Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category
December 2, 2012
Sometimes I think that for psychiatry and psychiatrists, all behaviour is abnormal. Of course there is a vested financial interest for the discipline – which is a long way from being a science – to include as many behavioural conditions as possible within the definition of what is an ailment. In many countries it becomes of great benefit for the “patient” to be formally acknowledged to be suffering from an “ailment”. It can trigger insurance payments and be the qualification for financial and clinical support. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders produced by the American Psychiatric Association is the most influential standard for diagnosis in the US and is extensively used world-wide. Currently the 4th edition is in use (DSM IV) and the 5th edition, DSM V, is scheduled for release in May 2013. The debates and arguments about what is to be included or removed from DSM V is reminiscent of political lobbying!
I have the perception that far more behavioural conditions are included as “ailments” than should be. In that sense psychiatry causes more illness than it cures! The APA invites ridicule when it indulges in (Slate),
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Tags:American Psychiatric Association, APA, Asperger, Asperger syndrome, DSM, DSM-5, Mental disorder
Posted in Behaviour, Medicine | Comments Off on Aspberger’s syndrome is no longer an ailment
November 30, 2012
While the Indian origin of the European Roma populations is linguistically and genetically well-established, accurate identification of their South Asian source has remained a matter of debate. A new open access paper PLoS ONE 7(11): e48477. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048477 now pinpoints the ancestry of today’s Roma to the ancestors of the Adivasi (“original people) tribes of North West India.
The Phylogeography of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup H1a1a-M82 Reveals the Likely Indian Origin of the European Romani Populations, Niraj Rai et al.
I note , in passing, that the discrimination and “oppression” of the current Roma populations across all of Europe is not so unlike the discrimination and “oppression” being suffered by their distant cousins who are the current Adivasis in India.
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Tags:Adivasi, European Roma, genetics, India, Out of India, Roma, Roma ancestry, Romani people
Posted in Anthropology, Behaviour, Evolution, India, Language | Comments Off on European Gypsies (Roma) descended from the ancestors of NW Indian Adivasis
November 29, 2012
I have no doubt that the Care Pathways have the best of intentions to make an inevitable death as painless and comfortable as possible. But at best this is euthanasia and at worst it is something else. The latest article in the Daily Mail’s “campaign” is more than a little disturbing. If a Care Pathway – by definition – is intended to lead to a dignified and pain-free death then causing additional suffering by being put on the Pathway cannot be right. I am not sure where the ethical line goes but I cannot help feeling that a final painless lethal injection may be preferable to 10 days of starvation and thirst and suffering as feeding and fluids are denied and a baby shrinks to death.
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Tags:BMJ, Daily Mail, End-of-life care, LCP, Liverpool Care Pathway
Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, Medicine, UK | Comments Off on Liverpool Care Pathway for babies is surely euthanasia but it is not painless
November 29, 2012
Maybe the detection of fraud has improved lately but it is still highly unlikely that the majority of cases are being discovered. I have the clear perception that the increasing number of cases of manipulating or faking data that are being discovered is just the tip of the iceberg. These cases – as with the case described in my previous post about Diedrik Stapel – also demonstrate the systemic disinclination of peers to be critical or to find fault with their colleagues. Traditional peer review has always had its failings but is now also proving to be incapable of handling the huge increase in the number of papers being published. And the apparently increasing incidence of fraud among scientists will not change until scientists can be held liable for their misconduct. Academic freedom is all very well but it needs to be tempered with some responsibility and some corresponding accountability.
In the long run – over a few centuries – it probably does not matter. Scientific cheating does not alter natural laws or relationships but in the short term of our lifetimes the damage is considerable. Not only does it waste resources but the the misdirection of other scientific efforts leads to much work being done on a foundation of quicksand. On the shoulders of midgets!
In this case where Eric Smart has been found to have been falsifying data for a decade, the Office of Research Integrity has published its findings and 10 papers are to be retracted and he will not seek grants for 7 years. 13 researchers at his lab “have moved on to other projects and endeavors.” The papers to be withdrawn have been cited over 100 times.
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Tags:Eric J. Smart, Office of Research Integrity, ORI, United States, University of Kentucky
Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »
November 26, 2012
A new paper in the American Political Science Review suggests that European colonialism was the key driver in establishing democratic systems of government around the world. Only states which had strong established political structures prior to the colonial wave managed to resist colonial rule and/or the establishment of “democratic” European institutions. According to the author, Jacob Gerner Harir of the University of Copenhagen,
”This could mean that perhaps we need to adopt a new view of the colonial era. Even though it led to massive exploitation and oppression of many people in the Third World, we can now see that it also contributed to the spread of democracy.”
There is a hint of defensiveness here, almost as if this work is also an attempt to justify the oppression and exploitation that was the main-stay of European colonialism.
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Tags:Arab spring, Colonialism, colonialism and democracy, democracy, Harir, Middle-East
Posted in Behaviour, Development, Politics | Comments Off on Was European colonialism the force that spread democracy?
