Omnivore on Contemporary French Philosophy

 

For the philosophy lovers, this edition of Bookforum's Omnivore is devoted completely to French philosophy and philosophers - Foucault, Ricoeur, Badiou, and Derrida seem to be most frequently mentioned in titles.

Of contemporary French philosophy

May 2 2014
9:00AM

• Thomas Lemke (Frankfurt): New Materialisms: Foucault and the "Government of Things". 
• Patrick Gamez (Notre Dame): Ricoeur and Foucault: Between Ontology and Critique. 
• Erinn Gilson (North Florida): Ethics and the Ontology of Freedom: Problematization and Responsiveness in Foucault and Deleuze. 
• From Filocracia: An Online Journal of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies, Jeffrey L. Bartilet (PUP): Foucault, Discourse, and the Call for Reflexivity; and Prudencio M. Edralin and Leovino Ma Garcia (Santo Tomas): Ricoeur's Existential Phenomenology. 
• From the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, Matthew R. McLennan (Ottawa): Heidegger without Man? The Ontological Basis of Lyotard’s Later Antihumanism. 
• Sophie Klimis (SLU-Brussels): From Modernity to Neoliberalism: What Human Subject? 
• Anthony Paul Smith reviews Anti-Badiou: On the Introduction of Maoism into Philosophy by Francois Laruelle. 
• Anti-Revolutionary Republicanism: Knox Peden on Claude Lefort’s Machiavelli. 
• Jeffrey A. Bell reviews Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism, Volume One: The Outcome of Contemporary French Philosophy by Adrian Johnston. 
• The first chapter from Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre by Jonathan Israel. 
• Ian James reviews Philosophy and Non-Philosophy by Francois Laruelle. 
• Ronjaunee Chatterjee on Alain Badiou in Southern California: A politics of the impossible. 
• Olivia Harrison reviews Living Together: Jacques Derrida’s Communities of Violence and Peace by Elisabeth Weber.
• Jan Mieszkowski reviews The Death Penalty, Volume I: The Seminars of Jacques Derrida. 
• You can download A Derrida Dictionary by Niall Lucy (2004).

Juliana Breines - Why Do We Blame Victims?

Using the NFL's bullying situation in Miami as a jumping off point, this article from the Greater Good Science Center looks at why we tend to so easily blame the victims in any situation.

Why Do We Blame Victims?

Why do so many people take the side of bullies over their victims? The answers might surprise you.

By Juliana Breines | April 8, 2014


According to a recent report from the NFL, Miami Dolphins player Richie Incognito (left, number 68) bullied Jonathan Martin (right, 71). Lynne Sladky/AP
Near the end of last year, Miami Dolphins player Jonathan Martin left the team due to mistreatment from teammates, which included receiving threatening phone messages from another player.

The incident raised concerns about hazing within the NFL, but it also prompted some to suggest that Martin himself bears at least partial responsibility for his fate. For example, another NFL player stated in an interview that Martin is “just as much to blame because he allowed it to happen” and should have behaved like a man. Others argued that Martin was oversensitive and made himself an easy target. We heard similar sentiments when college player Michael Sam and former NFL player Wade Davis recently came out as gay.

This sort of victim-blaming is not unique to bullying cases. It can be seen when rape victims’ sexual histories are dissected, when people living in poverty are viewed as lazy and unmotivated, when those suffering from mental or physical illness are presumed to have invited disease through their own bad choices. There are cases where victims may indeed hold some responsibility for their misfortune, but all too often this responsibility is overblown and other factors are discounted.

Why are we so eager to blame victims, even when we have seemingly nothing to gain?

Victim-blaming is not just about avoiding culpability—it’s also about avoiding vulnerability. The more innocent a victim, the more threatening they are. Victims threaten our sense that the world is a safe and moral place, where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. When bad things happen to good people, it implies that no one is safe, that no matter how good we are, we too could be vulnerable. The idea that misfortune can be random, striking anyone at any time, is a terrifying thought, and yet we are faced every day with evidence that it may be true.

In the 1960s, social psychologist Dr. Melvin Lerner conducted a famous serious of studies which found that when participants observed another person receiving electric shocks and were unable to intervene, they began to derogate the victims. The more unfair and severe the suffering appeared to be, the greater the derogation.

Follow-up studies found that a similar phenomenon occurs when people evaluate victims of car accidents, rape, domestic violence, illness, and poverty. Research conducted by Dr. Ronnie Janoff-Bulman suggests that victims sometimes even derogate themselves, locating the cause of their suffering in their own behavior—but not in their enduring characteristics—in an effort to make negative events seem more controllable and therefore more avoidable in the future.

Lerner theorized that these victim blaming tendencies are rooted in the belief in a just world, a world where actions have predictable consequences and people can control what happens to them. It is captured in common phrases like “what goes around comes around” and “you reap what you sow.” We want to believe that justice will come to wrongdoers, whereas good, honest people who follow the rules will be rewarded.

Research has found, not surprisingly, that people who believe that the world is a just place are happier and less depressed. But this happiness may come at a cost—it may reduce our empathy for those who are suffering, and we may even contribute to their suffering by increasing stigmatization.

So is the only alternative to belief in a just world a sense of helplessness and depression? Not at all.

In February, the NFL itself published a 144-page report on the Martin incident that compelled the organization to strengthen its code of conduct on and off the field. The report also triggered far-reaching conversations about bullying among owners, coaches, sports journalists, and players.

When Wade Davis spoke last month about being gay in the NFL to a gathering of owners and coaches, the press reported a positive response from the audience. “It’s got to be in the conversation,” Denver Broncos coach John Fox told ESPN. “I’ve probably not done as good a job with that up until now, but after Wade’s presentation, it’s high on my list the first time I talk to my staff when we get back and my football team.’’

People can believe that the world is full of injustice but also believe that they are capable of making the world a more just place through their own actions. One way to help make the world a better place to fight the impulse to rationalize others’ suffering, and to recognize that it could have just as soon been us in their shoes.

This recognition can be unsettling, but it may also be the only way that we can truly open our hearts to others’ suffering and help them feel supported and less alone. What the world may lack in justice we can at least try to make up for in compassion.

Here is more research support for the medicinal use of psilocybin mushrooms, this time in a study that shows psilocybin disrupts the processing of negative emotions through it's effects on the amygdala. If this can be verified, psilocybin might be a first-line treatment for PTSD.

Only a week or so ago The Atlantic ran an article about research using psilocybin for the treatment of cancer-related anxiety.

Another article, in Live Science from 2011, showed that a single psilocybin experience can change the user's personality for up to 14 months. The results, published Sept. 29, 2011, in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, revealed that while other aspects of personality stayed the same, openness increased after a psilocybin experience.

