Maybe I should add that I don't think that this represents a
conspiracy. But it does show how opinions that don't fit the
mainstream are regarded as "inappropriate" by the moderators of these
groups.
Darwinism 'is dead' in modern world
Precisely organized cortical microcircuits
Price, Cosmides & Tooby on punishment
[evol-psych] Human nature?
Re: paper
New Book: Stamenov
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Darwinism 'is dead' in modern world
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This one rejected without giving a reason.
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Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 10:59:58 -0000 From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford_scientist.com> To: Yehouda Harpaz <yeh_xanalys.com> Subject: Message not approved: Darwinism 'is dead' in modern world > > > Australia's Peter Doherty, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his > > work at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, told an audience at the > > National Library last night that Darwinism no longer operated like it used to > > for humans. > > > > "Natural selection belongs to history for contemporary human societies," he > > said. > >And he could be no more wrong. Certainly the old rules of natural >selection have changed because of human culture, but what humans have >created is a different selective environment for ourselves. As long >as we do not survive and reproduce equally (in a statistical sense, >according to the genes we carry), then natural selection is still >going on. ... But it can have an effect only of similar selective pressure is operative over large number of generations. In modern society, changes that effect reproduction patterns happen so fast compare to the generation time that advantagous biological traits don't have any chance to fixate.
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 10:56:03 -0000 From: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford_scientist.com> To: yeh_xanalys.com Subject: Message not approved: Precisely organized cortical microcircuits None of this has any bearing on evolved brain functions. --- In evolutionary-psychology_y..., "Ian Pitchford"++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++wrote: >*Science >*Volume 293, Number 5531, Issue of 3 Aug 2001, pp. 868-872. >*http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/5531/868 >* >*Stereotyped Position of Local Synaptic Targets in Neocortex >*James Kozloski,* Farid Hamzei-Sichani, Rafael Yuste >* >*The microcircuitry of the mammalian neocortex remains largely unknown. Although >*the neocortex could be composed of scores of precise circuits, an alternative >*possibility is that local connectivity is probabilistic or even random. To >*examine the precision and degree of determinism in the neocortical >*microcircuitry, we used optical probing to reconstruct microcircuits in layer 5 >*from mouse primary visual cortex. We stimulated "trigger" cells, isolated from >*a homogenous population of corticotectal pyramidal neurons, while optically >*detecting "follower" neurons directly driven by the triggers. Followers >*belonged to a few selective anatomical classes with stereotyped physiological >*and synaptic responses. Moreover, even the position of the followers appeared >*determined across animals. Our data reveal precisely organized cortical >*microcircuits. This gives a very strong impression of a refutation of the claim that the connectivity in the cortex is stochastic. However, all the analysis in this paper was done in a plane perpendicualr to the cortex plane, so all the directions in the cortex plane were reduced to two directions (Lateral and Medial). Hence this paper shows very little about the directions of connections inside the cortex plane, and cannot say much about the connectivity. This is not explained in the paper, but I attach below two mail messages from the author explaining the procedure. In addition, even inside the perpendicular plane the angels of connections vary a lot , and the distances have a variance with SD of ~20% for non-pyramidal cells and much larger variances for pyramidal cells (the authors don't actually give the vraiances for distances for pyramidal cells, but it is obviously very large from Figure 2.d). Cleary there is nothing in this paper that can be reasonably called "precise". The only observation that seem real is that the follower neurons seem to be stratified according to type. Deeper analysis in in http://human-brain.org/ster.html Yehouda Harpaz ======== E-mails from the author =============== First message : ========================= From: James Kozloski To: yehouda harpaz ; Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 9:12 PM Subject: Re: Stereotypic position of synaptic targets Dear Yehouda, These experiments were done in coronal slices that were 350 um thick. Fura staining penetrates to around 3 cell layers into the slice (i.e., around 75 um). Therefore, because our sampling method depended on Fura staining, we were only able to probe 75 um along the axis perpendicular to the plane of the slice. This is why all the spatial analysis was done in just 2 dimensions. Within these two dimensions, we expected to find high variance in the distribution of followers, but did not. Please note also that the two dimensions analyzed included one axis perpendicular to cortex, (A<=>B in Fig. 2), and one axis within the plane of the cortex (M<=>L in Fig. 2). Best Regards, James Kozloski yehouda harpaz wrote: >*Dear James Kozloski, >*> >*I am writing to you about your recent paper "Stereotyped position of >*local synaptic targets in neocortex". As far I can tell, all the spatial >*analysis in this paper is in a plane perpendicular to the plane of >*the cortex. Presumably, you also have the data about the relative >*position of the "followers" with respect to the triggers in the plane >*of the cortex. Why didn't you present it too? Are you going to >*publish it? Can you make it available electronically? >*> >*Thanks, >*> >*Yehouda Harpaz ============================================================ Second message, after I asked if the limitation of the method and the flattening are documented in the paper: ===================================== From: James R Kozloski To: yehouda harpaz Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 10:52 PM Subject: Re: Stereotypic position of synaptic targets Ref. 26 describes the optical probing method. Ref. 27 describes our slicing protocal. Also, figures 2a- c and their legends should make clear that we were observing the surface of a slice of cortex, and not imaging the cortex in 3-D. I hope this helps. Science's strict page restrictions inevitably lead to this kind of confusion. My regrets. Best regards, James Kozloski
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:49:07 +0100 (BST) From: Yehouda Harpaz <yeh_xanalys.com> To: mep2_umail.ucsb.edu Subject: [evol-psych] Re: Price, Cosmides & Tooby on punishment (was Re: terrorist attacks & moral emotions) CC: evolutionary-psychology_yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: Michael Price's message of Sun, 16 Sep 2001 08:52:01 -0000 <9o1p7h+gp8m_eGroups.com> > In ancestral environments, free riders would have been an adaptive > problem for high sacrificers: relatively high-sacrificing collective > action beneficiaries would have been disadvantaged compared to > lower-sacrificing beneficiaries (free riders). We argue that the > neural circuitry producing punitive sentiment towards free riders is > an adaptation that enables high-sacrificing collective action > participants to reduce the advantages of free riders. I read the paper and didn't find it anything that supports a special neural circuitry or any evolved adaptation, as opposed to cultural effects. Can you give us some ideas why you think it is eveolved adaptation?
