here's yet another reason for that. This article that show one's IQ and their ability to recognize faces are not correlated, suggesting that people can be smart in more than one way. This is called Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Very simply, it suggests that intelligence is not an overall ability to do things well, but instead can be divided into different categories of intelligence. Thanks to Wikipedia, here they are:
Bodily-kinesthetic
This area has to do with bodily movement and physiology. In theory, people who have bodily-kinesthetic intelligence should learn better by involving muscular movement (eg. getting up and moving around into the learning experience), and are generally good at physical activities such as sports or dance. They may enjoy acting or performing, and in general they are good at building and making things. They often learn best by doing something physically, rather than reading or hearing about it. Those with strong bodily-kinesthetic intelligence seem to use what might be termed muscle memory - they remember things through their body such as verbal memory or images. Careers that suit those with this intelligence include: athletes, dancers, musicians, actors, surgeons, doctors, builders, police officers, and soldiers. Although these careers can be duplicated through virtual simulation, they will not produce the actual physical learning that is needed in this intelligence.

Interpersonal
This area has to do with interaction with others. In theory, people who have a high interpersonal intelligence tend to be extroverts, characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations, and their ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group. They communicate effectively and empathize easily with others, and may be either leaders or followers. They typically learn best by working with others and often enjoy discussion and debate. Careers that suit those with this intelligence include sales, politicians, managers, teachers, and social workers.

Verbal-linguistic
This area has to do with words, spoken or written. People with high verbal-linguistic intelligence display a facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates. They tend to learn best by reading, taking notes, listening to lectures, and discussion and debate. They are also frequently skilled at explaining, teaching and oration or persuasive speaking. Those with verbal-linguistic intelligence learn foreign languages very easily as they have high verbal memory and recall, and an ability to understand and manipulate syntax and structure. Careers that suit those with this intelligence include writers, lawyers, philosophers, journalists, politicians, poets, and teachers.

Logical-mathematical
This area has to do with logic, abstractions, reasoning, and numbers. While it is often assumed that those with this intelligence naturally excel in mathematics, chess, computer programming and other logical or numerical activities, a more accurate definition places emphasis on traditional mathematical ability and more reasoning capabilities, abstract patterns of recognition, scientific thinking and investigation, and the ability to perform complex calculations. It correlates strongly with traditional concepts of "intelligence" or IQ. Careers which suit those with this intelligence include scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors and economists.

Intrapersonal
This area has to do with introspective and self-reflective capacities. People with intrapersonal intelligence are intuitive and typically introverted. They are skillful at deciphering their own feelings and motivations. This refers to having a deep understanding of the self; what are your strengths/ weaknesses, what makes you unique, can you predict your own reactions/ emotions.
Careers which suit those with this intelligence include philosophers, psychologists, theologians, marine biologists, lawyers, and writers.

Visual-spatial
This area has to do with vision and spatial judgment. People with strong visual-spatial intelligence are typically very good at visualizing and mentally manipulating objects. Those with strong spatial intelligence are often proficient at solving puzzles. They have a strong visual memory and are often artistically inclined. Those with visual-spatial intelligence also generally have a very good sense of direction and may also have very good hand-eye coordination, although this is normally seen as a characteristic of the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.
There appears to be a high correlation between spatial and mathematical abilities, which seems to indicate that these two intelligences are not independent. Since solving a mathematical problem involves manipulating symbols and numbers, spatial intelligence is involved. Careers that suit those with this intelligence include artists, engineers, and architects.

Musical
This area has to do with rhythm, music, and hearing. Those who have a high level of musical-rhythmic intelligence display greater sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. They normally have good pitch and may even have absolute pitch, and are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. Since there is a strong auditory component to this intelligence, those who are strongest in it may learn best via lecture. In addition, they will often use songs or rhythms to learn and memorize information, and may work best with music playing in the background. Careers that suit those with this intelligence include instrumentalists, singers, conductors, disc-jockeys, orators, writers (to a certain extent) and composers.

Naturalistic
This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one's natural environment. This type of intelligence was not part of Gardner's original theory of Multiple Intelligences, but was added to the theory in 1997. Those with it are said to have greater sensitivity to nature and their place within it, the ability to nurture and grow things, and greater ease in caring for, taming and interacting with animals. They may also be able to discern changes in weather or similar fluctuations in their natural surroundings. They are also good at recognizing and classifying different species. They must connect a new experience with prior knowledge to truly learn something new.
SAT scores highly correlate with success in college, but that may be because they are both measuring the same kind of intelligence. As a educator, I take it as a challenge to encourage all students in all intelligences. Also, as someone with ADHD (self-diagnosed) I take it as encouragement that there may actually be some benefits to the disorder.