Psilocybin inhibits the processing of negative emotions in the brain

Date: May 7, 2014
Source: University of Zurich

Summary:
Emotions like fear, anger, sadness, and joy enable people to adjust to their environment and react flexibly to stress and strain and are vital for cognitive processes, physiological reactions, and social behavior. The processing of emotions is closely linked to structures in the brain, i.e. to what is known as the limbic system. Within this system the amygdala plays a central role – above all it processes negative emotions like anxiety and fear. If the activity of the amygdala becomes unbalanced, depression and anxiety disorders may develop.

Researchers have now shown that psilocybin, the bioactive component in the Mexican magic mushroom, influences the amygdala, thereby weakening the processing of negative stimuli (stock image). Credit: © Zerbor / Fotolia

Emotions like fear, anger, sadness, and joy enable people to adjust to their environment and react flexibly to stress and strain and are vital for cognitive processes, physiological reactions, and social behaviour. The processing of emotions is closely linked to structures in the brain, i.e. to what is known as the limbic system. Within this system the amygdala plays a central role -- above all it processes negative emotions like anxiety and fear. If the activity of the amygdala becomes unbalanced, depression and anxiety disorders may develop.

Researchers at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Zurich have now shown that psilocybin, the bioactive component in the Mexican magic mushroom, influences the amygdala, thereby weakening the processing of negative stimuli. These findings could "point the way to novel approaches to treatment" comments the lead author Rainer Krähenmann on the results which have now been published in the medical journal Biological Psychiatry.

Psilocybin inhibits the processing of negative emotions in the amygdala

The processing of emotions can be impaired by various causes and elicit mental disorders. Elevated activity of the amygdala in response to stimuli leads to the neurons strengthening negative signals and weakening the processing of positive ones. This mechanism plays an important role in the development of depression and anxiety disorders. Psilocybin intervenes specifically in this mechanism as shown by Dr. Rainer Krähenmann's research team of the Neuropsychopharmacology and Brain Imaging Unit led by Prof. Dr. Franz Vollenweider.

Psilocybin positively influences mood in healthy individuals. In the brain, this substance stimulates specific docking sites for the messenger serotonin. The scientists therefore assumed that psilocybin exerts its mood-brightening effect via a change in the serotonin system in the limbic brain regions. This could, in fact, be demonstrated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). "Even a moderate dose of psilocybin weakens the processing of negative stimuli by modifying amygdala activity in the limbic system as well as in other associated brain regions," continues Krähenmann. The study clearly shows that the modulation of amygdalaactivity is directly linked to the experience of heightened mood.

Next study with depressive patients

According to Krähenmann, this observation is of major clinical importance. Depressive patients in particular react more to negative stimuli and their thoughts often revolve around negative contents. Hence, the neuropharmacologists now wish to elucidate in further studies whether psilocybin normalises the exaggerated processing of negative stimuli as seen in neuroimaging studies of depressedpatients -- and may consequently lead to improved mood in these patients. .

Rainer Krähenmann considers research into novel approaches to treatment very important, because current available drugs for the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders are not effective in all patients and are often associated with unwanted side effects.


Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of Zurich. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:
Kraehenmann, R, Preller, KH, Scheidegger, M, Pokorny, T, Bosch, OG, Seifritz, E, Vollenweider, FX. (2014). Psilocybin-Induced Decrease in Amygdala Reactivity Correlates with Enhanced Positive Mood in Healthy Volunteers. Biological Psychiatry, DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.04.010

SOLE - Why the Alex Jones Industrial Complex Must Be Dismantled

This is an excellent article - although Alex Jones is so bat shit crazy that he is an easy target for a take down. Still, rap artist SOLE does it well. [The rap video, however, is likely an acquired taste.]

Here are just a few paragraphs, from The Daily Dot.

Why the Alex Jones industrial complex must be dismantled

BY SOLE

About a week ago I released a new video called "Fuck Alex Jones." Since the track has been released I've been bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of angry comments from the Infowars crowd, calling me a "faget," a sheep, and a "New World Order shill."

* * * * *

I went after Jones specifically because almost all of his propaganda plays into the hands of the extreme right wing in the United States. He dismisses feminism and gay rights as part of a New Word Order plot to reduce the population. He dismisses climate change as a hoax, and backs it up by giving weather reports on Mars. He attacks non-existent, nameless, faceless organizations like the Illuminati but ignores the evils being done by right-wing billionaires like the Koch Brothers.

His supporters are certified experts on the Bilderberg Group, but they seem to know nothing about the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that literally writes laws for corporations and passes them into law. Who needs the Illuminati when you have people like that? What if we just do away with the word "Illuminati" and start talking about capitalism and the state?

You will never hear conspiracy theorists talk about class war; they are far more concerned with preserving their own status in this economic system. Like missionaries and populist demagogues of the past, they prey on the young and downtrodden, give them an all-encompassing worldview, call it "truth, and and label everyone who doesn't believe it a "sheep" who needs to "wake up."

I attack Infowars because it is not a revolutionary movement. It is chasing a mirage. It imagines the good ol’ days of 'merica, when white slave-owners wrote a constitution for other property owners, before they pushed west, killed multitudes of Native Americans (historical estimates range between 30-100 million) and stole their land. Those are the glory days of 1776 that the right-wing conspiracy crowd holds up as an ideal that we need to return to.

Will someone please tell them that those days never left us? It’s not the Illuminati that are sending drones to kill children in Yemen or having the NSA spy on us; it’s the logical endgame to the "spirit of 1776."

What just played out in Bundy Ranch is instructive in this light. According to the cult of Jones, we shouldn't worry about homeless people in cities being pushed out of the common spaces; we should worry about a white rancher in Nevada having his "liberty" trampled by the federal government. Both lay concerns of how public space should be used, but the latter believes that rights of cows to encroach on protected habitats is more important than the right of a homeless people to cover their bodies when they sleep outside in the winter.

Many criticize Jones because he uses his Prison Planet ™ store to sell things like expensive water filters and male enhancement pills, but what he is really selling is fear. His show is a never-ending litany of new things to be afraid of: FEMA camps, cities stockpiling hundreds of thousands of body bags, a government that knows everything you’re gonna do before you do. Name your fear, and Alex is selling it!

This is an old article (from 2011), but it offers an excellent overview of the progress that has been made in applying dynamic systems theory to cognitive development. The following is from a book chapter on Dynamic Systems Theories by Esther Thelen and Linda B. Smith:

Dynamic systems is a recent theoretical approach to the study of development. In its contemporary formulation, the theory grows directly from advances in understanding complex and nonlinear systems in physics and mathematics, but it also follows a long and rich tradition of systems thinking in biology and psychology. The term dynamic systems, in its most generic form, means systems of elements that change over time.

