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frudzicz's review against another edition
3.0
Should have called much of it ‘Questionable Science’
stevenyenzer's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting if somewhat narrow range of essays by scientists about their work. I wish the collection hadn't been so focused on neurology, psychology, etc. There was very little beyond those fields. However, a lot of the content was very interesting, especially that focused on the evolutionary origins and sources of social constructs like shame. I love the idea of scientists writing about their cutting-edge work for a popular audience; I just wish the range of topics had been broader.
danbernstein94's review against another edition
3.0
The book contains essay covering many many topics, but they are within a smaller subset of science, mainly psychology and space. I would have preferring a little more variety.
bakudreamer's review against another edition
2.0
the best part was the Perdomo painting on the cover
nickfourtimes's review against another edition
3.0
1) "As noted, the behavior of our little subjects did not seem to be driven by the expectation of praise or material reward. In several studies, the children's parents weren't in the room, and thus the helping cannot be explained by their desire to look good in front of Mom. In one study, children who were offered a toy for helping were no more likely to help than those chlidren who weren't. In fact, material rewards can even have a detrimental effect on helping: During the initial phase of another experiment, half the children received a reward for helping and the other half did not. Subsequently, when the chlidren again had the opportunity to help out but now without a reward being offered to those in either group, the children who had been rewarded initially were less likely to help spontaneously than the children from the no-reward group. This perhaps surprising result suggests that children's helping is intrinsically motivated rather than driven by the expectation of material reward."
- Felix Warneken, "Children's Helping Hands"
2) "This afternoon I received in the post a slim FedEx envelope containing four small vials of DNA. The DNA had been synthesized according to my instructions in under three weeks, at a cost of 39 U.S. cents per base pair (the rungs adenine-thymine or guanine-cytosine in the DNA ladder). The 10 micrograms I ordered are dried, flaky, and barely visible to the naked eye, yet once I have restored them in water and made an RNA copy of this template, they will encode a virus I have designed."
- William McEwan, "Molecular Cut and Paste: The New Generation of Biological Tools"
3) "The results indicated a strong role for accidental outcomes. When Player A chose the stingy die but it came up generous, on average Player B responded by rewarding her. And when Player A chose the generous die but it came up stingy, on average Player B responded by punishing her. Statistical analysis showed that Player B paid attention both to Player A's intentions and to the outcome of the roll but that outcomes mattered slightly more. It's behavior like this that puts the 'luck' into moral luck. Our impulse to punish somebody who causes harm to us sometimes depends on nothing more than a roll of the dice."
- Fiery Cushman, "Should the Law Depend on Luck?"
4) "As we hypothesized, we found that TMS to the control region made no difference in either experiment. However, TMS to the RTPJ made a significant difference in both experiments: moral judgments were based less on mental states and therefore more on outcomes. TMS to the RTPJ did not reverse moral judgments; attempted harms (harmful intent, neutral outcome) were still judged morally worse than accidents (neutral intent, harmful outcome). Crucially, though, disrupting RTPJ activity led to more lenient judgments of failed attempts to harm, based on the neutral outcome, and harsher judgments of accidents, based on the harmful outcome."
- Liane Young, "How We Read People's Moral Minds"
5) "Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that humans from different cultural backgrounds might disagree about which of two lines is longer, whether green and blue are the same color, whether a pile of seven coins is smaller than a pile of eight, and whether a twig is to the left or the north of a pebble. It seems that even some of the most basic domains of human thought---spatial orientation, color perception, numbering---vary cross-culturally."
- Daniel Haun, "How Odd I Am!"
6) "In sum, my argument is that humans' slow brain maturation, their early communicative engagements, their unreflective copying of behaviors, their arbitrary discrimination against out-groups, and their general behavior as social sheep uniquely prepare them to display the intriguing variability we see in our species around the globe. This is not to say that conformism and prejudice are right and good. I do, however, argue that they are a part of being human and that they might help explain some differences between us and other animals. At the same time, I hope that understanding the origin and causes of these characteristics will help us overcome them occasionally."