From: Yehouda Harpaz <yeh_xanalys.com> To: "Ian Pitchford" <ian.pitchford_scientist.com> Subject: [evol-psych] Communication CC: evolutionary-psychology_yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: Ian Pitchford's message of Wed, 3 Jul 2002 20:07:27 +0100 <004a01c222c4$e4b07860$299987d9_s5c8j9> -----text follows this line----- > Question > 1)I think in English, while my Swedish friend thinks in Swedish. But how do > deaf people, who have never heard words in any language, think? - Roger Keays > 2)When I think, I think using words and sentences. Although I can't remember > for certain, I don't think I knew any form of language as a baby, so how do > babies think? What a nonsense. We are all thinking in "neuronish", i.e. patterns of activities of neurons. The idea that anybody thinks using language is not even wrong. It is meaningless, unless you define what "words" "sentences" etc. mean in neuronal terms. I don't see anybody even trying to do that, let alone succeeds.
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 09:04:49 +0100 (BST) From: Yehouda Harpaz <yeh_xanalys.com> To: goldberg_io.com Subject: [evol-psych] Human nature? CC: evolutionary-psychology_yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: Rick Goldberg's message of Sun, 15 Sep 2002 12:04:43 -0500 <3.0.6.32.20020915120443.007cd6f0_mail.io.com> > David Rakoff asks, "What's at the heart of that phobia [of > humans having an evolved nature]"? > > "That a biological understanding of human nature threatens fundamental > values of political equality, social progress, personal responsibility and > meaning and purpose." Another reason to believe that humans are "blank slate" is that the connectivity of neurons in the cortex varies randomly across individuals, so it cannot have anything innate in it. Anything that is innate has to be outside the cortex. It is fair to say that people like Gould, Lewontin and Rose don't know that either.
From: Yehouda Harpaz <yeh_xanalys.com> To: "PSYCHE Discussion Forum (Biological/Psychological emphasis)" <PSYCHE-B_LISTSERV.UH.EDU> Subject: Fw: PAPER: In-Reply-To: Andreas Bartsch's message of Fri, 08 Nov 2002 00:21:32 +0100 <044a01c286b4$68855900$eb2654d9_qualium> -----text follows this line----- > I do agree with Geraint. The study argues for quite reproducible individual > activations which may not be adequately described by multisubject analyses > (yet). > I feel it may be quite deleterious if neuroscientists want to aspire to > philosophers neglecting all the in-depth work they may be unfamiliar with. > But that holds true the other way around as well. And it is quite hard for > "neuro- or mind/body-philosophers" to keep up with all the basics and > details of the work in neuroscience. We should not base any premature > conclusions on some abstracts. Paternalistic comments are not a good replacement to actual facts. The actual facts are that neuroimaging studies produce irreproducible results.*****************************************************************
From: Yehouda Harpaz <yeh_xanalys.com> To: "PSYCHE Discussion Forum (Biological/Psychological emphasis)" <PSYCHE-B_LISTSERV.UH.EDU> Subject: Re: PAPER: In-Reply-To: g.rees's message of Thu, 07 Nov 2002 10:05:53 +0000 <Pine.SOL.3.91.1021107095923.17405D-100000_dodgy> -----text follows this line----- > > Are they now going to admit that all their irreproducible studies, > > which were based on the assumption of similarity across individuals, > > are invalid? > > You're getting confused here. Similarity across individuals is an > empirical fact; No, it isn't. That is the point that I am making. Apart from the gross similarity that was already known from brain damage studies inm 1950, imaging studies don't show any reproducible results. See http://human-brain.org/replicability.html http://human-brain.org/imaging.html > for example, numerous brain imaging studies have shown > that human subjects have a primary visual cortex located in the calcarine > sulcus. That was alreday known in the 19th century, so brain imaging studies couldn't have shown that. >. So individual > differences coexist with reproducible group > commonalities. In principle they could. In principle, the results are not reproducible. > You're wrong > to say that there is an 'assumption' of similarity in neuroimaging (or > electrophysiological, or behavioral) studies; it's an empirical question. See the pages above.
From: Yehouda HarpazTo: "PSYCHE Discussion Forum (Theoretical emphasis)" Subject: New Book: Stamenov CC: PSYCHE-D_LISTSERV.UH.EDU In-Reply-To: Christopher Bell's message of Wed, 08 Jan 2003 13:12:01 -0500 <4.2.2.20030108125832.00a76500_mail.navpoint.com> -----text follows this line----- > Quite remarkably, they are tuned to > fire to the enaction as well as observation of specific classes of > behavior: fine manual actions and actions performed by mouth. Why is this remarkable? For anybody that is not a dualist, and believes that the monkey is intelligent enough to associate its movements with other animals movements, there must be some neurons in the brain that are active in both cases. The observation would have been interesting if it was the _same_ neurons across animals. Since it isn't, it is not even an interesting observation about the brain.