Leif Edward
If I may add a couple of thoughts re homosexuality.  I recall a paper
examining sexual fantasy, (Sexual Fantasy: Harold Leitenberg & Kris Henning,
1995; Psych Bulletin 17 (1) 469-496 {interesting pages numbers!}) in which
so-called homosexuals and heterosexuals (if such a distinction exists in
reality) described in detail their sexual fantasies.  When analysed, the top
several fantasies were shared by those who would identify as homo or hetero.
The usual suspects headed the list; sex with someone other than the primary
partner, sex with multiple partners, and surprise-surpirse - sex with the
opposite sex for those claiming homo status, and sex with the same sex for
those claiming hetero status.  Males and females differed little as I
recall, except on the usual emotional attachment and female fairytale
dimensions.
Sounds a lot like Freud's polymorphous perversity - unconstrained by social
taboos, we will try it on with whomever we can obtain.  My experience
clinically supports this cynical view. If one takes the trouble to explore
reasons for sexual choices in depth, there is often an element of "I'd have
sex with the opposite sex if I was game, but because the risk of rejection
is high, I'll settle for the easier option - my own sex"   Such a response
need not be related to realistic assessment of mate value, only the
perception of inferiority would be required.
Finally, it is worth noting just how common homosexual behaviour is in the
non-human world.  This is merely part of the sexual behaviour repertoire,
not the entire agmut of an individual's lifetime sexual experience.  For a
viewpoint from another discipline, Marjorie Garber's Vice Versa illuminates
the blinkers through which bisexuality is viewed in Western cultures.
Animals of course don't have well developed social, and religious taboos
prohibiting that which feels so good - just do it!
Regards
Graeme Deeth
ps: when will we begin to value in-depth qualitative research on a par with
quantitative versions.  The former allows people to be (more) truthful about
taboo topics (read sexuality in any puritanical culture).

Public release date: 28-Feb-2002
Contact: Jim Feuer jfeuer@... 513-636-4656
Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/

Study links lead exposure to antisocial behavior

CINCINNATI -- Could exposure to lead in early childhood be behind the rising
levels of crime and other antisocial behaviors during the last half of the 20th
century?

The first comprehensive lead study to track children over a period of time
found that both prenatal and postnatal exposure to lead were associated with
antisocial behavior in children and adolescents.

Researchers at the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical Center, in collaboration with University of
Cincinnati researchers, followed inner-city adolescents recruited prenatally
into the study between 1979 and 1985. Mothers known to be addicted to drugs or
alcohol, diabetic, or those with proven neurological disorders, psychoses or
mental retardation were excluded from the study.

Between 1997 and 1999, 195 of these adolescents received follow-up exams.
Ninety-two percent were African American and 53 percent were male. Blood lead
levels were taken from mothers during pregnancy and from children every three
months between birth and age 6, covering the time period when most
developmental growth involving the brain occurs.

Researchers asked the adolescents and their parents or legal guardians to
document antisocial or delinquent behavior. This method of self-reporting has
been proved to be more valid than official records, which reflect only a small
portion of antisocial acts actually committed.

"Self-reported acts of delinquent behavior were common," says Kim Dietrich,
Ph.D., associate director of Cincinnati Children's Environmental Health Center
and the lead author of the Cincinnati Children's study. "Adolescents with the
highest blood lead concentrations when they were first graders reported, on
average, 4.5 more delinquent acts in the previous 12 months compared to
children with the lowest blood lead concentrations as first graders. It appears
that the neurodevelopmental effects of this avoidable environmental diseases of
childhood may not be limited to declines in IQ or academic abilities."

Delinquency was defined as behaviors in violation of legal statutes involving
some risk of arrest, including offenses against property or persons, or other
illegal activities such as driving without a license and disorderly conduct.

The researchers found that exposure to lead was associated with antisocial
behavior, even after adjusting for other factors that could lead to similar
behavior. These included quality of home environment, low birth weight,
parental intelligence and social class.