The authors then offer two themes that recur frequently in the history of developmental theory and in dynamic systems theory:

1. Development can only be understood as the multiple, mutual, and continuous interaction of all the levels of the developing system, from the molecular to the cultural.

2. Development can only be understood as nested processes that unfold over many timescales from milliseconds to years.

Thelen, E. & Smith, L.B. (2006). Dynamic Systems Theories. In Handbook of Child Psychology, Volume 1, Theoretical Models of Human Development, 6th Edition, William Damon (Editor), Richard M. Lerner (Volume editor), pp 258-312. 

For more general background, see the following articles:

• Complex Dynamical Systems Theory, by Professor Alicia Juarrero, author of Dynamics in action: Intentional behavior as a complex system. www.cognitive-edge.com
• Cognition as a dynamic system: Principles from embodiment, by Linda B. Smith; Developmental Review 25 (2005) 278–298.
• Development as a dynamic system, by Linda B. Smith and Esther Thelen; Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol.7 No.8, August 2003.

With that background, then, here is the feature article:

Full Citation:
Spencer, JP, Perone, S, and Buss, AT. (2011, Dec). Twenty years and going strong: A dynamic systems revolution in motor and cognitive development. Child Dev Perspect. 5(4): 260–266. doi:  10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00194.x

Twenty years and going strong: A dynamic systems revolution in motor and cognitive development

John P. Spencer, Sammy Perone, and Aaron T. Buss

Abstract

This article reviews the major contributions of dynamic systems theory in advancing thinking about development, the empirical insights the theory has generated, and the key challenges for the theory on the horizon. The first section discusses the emergence of dynamic systems theory in developmental science, the core concepts of the theory, and the resonance it has with other approaches that adopt a systems metatheory. The second section reviews the work of Esther Thelen and colleagues, who revolutionized how researchers think about the field of motor development. It also reviews recent extensions of this work to the domain of cognitive development. Here, the focus is on dynamic field theory, a formal, neurally grounded approach that has yielded novel insights into the embodied nature of cognition. The final section proposes that the key challenge on the horizon is to formally specify how interactions among multiple levels of analysis interact across multiple time scales to create developmental change.

_____

Twenty years is a long time for an individual scientist, but a relatively brief period for a scientific theory. This tension of time scales underlies our evaluation of dynamic systems theory (DST) and development below. In particular, we take the long view in our evaluation—to evaluate a new theoretical perspective in its infancy. From this vantage point, the differential success of individual variants of DST is normal; most critical is the evaluation en masse. In our view, DST has been extremely successful on the whole—in some cases, “revolutionary.” In the sections that follow, we explain our optimism, grounding our evaluation both in past accomplishments and in future prospects. Time will tell whether the word “revolution” reflects more than just our optimism.

What are the greatest contributions of the DST approach to development over the past 20 years?

Recent decades have seen a shift in thinking about development. Instead of characterizing what changes over development, there is a new emphasis on the how of developmental change (see Elman et al., 1997; Plumert & Spencer, 2007; Thelen & Smith, 1994). These explorations have revealed that simple notions of cause and effect are inadequate to explain development. Rather, change occurs within complex systems with many components that interact over multiple time scales, from the second-to-second unfolding of behavior to the longer time scales of learning, development, and evolution (see Christiansen & Kirby, 2003).

The introduction of DST into psychology has spurred this new way of thinking about change. Critically, DST did not emerge in isolation. Rather, it is one contributor to a broad shift in developmental science toward a systems metatheory (see Lerner, 2006) that encompasses a wide range of work from developmental systems theory (e.g., Gottlieb, 1991; Kuo, 1921; Lehrman, 1950), sociocultural and situated approaches (e.g., Baltes, 1987; Bronfrenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Elder, 1998), ecological psychology (e.g., Adolph, 1997; Gibson & Pick, 2000; Turvey, 1990), and connectionism (e.g., Bates & Elman, 1993; Elman, 1990; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986).

Within this family of work, confusion can arise in the distinction between two DSTs: dynamic systems theory and developmental systems theory (see Fox-Keller, 2005). These perspectives share many core principles; we can distinguish them by their histories and foci. Developmental systems theory was based on early work at the intersection of behavioral development, biology, and evolution by pioneers such as Lehrman and Kuo (see Ford & Lerner, 1992; Gottlieb, 1991; Griffiths & Gray, 1994; Kuo, 1921). This approach has focused on how development unfolds through an epigenetic process with cascading interactions across multiple levels of causation, from genes to environments (Johnston & Edwards, 2002). Dynamic systems theory, by contrast, developed from the mathematical analysis of complex physical systems (Gleick, 1998; Smith & Thelen, 2003). Consequently, this approach provides a way of mathematically specifying the concepts of systems metatheory while supporting the abstraction of these concepts into more cognitive domains (see, Spencer & Schöner, 2003). Thus, the aim of many dynamic systems approaches is to formally implement developmental processes to shed light on how behavior changes over time (Spencer et al., 2009; van Geert, 1991, 1998; van der Maas & Molenaar, 1992; van der Maas & Dolan, 2006; Warren, 2006). In this sense, dynamic systems theory and developmental systems theory share an emphasis on the step-by-step processes and multilevel interactions that shape development.

A key characteristic of systems metatheory that both approaches share is the rejection of classical dichotomies that have pervaded psychology for centuries: nature versus nurture, stability versus change, and so on (for discussion, see Spencer et al., 2009). In their place, systems metatheory takes the “organism in context” as its central unit of study, an inseparable unit in which it is impossible to isolate the behavioral and developmental state of the organism from external influences. Furthermore, behavior and development are emergent properties of system-wide interactions that can create something new from the many interacting components in the system (see Munakata & McClelland, 2003; Spencer & Perone, 2008; Thelen, 1992).

It is often helpful to consider historical change through the lens of contrast. According to Lerner (2006), systems metatheory has supplanted other influential metatheories, but which ones? To answer this, we conducted a survey of the fourth through sixth editions of the Handbook of Child Psychology: Theoretical Models of Human Development. These editions span more than 20 years in developmental psychology (from 1983 to 2006). Although this book is just one indication of how the field is changing, our survey revealed that four theoretical viewpoints have disappeared from the Handbook over time: nativism, cognitive and information processing, symbolic approaches, and Piaget’s theory. Of course, scholars still actively pursue all of these perspectives. It is notable, however, that they have something in common—an attempt to carve up behavior and development into parts (broad parts like nature versus nurture; specific parts like cognitive modules; or temporal partitions such as stages of processing or stages of development). Systems metatheory rejects this inherent partitioning.