- Ibid.
- Felix Warneken, "Children's Helping Hands"
2) "This afternoon I received in the post a slim FedEx envelope containing four small vials of DNA. The DNA had been synthesized according to my instructions in under three weeks, at a cost of 39 U.S. cents per base pair (the rungs adenine-thymine or guanine-cytosine in the DNA ladder). The 10 micrograms I ordered are dried, flaky, and barely visible to the naked eye, yet once I have restored them in water and made an RNA copy of this template, they will encode a virus I have designed."
- William McEwan, "Molecular Cut and Paste: The New Generation of Biological Tools"
3) "The results indicated a strong role for accidental outcomes. When Player A chose the stingy die but it came up generous, on average Player B responded by rewarding her. And when Player A chose the generous die but it came up stingy, on average Player B responded by punishing her. Statistical analysis showed that Player B paid attention both to Player A's intentions and to the outcome of the roll but that outcomes mattered slightly more. It's behavior like this that puts the 'luck' into moral luck. Our impulse to punish somebody who causes harm to us sometimes depends on nothing more than a roll of the dice."
- Fiery Cushman, "Should the Law Depend on Luck?"
4) "As we hypothesized, we found that TMS to the control region made no difference in either experiment. However, TMS to the RTPJ made a significant difference in both experiments: moral judgments were based less on mental states and therefore more on outcomes. TMS to the RTPJ did not reverse moral judgments; attempted harms (harmful intent, neutral outcome) were still judged morally worse than accidents (neutral intent, harmful outcome). Crucially, though, disrupting RTPJ activity led to more lenient judgments of failed attempts to harm, based on the neutral outcome, and harsher judgments of accidents, based on the harmful outcome."
- Liane Young, "How We Read People's Moral Minds"
5) "Cross-cultural studies have demonstrated that humans from different cultural backgrounds might disagree about which of two lines is longer, whether green and blue are the same color, whether a pile of seven coins is smaller than a pile of eight, and whether a twig is to the left or the north of a pebble. It seems that even some of the most basic domains of human thought---spatial orientation, color perception, numbering---vary cross-culturally."
- Daniel Haun, "How Odd I Am!"
6) "In sum, my argument is that humans' slow brain maturation, their early communicative engagements, their unreflective copying of behaviors, their arbitrary discrimination against out-groups, and their general behavior as social sheep uniquely prepare them to display the intriguing variability we see in our species around the globe. This is not to say that conformism and prejudice are right and good. I do, however, argue that they are a part of being human and that they might help explain some differences between us and other animals. At the same time, I hope that understanding the origin and causes of these characteristics will help us overcome them occasionally."
- Ibid.
samantha_bryant's review against another edition
3.0
Definitely explored some really interesting ideas and topics. Was very slow and took me an extremely long time.
tartancrusader's review against another edition
1.0
Was really looking forward to this and so was very disappointed to not enjoy it at all.
greeniezona's review against another edition
4.0
I picked up this collection of essays on impulse at the Ann Arbor book festival a few years ago. It ended up being one of my road trip books over Christmas, and it was excellent for that purpose. I could read an essay or two to my husband when he wanted some distraction while driving but then not feel bad about reading on without him when he'd rather listen to music of have silence.
Like pretty much any collection of essays, I found that one fell flat for me and that a couple covered similar ground in a way that was repetitive, but overall I really enjoyed this collection. Most of the essays were strong, I learned new things about a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and several things I learned have entered into some of my everyday conversation. A solid collection.
Like pretty much any collection of essays, I found that one fell flat for me and that a couple covered similar ground in a way that was repetitive, but overall I really enjoyed this collection. Most of the essays were strong, I learned new things about a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and several things I learned have entered into some of my everyday conversation. A solid collection.
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