Surprisingly, the researchers found no gender differences in antisocial
behavior. Girls were just as likely as boys to be violent and to be
institutionalized for their behavior.

While lead could be interfering with the usual gender differences seen in
behavior, it's more likely that gender is becoming less a predictor of behavior
in inner-city populations, according to Dr. Dietrich, professor of
Environmental Health and Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati.

The study is published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology.


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-02/chmc-sll022802.php

New Scientist
The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service

Older fathers run higher risk of fetal defects
18:39 28 February 02

NewScientist.com news service

Older fathers are more likely to produce fetuses with chromosomal anomalies
that lead to miscarriage or birth defects, shows new research. It was known
that older women had a higher risk of such problems, but this is the first
research to demonstrate a linear link between age and chromosome anomalies for
men.

Scientists at the University Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain studied 200,000
sperm from 18 healthy donors aged 24 to 74 years. The percentage of sperm with
double copies of all the chromosomes (diploidy) increases by 17 per cent for
every 10 year increase in age, they found.

"Over the age group we found an increase from 0.2 to 0.4 percent in the
frequencies of diploidy," says Josep Egozcue, who led the research. Though this
appears small, he told New Scientist, when the researchers checked back with
the donors they found that those with the higher frequencies had children with
chromosomal anomalies.

Full text
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991989

Public release date: 28-Feb-2002
Contact: Rachel Champeau
rchampeau@... 310-794-0777
University of California - Los Angeles
http://www.ucla.edu/

UCLA study finds evidence that 'sweaty palms' syndrome is genetic and
underreported

Imagine being afraid to shake someone's hand, or to simply hold hands with a
sweetheart. Beyond just embarrassing, "sweaty palms" syndrome is often a
debilitating disorder that can affect one's work and life.

A new UCLA study in the February issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery shows
strong evidence that sweaty palms syndrome is genetic. It may be caused by a
dominant gene - indicating that family members of those who have the disorder
may suffer from it more than has been previously reported.

"Traditionally, this syndrome was thought of as stress-related and has not been
taken seriously by the medical community," said Dr. Samuel S. Ahn, principal
investigator and professor, UCLA Division of Vascular Surgery. "This is one of
the first studies helping to support that 'sweaty palms' is a real
physiological disorder that can be passed from generation to generation."

According to Ahn and his collaborators in the UCLA Department of Human
Genetics, the study indicates that as much as 5 percent of the population may
be at risk for some form of hyperhidrosis, commonly known as sweaty palms
syndrome, which causes excessive sweating, most often in the hands and feet.
Less than 1 percent of the population was previously thought to be affected.

"Hyperhidrosis can truly affect one's life and career, such as a police officer
dropping a gun and having a suspect literally slip away, or a fireman not being
able to pull a hose or a banker unable to handle money due to severely sweating
palms," Ahn said.

UCLA researchers took detailed family histories from 49 patients with
hyperhidrosis and found that two-thirds (65 percent) reported family recurrence
of the disorder, compared with zero percent in the control group.

Although the disorder appears to be inherited in a dominant fashion, the
possible genes involved may not always cause hyperhidrosis. If one parent has
the disorder, the study found that children have a 28 percent risk of also
having hyperhidrosis, whereas the risk would be 50 percent if the gene produces
the disorder directly. This indicates that other genes may also be necessary
for hyperhidrosis to develop. If a child has the disorder, 14 percent of
parents have it too.

"The strong inheritance pattern and large number of people with family
recurrence of the disorder indicate that hyperhidrosis may be caused by a
dominant gene," Ahn said. He adds that the disorder does not appear to be
related to sex or ethnicity.

The next step, according to Ahn, is to test the DNA of people with
hyperhidrosis and begin the process to of trying to identify genes that cause
the problem.