November 25, 2012
Humans probably started selective breeding – artificial selection – with the domestication of the dog. Dogs diverged from wolves about 100,000 years ago. The earliest skeletal association of wolves with humans is also from about 100,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of an ancestral dog is from about 32,000 years ago.
It is not implausible that the first exercise of artificial selection is connected with the domestication of the dog and happened 50- 60,000 years ago.
Ancient dog domestication was the start of artificial selection by humans
Tags:Artificial selection, Dog, dog domestication, Natural selection
Posted in Anthropology, Archeology, Behaviour, Evolution | Comments Off on Humans may have started selective breeding 50-60,000 years ago
November 20, 2012
Over the last 15 years or so I have often found myself advising employment seekers – from young graduates to potential Managing Directors – about how to write and structure their CVs. It has often occurred to me that in the heat of trying to write down everything that might conceivably be of some interest to somebody, the purpose and objectives of the CV are sometimes forgotten by the authors. Many CV writing guides are often focused on format. Some may even include something about content but most usually take the “purpose” for granted. In the overwhelming majority of cases the objectives of submission of a CV is to be first selected for an employment interview and then to form the basis or the starting point for the interview itself.
(Scroll to bottom of post for “Writing your CV” pdf)
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Tags:Business and Economy, Curriculum vitae, CV, Employment, Interview, Job interview, Management, Writing your CV
Posted in Behaviour, Business, Management | 1 Comment »
November 17, 2012
Thessaloniki
If anything proves that he Greek crisis is essentially due to past profligacy it is the current improvement in the status of the finances of the city of Thessaloniki. And I have no doubt that it it was the entry into the European Union and the mirage which the EU creates of getting something for nothing which lay behind much of the public employees “jobs for life” attitude and the spendthrift behaviour that any self-respecting household would have eschewed. But of course the Greek crisis has been caused by just a small minority of Greeks. I suppose the analogy would be of a household where the husband was spending the family jewels on drink and a good time while his wife and family made do with whatever that was left. But what Thessaloniki is apparently showing is how to get out of the pit. And if Greece could have devalued their drachma and did not have the high value of the Euro as a millstone around their necks, the return of tourists and an escape from the depths would probably be faster.
Reuters reports:
With his craggy face, diamond earring and tattooed wrist, Thessaloniki mayor Yannis Boutaris looks an unlikely candidate to turn around the finances of Greece’s second biggest city.
But the 70-year old, who stands apart from the political mainstream, is pulling off reforms that have so far evaded the national government in a three-year-old debt crisis that has sucked in some 150 billion euros of international aid.
In contrast to the rest of Greece, this sea-front city of one million is shrinking debt, cutting business taxes to help firms and paying city employees and contractors on time.
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Tags:European Union, Greece, Greek Crisis, Thessaloniki, Yannis Boutaris
Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, European Union, Greece, Politics | Comments Off on Thessaloniki: One Greek city running a budget surplus and showing how it can be done
November 15, 2012
Political behaviour is always worth observing and fascinating though the line between high-farce and tragedy is quite thin.
The Sweden Democrats is one of the recent wave of far-right, anti-immigration, vaguely neo-nazi, political parties that have been been voted into parliaments around Europe over the last 15 years or so. (One of the characteristics of European politics has been the over-representation of marginal and extreme groups but in general – I think – countries just get the representation they deserve).
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Tags:Erik Almqvist, Jimmie Åkesson, Kent Ekeroth, Parliament of Sweden, Sweden, Sweden Democrat, William Petzell
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Sweden | Comments Off on Sweden Democrats bring Swedish Parliament into disrepute
November 14, 2012
What are the genetic characteristics that are effectively being “selected for” today?
Evolutionary selection is a result not a cause. It is a result describing the genetic change of a population not of an individual. But all genetic change in a population comes about only through the procreation of new generations of individuals.
Evolution then is the result of the survival, success and reproduction of organisms within an environment which is changing. By environment I mean all surrounding factors whether geologic or climatic or of competition within the species or with other species. In a population of organisms the relative success of and subsequent reproduction of those better suited to the environment begets a gradual change in the characteristics of the surviving organisms. It is because of the environmental changes in the first place that there is a subsequent change in the characteristics of the organism best suited to that environment. It is this gradual change of the surviving characteristics that we call evolution and we say that the resultant, surviving characteristics have been “selected for”. If the environment did not change and if an organism was suited to its environment, the genetic make-up of the organisation would always tend back to its stable equilibrium position. Any mutational changes would provide no benefit and would just die away. Without environmental change there would be no evolution to report. Over long stretches of time and many thousands of generations, these gradual changes of environment have been sufficient to have created all the species of living things that have ever existed and to have eliminated all the non-viable species that have gone extinct.
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Tags:Artificial selection, Evolution, genetics, Mutation, Natural selection
Posted in Behaviour, Evolution, Medicine | Comments Off on What is evolutionary selection now selecting for?
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