Within the broad class of theories that make up systems metatheory, a central challenge is to examine what each perspective contributes. DST has had a particularly strong influence, bringing several critical concepts into mainstream developmental science. The first concept is that systems are self-organizing. Complex physical systems (such as the human child) comprise many interacting elements that span multiple levels from the molecular (for example, genes) to the neural to the behavioral to the social. Within the DS perspective, organization and structure come “for free” from the nonlinear and time-dependent interactions that emerge from this multilevel and high-dimensional mix (e.g., Prigogine & Nicolis, 1971). Thus, there is no need to build pattern into the system ahead of time because the system has an intrinsic tendency to create pattern. This gives physical systems a creative spark that we contend is central to the very notion of development—development is fundamentally about the emergence of something qualitatively new that was not there before.

Of course, the notion of qualitative change over development is not unique to DST (see, e.g., Gottlieb, 1991; Munakata & McClelland, 2003; Piaget, 1954; von Bertalannfy, 1950). But we contend that DST clarifies the distinction between quantitative and qualitative change (see Spencer & Perone, 2008; van Geert, 1998). According to DST, qualitative change occurs when there is a change in the layout of attractors, or special “habitual” states around which behavior coheres: when a new attractor appears, there is a qualitative change in the system. Although qualitative change can be special—it can reflect the emergence of something new that was not there before—it is not in opposition to quantitative change. Rather, quantitative changes in one aspect of the system can give rise to qualitatively new behaviors. This is one example where a classic dichotomy withers away in the face of a formal, systems viewpoint.

One of the historical challenges in defining qualitative and quantitative change is that changes occur over multiple time scales. For instance, a skilled infant can go from a crawling posture to a walking posture within a matter of seconds, but how is this “on-the-fly” transition related to the more gradual shift in the likelihood of crawling versus walking that unfolds across months in development (see Adolph, 1997)? In particular, it can be difficult to specify when the infant “has” walking, why walking comes and goes in different situations, and what drives this change over time. Again, DST has a unique perspective on these challenges. There is no competence/performance distinction in DST (see Thelen & Smith, 1994); rather, the emphasis is on how people assemble behavior in the moment in context. But because DST integrates processes over multiple time scales, it can explain why behavioral attractors—which form in real time—can emerge and become more likely over the longer times of learning and development (for discussion, see Spencer & Perone, 2008).

Another issue that researchers have directly examined using DST is the concept of “soft assembly.” According to this concept, behavior is always assembled from multiple interacting components that can be freely combined from moment to moment on the basis of the context, task, and developmental history of the organism. Esther Thelen talked about this as a form of improvisation in which components freely interact and assemble themselves in new, inventive ways (like musicians playing jazz). This gives behavior an intrinsic sense of exploration and flexibility, issues that Goldfield and colleagues (Goldfield, Kay, & Warren, 1993) have examined formally.

This characterization of behavior and development has led to an additional insight about the embodied nature of cognition. In particular, if behavior is softly assembled from many components in the moment, then the brain is not the “controller” of behavior. Rather, it is necessary to understand how the brain capitalizes on the dynamics of the body and how the body informs the brain in the construction of behavior. This has led to an emphasis on embodied cognitive dynamics (see Schöner, 2009; Spencer, Perone, & Johnson, 2009), that is, to a view of cognition in which brain and body are in continual dialogue from second to second.

A final strength of the DS approach is that it has generated a host of productive tools, including rich empirical programs (Samuelson & Horst, 2008; Smith, Thelen, Titzer, & McLin, 1999; Thelen & Ulrich, 1991; van der Maas & Dolan, 2006), formal modeling tools that can capture and quantify the emergence and construction of behavior over development (such as growth models, oscillator models, dynamic neural field models), and statistical tools that can describe the patterns of behavior observed over development (Lewis, Lamey, & Douglas, 1999; Molenaar, Boomsma, & Dolan, 1993; van der Maas & Dolan, 2006). These tools have enabled researchers to move beyond the characterization of what changes over development toward a deeper understanding of how these changes occur.

What is your critical evaluation of the progress of DS-inspired empirical research?

DST has led to a revolutionary change in how people think about motor development, and this type of revolutionary thinking is starting to take hold in cognitive development as well. We review the basis for this optimistic assessment below. Note that we focus on motor and cognitive development because these are our “home” domains. We will leave it to the other authors in this issue to evaluate other fields.

The dominant view of motor development for much of the 20th century was that the development of action occurred in a series of relatively fixed motor milestones. The emphasis was on normative development, the concept of motor programs that controlled action, and a sequence of milestones that was largely under genetic or biological control (for review, see Adolph & Berger, 2006). The landscape has shifted dramatically in the last 20 years, thanks in large part to the work of Esther Thelen (as well as other systems thinkers, most notably, Gibson, 1988; see Adolph & Berger, 2006). Today the field views motor development as emergent and exploratory with a new emphasis on individual development in context. Although this revolution in thinking was spurred by dynamic systems concepts, it was also driven forward by a wealth of empirical research.

For instance, Esther Thelen conducted a now-classic set of studies investigating the early disappearance of the stepping reflex. Thelen’s early work on stepping revealed that the coordination patterns that underlie stepping and kicking were strikingly similar. The puzzle was that newborn stepping disappeared within the first three months, whereas kicking continued and increased in frequency. To explain the disappearance of stepping, several researchers had proposed that maturing cortical centers inhibit the primitive stepping reflex or that stepping was phylogenetically programmed to disappear (e.g., Andre-Thomas & Autgaerden, 1966).

To probe the mystery of the disappearing steps, Thelen conducted a longitudinal study that focused on the detailed development of individual infants. Thelen, Fisher, and Ridley-Johnson (1984) found a clue in the fact that chubby babies and those who gained weight fastest were the first to stop stepping. This led to the hypothesis that it requires more strength for young infants to lift their legs when upright (in a stepping position) than when lying down (in a kicking position). To test this idea, Thelen and colleagues conducted two ingenious studies. In one, they placed small leg weights on two-month-old babies, similar in amount to the weight they would gain in the ensuing month. This significantly reduced stepping. In the other, they submerged older infants whose stepping had begun to wane in water up to chest levels. Robust stepping now reappeared. These data demonstrated that traditional explanations of neural maturation and innate capacities were insufficient to explain the emergence of new patterns and the flexibility of motor behavior.

