The Biology of Behavior

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Begos
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Black People ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Noam Chomsky ◽  
The People ◽  
Theoretical Science

In 1970, Nobel Prize winner William Shockley made a dramatic declaration: that the average IQs of black people were significantly lower than those of whites, and that blacks of low intelligence should be paid by society to be sterilized. Shockley's Nobel was for work he conducted at Bell Telephone Labs that contributed to the discovery of the transistor. He was not an expert in genetics, biology, sociology, or anything to do with the human mind, behavior, or reproduction. Yet he was able to use his status as a “Nobel laureate” to get vast amounts of media coverage for his sterilization plan. Why did journalists give Shockley so much ink? Would they—or their editors—send a troubled child who needed help to a TV repair shop, or send a broken computer to the office of a psychologist at Harvard University? Why, then, would they quote a physicist like Shockley when writing about race and intelligence? The subject of the biology and genetics of behavior raises many questions like these. It is a fascinating field to write about, but it will take you into some pretty tricky terrain. You'll often find yourself (and your sources) moving back and forth across two vastly different scientific domains—the laboratory, which has traditionally been based on chemistry, biology, and experiments that can be duplicated and proven, and theoretical science, which aims to uncover and explain broad concepts about life. The people you encounter will have specific areas of expertise, but some may (consciously or not) attempt to make grand statements about how a particular idea or discovery may affect humanity. This is a huge, complicated, controversial subject just waiting to suck journalists into its hungry maw, from which it will spit us out in little pieces. Okay, I'm exaggerating (a little). But it can be overwhelming to figure out even how to begin. There's Darwin and cell biology, psychology, sociology, religion, and politics. There are historical figures such as B. F. Skinner and current stars such as Noam Chomsky at MIT and Harvard's E. O. Wilson and Steven Pinker. And there's the whole issue of racism at the edges.

scholarly journals To Re-present a Nobel Prize Winner. Interpreting a Public Literary Conversation

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Geiger Poignant ◽  
Cecilia Wadensjö
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Information Loss ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Necessary Evil

AbstractThis article examines the unfolding of interaction in a growing and, so far, scarcely examined social and cultural practice – interpreter-mediated public literary conversations. In this context, the activity of interpreters, although indispensable when authors and audiences do not share a common language, is sometimes regarded as a “necessary evil” that allegedly causes delays and information loss. Exploring an interpreter-mediated public literary conversation with Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich as a case in point, the focus of this article is rather on what the presence of an interpreter might add to the shared performance on stage. Attention is drawn to the temporal evolvement of the interlocutor’s communicative resources, evident within narrative sequences, drawing on prosody research and research on gestures. The study suggests that, apart from keeping the non-Russian speaking audience updated on content, the interpreter’s rhythmically calibrated performance adds an energizing asset to the event as a whole. The notion of the “coupled turn”, internally hosting gestural and prosodic coherence across topical boundaries and language frame shifts, emerges as a usable unit for the analysis.

Untrustworthy News and the Media as “Enemy of the People?” How a Populist Worldview Shapes Recipients’ Attitudes toward the Media

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nayla Fawzi
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Negatively Associated ◽  
Commercial Media ◽  
The People ◽  
Normative Expectations ◽  
The Media

A common feature among populist parties and movements is their negative perspective on the media’s role in society. This paper analyzes whether citizens with a populist worldview also hold negative attitudes toward the media. From a theoretical point of view, the paper shows that both the anti-elite, anti-outgroup and people centrism dimension of populism contradicts the normative expectations toward the media. For instance, the assumption of a homogeneous people and the exclusion of a societal outgroup is incompatible with a pluralistic media coverage. The results of a representative survey in Germany predominantly confirmed a relation between a populist worldview and negative media attitudes. However, the three populism dimensions influenced the evaluations not in a consistent way. A systematic relation could only be found for antielite populism, which is negatively associated with all analyzed media evaluations such as media trust or satisfaction with the media’s performance. This indicates that in a populist worldview, the media are perceived as part of a detached elite that neglects the citizens’ interests. However, the results confirm the assumption of a natural ally between populism and tabloid or commercial media. Individuals with people centrist and anti-outgroup attitudes have higher trust in these media outlets.