Ahn's interest in pursuing this study began when a former patient of his told
him that her six-week old infant also had hyperhidrosis. Ahn then realized the
possibility that hyperhidrosis may be inherited and not environmentally related
to stress.

Hyperhidrosis is caused by the sympathetic nerve, which governs the nervous
system's "fight or flight" response. The sympathetic nerve causes blood vessel
contraction in the hands and/or feet, leaving the extremities cold and sweaty.
In people with hyperhidrosis, the perspiration is often excessive and
continuous.

Treatment for hyperhidrosis of the hands now includes a minimally invasive
surgery procedure, thorascopic sympathectomy, where a surgeon will snip the
sympathetic nerve connected to the hands. Since the sympathetic nerve is not
involved in motor skills or sensation, says Ahn - who is a pioneer of the
procedure - the surgery simply stops the ability of the nerve to create
hyperhidrosis. The procedure at UCLA has been 100 percent successful.


###
The study was funded by the California Vascular Research Foundation.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-02/uoc--usf022802.php

The Good in Nature and Humanity: Connecting Science, Religion, and Spirituality
With the Natural World
by Stephen R. Kellert (Editor), Timothy J. Farnham (Editor)
Hardcover - 277 pages (March 2002)
Island Press; ISBN: 1559638389
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1559638389/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1559638389/humannaturecom/

The Good in Nature and Humanity brings together twenty leading thinkers and
writers including-Ursula Goodenough, Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan Carl Safina,
David Petersen, Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barry Lopez-to
examine the divide between faith and reason, and to seek a means for developing
an environmental ethic that will help us confront two of our most imperiling
crises: global environmental destruction and an impoverished spirituality.

"This book, and the conference that inspired it-"The Good in Nature and
Humanity," held at Yale University in May 2000-originated in the conviction
that the root causes of modern society's environmental and spiritual crises
cannot be understood nor effectively resolved until the split between religion
and science, or more generally, between faith and reason, has been effectively
reconciled. By comprehending and strengthening the bonds between spirituality,
science, and nature, we may come closer to achieving an environmental ethic
that better equips us to confront two of the most imperiling crises of our
time-global environmental destruction and an impoverished spirituality. By
bridging the gap between rationality and religion through the concern of each
for understanding the human relation to creation, we may better pursue the
quest for a more secure and meaningful world."
-Excerpt from the Preface of The Good in Nature and Humanity

"At the heart of the matter, different ways of knowing converge on a higher
order of wisdom. The union of religion, spirituality, and ecology is difficult
but is the most practical thing we can do to heal the breach between humankind
and nature. This collection of essays is clarifying, useful, and profound."
-David W. Orr, professor and chair of the environmental studies program at
Oberlin College and author of Earth in Mind.

"Science and religion, long distant or at odds, engage here in duet not duel,
celebration not contention. We do not have to agree about the origin and
purpose of the 'cosmos' or 'creation' in order to work together to cherish and
preserve it. In the encounter itself comes inspired service to The Good in
Nature and Humanity."
-Paul Gorman, executive director, National Religious Partnership for the
Environment

Editor Stephen Kellert is the Tweedy Ordway Professor of Social Ecology at the
Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, author of Kinship
to Mastery and The Value of Life, and coeditor, along with E. O. Wilson of The
Biophilia Hypothesis. Timothy Farnam is a doctoral candidate at the Yale
University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Dear Graeme,

I do not know the study you are referring to - but I would suggest that one
included work by Don Symons on this and related topics.

I do believe there are heterosexuals and homosexuals out there - and
bisexuals. And also I believe there are those who partake in behaviour that is
not necessarily consistent with an either-or perspective. As you point out,
and I have attempted to say - what feels good may motivate behaviour, too.

As an EP I would suggest that one compared hetero-men, hetero-women, gays,
lesbians and bisexuals (maybe several sub-groups of bisexuals). Sexual fantasy
is interesting - but also actual behaviour, attraction, etc. There may be
several modular mental mechanisms involved - as this is very complex
behaviour. I think simplistic solutions like kin-selection adaptationism at
least will fail to provide answers until this is addressed.