Since this seminal work, Thelen and her colleagues have intensively examined the development of alternating leg movements (Thelen & Ulrich, 1991), the emergence of crawling (Adolph, Vereijken, & Denny, 1988), the emergence of walking (e.g., Adolph, 1997; Thelen & Ulrich, 1991), and the development of reaching (Corbetta, Thelen, & Johnson, 2000; Thelen, Corbetta & Spencer, 1996; Thelen et al., 1993). In all cases, these researchers have shown that new action patterns emerge in the moment from the self-organization of multiple components. The stepping studies elegantly illustrated this, showing how multiple factors cohere in a moment in time to create or hinder leg movements. And, further, these studies illustrate how changes in the components of the motor system over the longer time scale of development interact with real-time behavior.

In summary, DS concepts have led to a radical change in the conceptualization of motor development. But what about cognition? There have been a variety of DS approaches to cognitive development. For instance, researchers have used the concepts of DST to study early word learning (e.g., Samuelson, Schutte & Horst, 2008), language development (e.g., van Geert, 1991), the development of intelligence (e.g., Fischer & Bidell, 1998), and conceptual development and conservation behavior (e.g., van der Maas & Molenaar, 1992). A survey of these different approaches is beyond the scope of this article (see Spencer, Thomas & McClelland, 2009). We focus, instead, on one particular flavor of cognitive dynamics—dynamic field theory (DFT)—that emerged out of the motor approach that Thelen and colleagues pioneered (for discussion, see Spencer & Schöner, 2003).

The starting point for the DF approach was to consider several facts about neural systems. Neural systems are noisy, densely interconnected, and time-dependent; they pass continuous, graded, and metric information to one another; and they are continuously coupled via both short-range and long-range connections (Braitenberg & Schüz, 1991; Constantinidis & Steinmetz, 1996; Edelman, 1987; Rao, Rainer, & Miller, 1997). These neural facts raise deep theoretical challenges. How can a collection of neurons “represent” information amidst near-constant bombardment by other neural signals (Skarda & Freeman, 1987), and how do neurons, in concert with the body, generate stable, reliable behavior? To address these challenges, the DF framework emphasizes stable patterns of neural interaction at the level of population dynamics (see also Spivey, 2007). That is, rather than building networks that start from a set of spiking neurons, we have chosen to focus on the emergent product of the dynamics at the neural level—attractors at the level of the neural population.

The first steps toward a neurally grounded theory of cognitive development came from Thelen and Smith’s studies of the Piagetian A-not-B error (see Smith et al., 1999; Thelen, Schöner, Scheier, & Smith, 2001). This early work formalized a DFT of infant perseverative reaching, arguably the most comprehensive theory of infants’ performance in the Piagetian A-not-B task (Clearfield, Dineva, Smith, Diedrich, & Thelen, 2009; Smith et al., 1999; Spencer, Dineva, & Smith, 2009; Thelen et al., 2001). DFT has generated a host of novel behavioral predictions, and it explains how perseverative reaching arises as a function of (1) the infants’ history of prior reaches to A (Smith et al., 1999), (2) a bodily feel and visual perspective of reaching to A (Smith et al., 1999), (3) the distinctiveness of the targets and perceptual cues in the task space (Clearfield et al, 2009), (4) the delay between the cueing and reaching events (Diamond, 1985), (5) the number of targets in the task space, (6) the characteristics of the hidden object (and whether there is any hidden object whatsoever; see Smith et al., 1999), and (7) changes in infants’ reaching skill and working memory abilities over development (Clearfield, Diedrich, Smith, & Thelen, 2006; for related studies with older children, see Schutte, Spencer, & Schöner, 2003; Spencer, Smith, & Thelen, 2001).

More recently, we have extended the DF approach to a host of other topics in cognitive development. These topics include the processes that underlie habituation in infancy (Perone & Spencer, 2009; Schöner & Thelen, 2006), the control of autonomous robots and the development of exploratory motor behavior (Dineva, Faubel, Sandamirskaya, Spencer, & Schöner, 2008; Steinhage & Schöner, 1998), the development of visuospatial cognition (Simmering, Spencer, & Schutte, 2008), the processes that underlie visual working memory and the development of change detection abilities (Simmering, 2008), the processes that underlie early word learning behaviors (Samuelson et al., 2008), and the development of executive function (Buss & Spencer, 2008). This broad coverage of multiple aspects of development with the same theoretical framework underlies our optimism that the concepts of DST can have a revolutionary impact on cognitive development just as they had in motor development. Time will tell.

What are the challenges and necessary directions for the next 20 years?

A major accomplishment of DS approaches has been to move beyond the conceptual level to establish a tight link between formal theory and empirical research, leading to a greater understanding of the processes that underlie developmental change. Although there have been many successful applications of DS concepts, significant challenges remain. For instance, soft assembly makes it difficult to define the components of the “system” or subsystem under study. Similarly, the multiply determined nature of dynamic systems makes it difficult to identify “cause” because different factors can lead to different outcomes depending on the context and history of the individual.

In addition to these conceptual challenges, researchers in the next 20 years will have to build theories that formally connect processes across multiple levels of analysis. Figure 1 shows the nested, interacting systems that contribute to the organization of behavioral development from genetic to social levels. Each of these levels and the interactions among them are highly complex; thus, understanding how development happens as these levels interact over time will require formal theories that specify the nature of those interactions (for related ideas, see Gottlieb, 1991; Johnston & Edwards, 2002; Johnston & Lickliter, 2009). To date, multiple approaches have attempted to understand behavioral development at the different levels shown in Figure 1, but these efforts have not been tightly integrated across levels.

Figure 1
A central challenge on the horizon for dynamic systems theory is to formally integrate across reciprocally interacting levels from genetic to social and to integrate these levels across multiple time scales from in-the-moment interactions to learning ...

In addition to the challenge of formally connecting processes at multiple levels, it will be important to tackle a second challenge: integrating time scales. Within DST, nested, interacting systems come together to create developmental change as those systems interact through time. In particular, the multiple systems in Figure 1 produce a coherent behavioral system in the moment, and those in-the-moment behaviors have consequences that carry forward across the longer time scales of learning and development (see Smith & Thelen, 2003 for a discussion). Our research using DFT has effectively integrated real-time behavior with changes over learning (see, e.g., Lipinski, Spencer, & Samuelson, 2010; Schöner & Thelen, 2006; Thelen et al., 2001). Other approaches have examined these time scales as well (e.g., French, Mareschal, Mermillod, & Quinn, 2004; McMurray, Horst, Toscano, & Samuelson, 2009), but the longer time scales of development have been more elusive (but see Simmering et al., 2008; Schutte et al., 2003; Schutte & Spencer, 2009, for efforts in this direction).