Drowning Not Waving: The ‘Children Overboard’ Event and Australia's Fear of the other

2003 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Slattery
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Global Village ◽  
Print News ◽  
The People ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Selection Of

The last few years have been an awakening time for the people, communities and governments of the global village. Escalating problems in the Middle East, global economic uncertainty and an increase in asylum seekers, refugees and migration worldwide have reignited tensions involving boundaries and borders, both geographical and cognitive. One event which highlighted these tensions in Australia, and which was given much media coverage, was the ‘children overboard’ event in October 2001. Utilising a selection of print news coverage of the event, this paper explores how the ‘children overboard’ event demarcated national identities and spaces through the construction and representation of ‘good’ Australian citizens and ‘bad’ asylum seeker ‘others’. Specifically referring to ‘children overboard’ as an ‘event’, I seek to highlight the constructed and representational nature of ‘children overboard’ as a media story and political tool, one which promoted a continuing threat of ‘others’ to the nation in order to gain support for government policy and legitimize national security, and in so doing creating a model of Australian citizenship and identity based upon fear.

scholarly journals Traversing Disability Stigma: Re-presenting 'Disability' as a form of 'Identity' in Victor Hugo's the Hunchback of Notre- Dame

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 3590-3592
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Victor Hugo ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The People ◽  
Disability Stigma ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Normal Human ◽  
Negative Connotation

“Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do one thing well, you are needed by someone” – Martina Navratilova. Though Disability Studies focused on the distinction between „impairment‟ and „disability‟ defining Disability as a social construct, we still perceive Disability as something abnormal, drifting from the normality, an impairment to human mind or body. This paper reflects on how Quasimodo, attains an Identity in the society with his disability of hunchback and deafness in Victor Hugo‟s The Hunchback of Notre - Dame. He was crowned as the “Pope of Fools” for being the ugliest person in Paris. Though the identity he gained had a negative connotation, it was his disability that made him known among the people. The deflection from normality – his hunchback made people recognize him. This paper reveals how a disabled person is perceived by the society and the struggles he faces for his survival living among the people who are ready to use him and exploit him for their personal gains and finally leaving him in the crisis with a preoccupied notion that the disabled deserve only such kind of treatment. The character Quasimodo is a living example that a disabled person also possesses the same feelings like love, care, happiness, lust etc. just like a normal human being do and how these feelings are restricted for him. This paper also evaluates the Disability Stigma working on the character Quasimodo making him stereotyped, discriminated, blamed, internalized and made victim of physical, mental and sexual violence

scholarly journals Mocking the just God? A theological critique of President Mnangagwa’s use of the name of God to justify his rule in Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suspicion Mudzanire ◽  
Collium Banda
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
The People ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
Robert Mugabe ◽  
Theological Critique ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Church

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa justified his unconstitutional ascendency to power after a military coup that dethroned former President Robert Mugabe in 2017 by claiming that ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’. He repeated the claim in 2018 when Nelson Chamisa refused to recognise him as the legitimately elected president of the country after accusing him of rigging the 2018 elections. Mnangagwa’s use of God’s name to authenticate his rule raises the question: as one of the foundational attributes of God is justice, what does it mean for political leaders openly claiming to be ordained into office by him? This leads to a further question: Has Mnangagwa’s rule satisfied the demands that come with claiming to be ordained by God to rule, and what should be the church’s response towards Mnangagwa’s rule in view of God’s justice? This article uses God’s attribute of justice to critically evaluate Mnangagwa’s claim that ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’. The claim is described and placed within Mnangagwa’s claims and insinuations to be a Christian. His current rule, which is characterised by violent repression and corruption is examined and evaluated. God’s attribute of justice is presented and highlighted in how it challenges Mnangagwa to reform his rule to align it with God’s nature of justice.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article combines insights from religion and politics, the mission of the church in a context of political oppression and systematic theology to highlight the need for the Zimbabwean churches to judge all political systems according to the adherence to God’s justice. It also provides some theological tools by which churches can protect themselves from being co-opted by unjust and oppressive regimes that violate God’s justice.