Cheers,

Leif Edward

PS. I think I would keep Freud as a mere metaphoric association.

BBC News Online
Friday, 1 March, 2002, 08:38 GMT
Meditation mapped in monks

Scientists investigating the effect of the meditative state on Buddhist monk's
brains have found that portions of the organ previously active become quiet,
whilst pacified areas become stimulated.

Andrew Newberg, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, US, told BBC
World Service's Discovery programme: "I think we are poised at a wonderful time
in our history to be able to explore religion and spirituality in a way which
was never thought possible."

Using a brain imaging technique, Newberg and his team studied a group of
Tibetan Buddhist monks as they meditated for approximately one hour.

When they reached a transcendental high, they were asked to pull a kite string
to their right, releasing an injection of a radioactive tracer. By injecting a
tiny amount of radioactive marker into the bloodstream of a deep meditator, the
scientists soon saw how the dye moved to active parts of the brain.

Full text
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1847000/1847442.stm

Brain, Vol. 125, No. 3, 465-478, March 2002
© 2002 Oxford University Press

MRI analysis of an inherited speech and language disorder: structural brain
abnormalities
K. E. Watkins1, F. Vargha-Khadem1, J. Ashburner3, R. E. Passingham4, A.
Connelly2, K. J. Friston3, R. S. J. Frackowiak3, M. Mishkin5 and D. G. Gadian2
1 Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Unit and 2 Radiology and Physics Unit,
Institute of Child Health, 3 Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology,
Institute of Neurology, University College London Medical School, London, 4
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and 5
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institutes of Mental Health, Bethesda,
Maryland, USA

Correspondence to: Kate Watkins, Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, Montreal
Neurological Institute, 3801 University Street, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2B4
E-mail: kwatkins@...

Analyses of brain structure in genetic speech and language disorders provide an
opportunity to identify neurobiological phenotypes and further elucidate the
neural bases of language and its development. Here we report such
investigations in a large family, known as the KE family, half the members of
which are affected by a severe disorder of speech and language, which is
transmitted as an autosomal-dominant monogenic trait. The structural brain
abnormalities associated with this disorder were investigated using two
morphometric methods of MRI analysis. A voxel-based morphometric method was
used to compare the amounts of grey matter in the brains of three groups of
subjects: the affected members of the KE family, the unaffected members and a
group of age-matched controls. This method revealed a number of mainly motor-
and speech-related brain regions in which the affected family members had
significantly different amounts of grey matter compared with the unaffected and
control groups, who did not differ from each other. Several of these regions
were abnormal bilaterally, including the caudate nucleus, which was of
particular interest because this structure was also found to show functional
abnormality in a related PET study. We performed a more detailed volumetric
analysis of this structure. The results confirmed that the volume of this
nucleus was reduced bilaterally in the affected family members compared with
both the unaffected members and the group of age-matched controls. This
reduction in volume was most evident in the superior portion of the nucleus.
The volume of the caudate nucleus was significantly correlated with the
performance of affected family members on a test of oral praxis, a test of
non-word repetition and the coding subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.
These results thus provide further evidence of a relationship between the
abnormal development of this nucleus and the impairments in oromotor control
and articulation reported in the KE family.

http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/125/3/465

This article has been cited by other articles:

Harasty, J., Hodges, J. R. (2002). Towards the elucidation of the genetic and
brain bases of developmental speech and language disorders. Brain 125: 449-451
http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/125/3/449

Brain, Vol. 125, No. 3, 624-639, March 2002
© 2002 Oxford University Press

Decision-making processes following damage to the prefrontal cortex
Facundo Manes*,1, Barbara Sahakian1, Luke Clark3, Robert Rogers4,3, Nagui
Antoun2, Mike Aitken3 and Trevor Robbins3
1 University of Cambridge Psychiatry Department and 2 Department of Radiology,
Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, 3 Department of Experimental Psychology,
University of Cambridge and 4 Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford,
Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK

Correspondence to: Dr Barbara Sahakian, University of Cambridge Psychiatry
Department, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Box 189, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, UK E-mail:
jenny.hall@...
*Present address: Cognitive Neurology Division, Department of Neurology, Raul
Carrea Institute of Neurological Research, Montañeses 2325 (1428), Buenos
Aires, Argentina

Recent work has suggested an association between the orbitofrontal cortex in
humans and practical decision making. The aim of this study was to investigate
the profile of cognitive deficits, with particular emphasis on decision-making
processes, following damage to different sectors of the human prefrontal
cortex. Patients with discrete orbitofrontal (OBF) lesions, dorsolateral (DL)
lesions, dorsomedial (DM) lesions and large frontal lesions (Large) were
compared with matched controls on three different decision-making tasks: the
Iowa Gambling Task and two recently developed tasks that attempt to fractionate
some of the cognitive components of the Iowa task. A comprehensive battery
including the assessment of recognition memory, working memory, planning
ability and attentional set-shifting was also administered. Whilst combined
frontal patients were impaired on several of the tasks employed, distinct
profiles emerged for each patient group. In contrast to previous data, patients
with focal OBF lesions performed at control levels on the three decision-making
tasks (and the executive tasks), but showed some evidence of prolonged
deliberation. DL patients showed pronounced impairment on working memory,
planning, attentional shifting and the Iowa Gambling Task. DM patients were
impaired at the Iowa Gambling Task and also at planning. The Large group
displayed diffuse impairment, but were the only group to exhibit risky decision
making. Methodological differences from previous studies of OBF patient groups
are discussed, with particular attention to lesion laterality, lesion size and
psychiatric presentation. Ventral and dorsal aspects of prefrontal cortex must
interact in the maintenance of rational and 'non-risky' decision making.

http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/125/3/624

I¹ve recently been drafting an informal paper about music and ADHD.  Here
are some sections concerning genes and culture.  If anyone would like to see
the entire draft, please contact me privately.

--

William L. Benzon
708 Jersey Avenue, Apt. 2A
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201 217-1010

"you won't get a wild heroic ride to heaven on pretty little sounds"--george
ives

* * * * *

GENES AND CULTURE

Where we talk of development, we must also talk of genetics.  Barkley
reviews a number of studies involving families, adopted children, and twins
which indicate that there is a hereditary component to ADHD (pp. 37-40).
There is no evidence that ADHD is caused by chromosomal abnormalities (p.
37), but a number of genes have been implicated (p. 41), with various
dopamine genes being the most commonly studied ones.  Barkeley reports that
initial work focused on the gene for the D2 dopamine receptor, but that
there has been trouble replicating that work (cf. Todd and Lobos 2002).
More recent work has focused on the dopamine transporter gene and a
particular allele of the gene for the D4 dopamine receptor.  The dopamine
transporter clears dopamine from the intercellular space once it has been
secreted; thus a deficiency in the transporter would result in abnormally
high levels of dopamine in the synaptic space.  Beyond this, other genes
have been implicated but that we do not yet have any clear picture of the
genetic factors which predispose an individual for ADHD (Comings et al.
2000).

Returning to dopamine, the DRD4 allele that has attracted the most interest
is the 7-repeat (7R) allele and has been found in many, but not all, ADHD
children (we don¹t need to worry about the physical details what is being
repeated seven times).  Swanson et al. (2000) recently published a study
comparing reaction time of controls (that is, children without ADHD) to that
of ADHD children with and without the 7R allele.  ADHD children without 7R
did worse than the controls, but, contrary to prediction, the performance of
7R ADHD children was comparable to that of the controls.  Swanson et al.
thus suggest that ³the 7-repeat allele may identify a subgroup with the
behavioral but not the cognitive components of ADHD² (p. 4757).  Other
recent studies report that the 7R allele is associated with attention
problems in 4 and 7-year olds (Schmidt et al. 2001) and 1 year olds
(Auerbach et. al. 2001).  I note that, while both attention and reaction
time have to do with a child¹s temporal orientation, they are nonetheless
different aspects of that temporal orientation.  These studies thus do not
necessarily contradict one another.  But they don¹t present a simple picture
of the relationship between the 7R allele and cognition.