One difficulty in this regard is that it is often hard to get a clear sense of developmental change empirically. Adolph, Robinson, Young, and Gill-Alvarez (2008), for example, showed how different views of developmental change are created simply by sampling rate of change. But developmental scientists face theoretical challenges in terms of integrating behavior over very long time scales. Spencer and Perone (2008) have taken one step toward addressing this issue by probing change in neural dynamics over relatively long time scales. In particular, they showed that the gradual accumulation of neural excitation in a simple, dynamic neural system created qualitative changes in the state in which the system operated. That is, as the system gradually accumulated a history, the system was biased to settle into new neural attractor states. We believe that it is possible to generalize from these concepts, and we are currently working to scale this demonstration up guided by a rich, longitudinal empirical data set (see Perone & Spencer, 2009).

Integrating dynamics across multiple systems and time scales is a daunting task. Even more challenging is to achieve this integration at the level of the individual child in context. But this is a critically important goal because it opens the door for examining atypical development. If we understand the complex dynamics through which systems interact over time at the level of individual children, we will be well positioned to create individual interventions that help steer the child toward positive developmental outcomes. That would indeed be revolutionary. Perhaps in the next 20 years we will realize this vision.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by NIH RO1MH62480 awarded to John P. Spencer.

References available at the NHI/NCBI site.

Rick Hanson - Brain Science and Psychotherapy: The Next Step

This talk from Rick Hanson is a little over an hour long, and it was given at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium in Washington DC in March, 2014. Here is part of the brochure copy for his Keynote Address:

Rick Hanson—author, neuropsychologist, and therapist—will examine the practical tools that brain science has already given us and look ahead to the next stage of how to use neuroscience to enhance our clinical craft.

In this keynote, he’ll explore both sides of psychotherapy’s love affair with the brain, examining the clinical benefits and potential pitfalls of using neuroscientific concepts in the consulting room. He’ll survey the tools that brain science has already given us and look ahead to the next stage of how we might use it to enhance our clinical craft.

He was addressing a huge crowd of therapists, so his talk is aimed at professionals more than lay people, but he is so down-to-earth in his talks that any listener will benefit from his wisdom.

Brain Science and Psychotherapy: The Next Step

May 2nd, 2014 | Rick Hanson, PhD.

Last month at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium in Washington DC, I gave a talk to ~ 3500 people: scary but wonderful! Brain Science and Psychotherapy: The Next Step – looked at the benefits and pitfalls of brain science, plus focused on a key point: if we don’t take the time to install our useful experiences, they’re wasted on the brain; they’re momentarily pleasant but lead to no learning, no healing, no growth. Then I summarized HOW to turn passing experiences into lasting value.

Listen here:

  Brain Science and Psychotherapy: The Next Step

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Piketty Fever - Piketty, Piketty, and More Piketty

 

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on the Thomas Piketty phenomenon, Can Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century Inspire Real Change? It was a popular post. So here is more, since there seems to be no shortage of media coverage of the man and his book and the right-wing hysteria he has produced.

To begin, here is the man himself, Thomas Piketty, talking about his strangely best-selling book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.


Next up, David Brooks at The New York Times took aim at Piketty in a recent column, dispelling what he saw as the book's weaknesses.

In an interview with Salon, Piketty addressed Brooks' criticisms head on. Here is his response:

David Brooks… writes that “Piketty predicts that growth will be low for a century, though there seems to be a lot of innovation around. He predicts that the return on capital will be high, though there could be diminishing returns as the supply increases. He predicts that family fortunes will concentrate, though big ones in the past have tended to dissipate and families like the Gateses give a lot away. Human beings are generally treated in aggregate terms, without much discussion of individual choice.” What do you make of those critiques from David Brooks?

I do my best to respond to them in the book. As a general response, let me say that I don’t know what the future value of the growth rate and the rate of return will be.

It could be that we manage to get a lot higher growth that we’ve had in the past. It could be that we are all going to have so many children, and we are all going to be making so many new inventions, that the growth rate will be 4 or 5 percent, and will be as large as the rate of return. Or it could be that we don’t know what to do with capital anymore, and the rate of return will fall to the growth rate. You know, this could happen. But it would really be an incredible coincidence.

So in case this incredible coincidence happens, we will be fine. We will not need my other solution. And I will be very happy. All I am saying is that we should not bet on that. And we should make another plan, in case this incredible coincidence does not happen…

There is a lot of evidence suggesting that even if we try to promote innovation as much as we can, and even if we try to increase growth rate as much as we can – and I am certainly in favor of any policy going in this direction – that even if we do that, that’s not going to bring us to a 4 or 5 percent growth rate. We are still going to be somewhere between 1 and 2 percent, at least for productivity growth. And it’s not so easy to impact on population growth…

Maybe the total growth rate will not be 4 or 5 percent in the long run. Maybe it will be only 1 to 2 percent. I guess my main point in the book is that we should organize ourselves so as to be able to react to whatever happens.

So right now, what we see is that the top of the wealth distribution is rising at 6, 7 percent a year — more than three times faster than the size of the economy. How far is this going to go? Is this going to stop somewhere? Yes, of course it will stop somewhere. But where exactly will it stop? I think nobody knows…

We should not just be waiting for natural forces to get us to the right place… There is no natural force that makes the rate of return and the growth rate of the economy coincide in the long run. And there is no natural force that prevents the concentration of wealth from rising to a high level. So I am not saying this will rise forever. This will stop somewhere. I am just saying that this somewhere can be very high, and there is no natural force that prevents this from happening.

So instead of just waiting and seeing, I am just saying we should have more transparency on wealth — more financial transparency, more democratic transparency on wealth dynamics — and then we will adjust the tax rate to whatever we observe…

If what we observe is that the top of the wealth distribution is not rising more than the average… we don’t need to have a sharply progressive tax rate at the top. But if the top of the wealth distribution is rising at 6, 7 percent a year, then don’t tell me that a 1 or 2 percent tax rate on top wealth will kill the economy. So we have to be very pragmatic on this. And most importantly, we need to have democratic and fiscal institutions that are able to produce the kind of information, and the kind of transparency, that will allow us to adapt to whatever we observe…

I don’t pretend that I can predict the future value of the growth rate or rate of return. I’m just looking at the data. And if the data changes in the future, and the top stops rising three times faster than the average, then I will be very happy to look at the data and to say it.

I don’t have any stake in this.

Finally, here is a link fest from Bookforum's Omnivore blog on the topic of Piketty fever.