I the People—the Most Perfect Union: The Psychodynamics of Constitutional Law

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-247
Author(s):  
Daniel I. A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Governing System ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Dynamic Interplay

The Founders unknowingly but deliberately established in the Constitution a government inform and function analogous to the psychodynamic structures of the human mind as described by Freud. The executive, legislative and judicial branches correspond in poignantly meaningful ways, in definition and operation, to the ego, id and superego in the mind of a single individual. The nature of the system of checks and balances and the interactions and conflicts between the branches directly parallel the dynamic interplay of the agencies of the mind. This correspondence is an inescapable consequence of the Founders' desire to build a growing and self-correcting governing system that would be able to master challenges while developing and progressing in a manner necessarily consistent, in principle, with the essential political tenets of its establishment. This observation has direct legal and political implications relevant to some of the most important dilemmas in American Constitutional Law.

scholarly journals The people behind the papers – Kayt Scott and Bruce Appel

Development ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 147 (16) ◽  
pp. dev195735
Keyword(s):  
Motor Neurons ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Zebrafish Embryo ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Colorado School ◽  
Molecular Control ◽  
University Of Colorado ◽  
School Of Medicine ◽  
The People ◽  
Developing Spinal Cord

ABSTRACTIn the developing spinal cord, progenitor cells sequentially give rise to motor neurons and precursors of one of the major glial cell types: oligodendrocytes. A new paper in Development unpicks the molecular control of the neuron-glia switch and the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursors in the zebrafish embryo. To find out more about the work, we met first author and graduate student Kayt Scott and her supervisor Bruce Appel, who holds the Diane G. Wallach Chair of Pediatric Stem Cell Biology and is Professor and Head of the Section of Developmental Biology at the Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora.

scholarly journals Media Coverage of Valentine’s Day: Is Media Biased in Covering the Festival?

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-187
Author(s):  
Taha Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Methods ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
The Media ◽  
Valentine's Day ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Methods

Valentine’s Day celebration in India has been much debated and covered by the media in the last couple of years. In the year 2009, far right Hindu activist from Sri Ram Sena to Bajrang Dal were involved in beating up unmarried couples and blackening their faces, as mark of shame for celebrating Valentine’s Day. They claimed that the festival was a “western practice” and promotes “lust not love”. Following this other Anti- Valentine’s Day groups also expressed their views and this led to public debate about moral policing and Indian culture. However what is interesting to note is the fact how media covered. At one side media has played a big role in promoting it (for many reasons) and on the other hand it has also criticized it for cultural and religious concerns.This research tries to explore in depth how media covers the festival with commercialization, culture, religion and politics in the backdrop. The research studies 9 newspapers of in 3 different languages, namely English, Hindi and Urdu.  The study tries to find out whether media is biased in covering the festival or is it propagating an idea to its readers. The idea of taking 3 different languages is to draw a sharp comparison and contrast among the national and vernacular newspapers.In order to find it, both quantitative and qualitative methods have been applied to the articles. Content analysis and Textual analysis are the important methods used to find out the statistics and underlying meanings behind these articles.Int. J. Soc. Sc. Manage. Vol. 3, Issue-3: 171-187

Desecularising the State: Religion and Politics in India after Independence

1991 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subrata Kumar Mitra
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
North India ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Islamic Headscarf ◽  
The People ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Relationship Of

The relationship of religion and politics is continuously fascinating and elusive, not least because it is rarely posed in a direct way. In stable democracies, incidents which are rather out of the ordinary, such as publishing the Satanic Verses in the United Kingdom or sporting the Islamic headscarf in a French state school, might push the issue temporarily to the centre of the political arena until the categories of normal politics, such as class, region, language or ethnicity, incorporate it or contrive to edge it beyond public visibility. In developing countries, one is accustomed to the more salient presence of religion in the public sphere: for example, the broad sweep of an Islamic revolution in Iran, popular jihad in the Middle East, the militant Sikhs in the Punjab, or the battle for the birthplace of Rama in North India. However, the intelligentsia in these countries who speak with the authority of modern science and the modern state see these events, important as they are, as the expression of primordial sentiments, and indicative of the underdeveloped nature of the people concerned, rather than as the political expression of unresolved issues, ill concealed by the fabric of normal politics and not articulated by political institutions.

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