Piketty Fever

May 5 2014
9:00AM

• From Financial Times, save capitalism from the capitalists by taxing wealth: Rising levels of inequality need to be addressed on a global scale, writes Thomas Piketty (and more and more and more).
• What would the world look like with Piketty's global tax on wealth? Danny Vinik investigates.
• Piketty's global wealth tax isn't happening — Danny Vinik on five politically realistic ideas instead.
• David Leonhardt on why you shouldn't be too depressed by Thomas Piketty’s arguments — inequality is a choice, not inevitable.
• Matt O'Brien on 4 ways to stop the U.S. from becoming a Piketty-style oligarchy.
• Studying the rich: Mike Konczal on Thomas Piketty and his critics.
• Thomas Piketty terrifies Paul Ryan: Paul Rosenberg goes behind the right’s desperate, laughable need to destroy an economist.
• Brad DeLong on the Right’s Piketty problem.
• Kathleen Geier on what Piketty’s conservative critics get wrong (and more).
• We need to teach tolerance for inequality: Brian Beutler on how the conservative case against Piketty is shockingly weak.
• Piketty fever: A wonky book on inequality becomes a blockbuster.
• Larry Elliott on Thomas Piketty, the French economist bringing capitalism to book.
• Hey, Big Thinker: Thomas Piketty, the economist behind Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is the latest overnight intellectual sensation.
• Economist receives rock star treatment: The reception for his Capital in the 21st Century has led the French economist Thomas Piketty to Washington’s halls of power and New York’s media outlets (and more).
• Tyler Cowen and Veronique de Rugy on why Piketty’s book is a bigger deal in America than in France.
• John Cassidy on why the "Piketty bubble" is more than hot air.

 

From AlterNet, via Truthdig, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Chris Hedges looks at the loss of Constitutional Protects, largely due to the cooperation of the Obama administration, the industrial military complex, and the corporatocracy.

Here is the key quote from the article:

The goals of corporate capitalism are increasingly indistinguishable from the goals of the state. The political and economic systems are subservient to corporate profit. Debate between conventional liberals and conservatives has been replaced by empty political theater and spectacle. Corporations, no matter which politicians are in office, loot the Treasury, escape taxation, push down wages, break unions, dismantle civil society, gut regulation and legal oversight, control information, prosecute endless war, and dismantle public institutions and programs that include schools, welfare, and Social Security. And elected officials, enriched through our form of legalized corporate bribery, have no intention of halting the process.

The system has already been rigged to the point that there is little we can do, as citizens, to change this state of affairs.

By the way, Hedges newest book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Chris Hedges: We're Losing the Last Shreds of Legal Rights to Protect Ourselves from Oligarchy

A ruling elite that accrues for itself total power, history has shown, eventually uses it.

May 5, 2014 | Chris Hedges


Photo Credit: WeAreChange; Screenshot / YouTube.com

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear our case concerning Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permits the military to seize U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers without due process, means that this provision will continue to be law. It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power — one of the core definitions of fascism. It means that the internal mechanisms of state are so corrupted and subservient to corporate power that there is no hope of reform or protection for citizens under our most basic constitutional rights. It means that the consent of the governed — a poll by OpenCongress.com showed that this provision had a 98 percent disapproval rating — is a cruel joke. And it means that if we do not rapidly build militant mass movements to overthrow corporate tyranny, including breaking the back of the two-party duopoly that is the mask of corporate power, we will lose our liberty.

“In declining to hear the case Hedges v. Obama and declining to review the NDAA, the Supreme Court has turned its back on precedent dating back to the Civil War era that holds that the military cannot police the streets of America,” said attorney Carl Mayer, who along with Bruce Afran devoted countless unpaid hours to the suit. “This is a major blow to civil liberties. It gives the green light to the military to detain people without trial or counsel in military installations, including secret installations abroad. There is little left of judicial review of presidential action during wartime.”

Afran, Mayer and I brought the case to the U.S. Southern District Court of New York in January 2012. I was later joined by co-plaintiffs Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, journalist Alexa O’Brien, RevolutionTruth founder Tangerine Bolen, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir and Occupy London activist Kai Wargalla.

Later in 2012 U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest declared Section 1021(b)(2) unconstitutional. The Obama administration not only appealed — we expected it to appeal — but demanded that the law be immediately put back into effect until the appeal was heard. Forrest, displaying the same judicial courage she showed with her ruling, refused to do this.

The government swiftly went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. It asked, in the name of national security, that the court stay the district court’s injunction until the government’s appeal could be heard. The 2nd Circuit agreed. The law went back on the books. My lawyers and I surmised that this was because the administration was already using the law to detain U.S. citizens in black sites, most likely dual citizens with roots in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. The administration would have been in contempt of court if Forrest’s ruling was allowed to stand while the federal authorities detained U.S. citizens under the statute. Government attorneys, when asked by Judge Forrest, refused to say whether or not the government was already using the law, buttressing our suspicion that it was in use.

The 2nd Circuit overturned Forrest’s ruling last July in a decision that did not force it to rule on the actual constitutionality of Section 1021(b)(2). It cited the Supreme Court ruling in Clapper v. Amnesty International, another case in which I was one of the plaintiffs, to say that I had no standing, or right, to bring the NDAA case to court. Clapper v. Amnesty International challenged the secret wiretapping of U.S. citizens under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The Supreme Court had ruled in Clapper that our concern about government surveillance was “speculation.” It said we were required to prove to the court that the FISA Act would be used to monitor those we interviewed. The court knew, of course, that the government does not disclose whom it is monitoring. It knew we could never offer proof. The leaks by Edward Snowden, which came out after the Supreme Court ruling, showed that the government was monitoring us all, along with those we interviewed. The 2nd Circuit used the spurious Supreme Court ruling to make its own spurious ruling. It said that because we could not show that the indefinite-detention law was about to be used against us, just as we could not prove government monitoring of our communications, we could not challenge the law. It was a dirty game of judicial avoidance on two egregious violations of the Constitution.

In refusing to hear our lawsuit the courts have overturned nearly 150 years of case law that repeatedly holds that the military has no jurisdiction over civilians. Now, a U.S. citizen charged by the government with “substantially supporting” al-Qaida, the Taliban or those in the nebulous category of “associated forces” — some of the language of Section 1021(b)(2) — is lawfully subject to extraordinary rendition on U.S. soil. And those seized and placed in military jails can be kept there until “the end of hostilities.”

Judge Forrest, in her 112-page ruling against the section, noted that under this provision of the NDAA whole categories of Americans could be subject to seizure by the military. These might include Muslims, activists, Black Bloc members and any other Americans labeled as domestic terrorists by the state. Forrest wrote that Section 1021(b)(2) echoed the 1944 Supreme Court ruling in Korematsu v. United States, which supported the government’s use of the military to detain 110,00 Japanese-Americans in internment camps without due process during World War II.

Of the refusal to hear our lawsuit, Afran said, “The Supreme Court has left in place a statute that furthers erodes basic respect for constitutional liberties, that weakens free speech and will chill the willingness of Americans to exercise their 1st Amendment rights, already in severe decline in this country.”

The goals of corporate capitalism are increasingly indistinguishable from the goals of the state. The political and economic systems are subservient to corporate profit. Debate between conventional liberals and conservatives has been replaced by empty political theater and spectacle. Corporations, no matter which politicians are in office, loot the Treasury, escape taxation, push down wages, break unions, dismantle civil society, gut regulation and legal oversight, control information, prosecute endless war and dismantle public institutions and programs that include schools, welfare and Social Security. And elected officials, enriched through our form of legalized corporate bribery, have no intention of halting the process.

The government, by ignoring the rights and needs of ordinary citizens, is jeopardizing its legitimacy. This is dangerous. When a citizenry no longer feels that it can find justice within the organs of power, when it feels that the organs of power are the enemies of freedom and economic advancement, it makes war on those organs. Those of us who are condemned as radicals, idealists and dreamers call for basic reforms that, if enacted, will make peaceful reform possible. But corporate capitalists, now unchecked by state power and dismissive of the popular will, do not see the fires they are igniting. The Supreme Court ruling on our challenge is one more signpost on the road to dystopia.

It is capitalism, not government, that is the problem. The fusion of corporate and state power means that government is broken. It is little more than a protection racket for Wall Street. And it is our job to wrest government back. This will come only through the building of mass movements.

“It is futile to be ‘anti-Fascist’ while attempting to preserve capitalism,” George Orwell wrote. “Fascism after all is only a development of capitalism, and the mildest democracy, so-called, is liable to turn into Fascism.”

Our corporate masters will not of their own volition curb their appetite for profits. Human misery and the deadly assault on the ecosystem are good for business. These masters have set in place laws that, when we rise up — and they expect us to rise up — will permit the state to herd us like sheep into military detention camps. Section 1021(b)(2) is but one piece of the legal tyranny now in place to ensure total corporate control. The corporate state also oversees the most pervasive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. It can order the assassination of U.S. citizens. It has abolished habeas corpus. It uses secret evidence to imprison dissidents, such as the Palestinian academic Mazen Al-Najjar. It employs the Espionage Act to criminalize those who expose abuses of power. A ruling elite that accrues for itself this kind of total power, history has shown, eventually uses it.


~ Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, writes a regular column for Truthdig every Monday. Hedges also wrote 12 books, including the New York Times bestseller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012)," which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. Hedges's most recent book is "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle."

E.O. Wilson On Humanity, Survival, and Nature - His New Book about Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique

From NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning biologist and proponent of sociobiology, E.O. Wilson was this week's guest on the show. Wilson discusses his new book, A Window On Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk Through Gorongosa National Park. The images available of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique that are available in Google Images are stunning - this is certainly one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

This is the publisher's ad copy for the book:

A Window on Eternity is a stunning book of splendid prose and gorgeous photography about one of the biologically richest places in Africa and perhaps in the world. Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique was nearly destroyed in a brutal civil war, then was reborn and is now evolving back to its original state. Edward O. Wilson’s personal, luminous description of the wonders of Gorongosa is beautifully complemented by Piotr Naskrecki’s extraordinary photographs of the park’s exquisite natural beauty. A bonus DVD of Academy Award–winning director Jessica Yu’s documentary, The Guide, is also included with the book. 

Wilson takes readers to the summit of Mount Gorongosa, sacred to the local people and the park’s vital watershed. From the forests of the mountain he brings us to the deep gorges on the edge of the Rift Valley, previously unexplored by biologists, to search for new species and assess their ancient origins. He describes amazing animal encounters from huge colonies of agricultural termites to spe­cialized raider ants that feed on them to giant spi­ders, a battle between an eagle and a black mamba, “conversations” with traumatized elephants that survived the slaughter of the park’s large animals, and more. He pleads for Gorongosa—and other wild places—to be allowed to exist and evolve in its time­less way uninterrupted into the future. 

As he examines the near destruction and rebirth of Gorongosa, Wilson analyzes the balance of nature, which, he observes, teeters on a razor’s edge. Loss of even a single species can have serious ramifications throughout an ecosystem, and yet we are carelessly destroying complex biodiverse ecosystems with unknown consequences. The wildlands in which these ecosystems flourish gave birth to humanity, and it is this natural world, still evolving, that may outlast us and become our leg­acy, our window on eternity.

Great conversation with an always entertaining and thoughtful man. There is also an excerpt from the book and links to a few articles/excerpts published in other magazines (The Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal).

E.O. Wilson On Humanity, Survival, and Nature

Famed biologist E.O. Wilson says the way to save mankind is for the Age of Man to come to a close with a new respect for the rest of life. He joins us.

May 5, 2014
With guest host Jessica Yellin.



A giant spider in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. (Piotr Naskrecki)
Imagine wandering into a house overrun with fang-toothed spiders. Riding a helicopter deep into an unexplored gorge of granite and limestone to find new species. World-famous naturalist and biologist E.O. Wilson did all that — in his 80s. In one of Africa’s most biologically diverse nature preserves in Mozambique. And he says the wilfife there has powerful lessons for us humans. This hour, On Point, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning biologist E.O. Wilson on what he learned about mankind in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park.

Guests

E.O. Wilson, biologist, researcher and naturalist. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Author of many books, including the new A Window On Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk Through Gorongosa National Park.

From Tom’s Reading List

The Atlantic: E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything — “If one had to give E. O. Wilson a single label, evolutionary biologist would be as good as any. Sociobiologist, lifelong naturalist, prolific author, committed educator, and high-profile public intellectual might all also serve. But amidst his astonishing range and volume of intellectual output, Wilson’s reputation, and most of his big ideas, have been founded primarily on his study of ants, most famously his discoveries involving ant communication and the social organization of ant communities. ”

Christian Science Monitor: A Window on Eternity — “Wilson tells the story of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, which boasts one of the densest wildlife populations in Africa. During a civil war that lasted from 1978 to 1992, much of the park ecosystem was destroyed, and its future seemed bleak. Some animal populations within the park declined by 90 percent or more. But then a wealthy American entrepreneur, Gregory C. Carr, launched an audacious effort to bring the park back to life. Slowly, the park is returning to its original state.”

The Wall Street Journal: E.O. Wilson Tells It Like It Is — “Dr. Wilson has a boy’s enthusiasm, and he revels in discovering new species at Gorongosa. But as the power of science and technology grows exponentially, he worries that people are giving up on preserving nature. Many seem to have resigned themselves to the idea that ‘we’ve already overrun the world,’ he says.”

Read An Excerpt Of “A Window On Eternity” By E.O. Wilson

Excerpt from A Window on Eternity by E.O. Wilson.