Still more recently Ding et al. (2002) reported on the world-wide
distribution of the different alleles of the D4 dopamine receptor gene. They
suggest that the 7R allele ³originated as a rare mutational event that
nevertheless increased to high frequency in human populations by positive
selection² (p. 309).  They further suggest that cultural differences might
be involved, though they don¹t suggest what those differences might be.
With respect to disorders such as autism and ADHD they ³suggest entertaining
the possibility that predisposing alleles in fact are under positive
selection and only result in deleterious effects when combined with other
environmental/genetic factors² (p. 314).

In an accompanying commentary, Harpending and Cochran (2002) discuss two
hypotheses about the possible cultural influence.  One suggestion is that 7R
is a ³dispersal morph,² increasing ³the likelihood that its bearers
migrate.²  Their own hypothesis, however, is that

7R bearers enjoy a reproductive advantage in male-competitive societies,
either in competition for food as children or in face-to-face and local
group male competition.  Societies in which this advantage would be present
were rare before the spread of agriculture, but common after it.

I have no comment to make about either of these hypotheses, nor am I going
to suggest that 7R is really in some way or other about music.[7]  For one
thing I¹m not aware of any studies linking DRD4 alleles to music in any
direct way.  However, the anthropological and historical record (see below)
suggests that music was firmly established by the time agriculture evolved
and it his highly likely that it is much older than that ­ music is
ubiquitous in extant hunter-gatherer societies.  Thus, whether 7R
contributes to migration, male competition, or something else, what
impresses me is simply that this gene and its corresponding phenotypic
traits coevolved along with music-making and dancing.  That does not, of
course, mean than any of them arose specifically in adaptation to music.
From my point of view the significance of Ding et al. is simply that it
gives credence to the idea that at least some aspect of ADHD seems to have
been adaptive in the appropriate cultural environment.  Whether or not 7R is
specifically related to music I suggest that music is related to ADHD.

As I have indicated, dance and music are deeply rooted in human evolutionary
history.  Of course, we cannot enter a time machine and make observations
about the course of human evolution.  We can only gather bones and artifacts
and make inferences from them.  Unfortunately, neither song nor dance leave
physical traces and most of the simpler musical instruments have been
constructed of perishable materials and so they don¹t leave traces either.

However, if we examine the ethnographic record for the simplest existing
human societies, we find that they spend a great deal of time in music and
dance. Members of hunting and gathering societies (e.g. Turnbull 1992) and
simple village societies (e.g. Werner 1990) routinely spend several hours a
day, over periods of weeks or months, singing and dancing.  As
ethnomusicologist Charlie Keil has remarked, ³singing, dancing, drumming,
story telling, ritualizing, playing . . . was a much, much bigger part of
life in all prehistoric localities² (Keil 2002).  Beyond this, we have
arguments going back to Darwin that music-making is even older than language
(Brown 2000), that music and the modern brain have coevolved (Benzon 2001).

Granting that, we still have quite a bit to account for between the world of
hunters and gatherers and of simple villages, on the one hand, and on the
other hand, the complex, occupationally specialized, and highly stratified
world of the twentieth and now the twenty-first centuries.  Rather than even
attempt such an account I will simply observe that, prior to the 20th
century all listening and dancing to music was necessarily done to live
performance.  With the advent of radio broadcast and sound-reproduction that
changed, at least in the most developed nations of the world.  While I don¹t
know of any numbers, it seems reasonable to think that, as the 20th century,
people spent less and less time making their own music and more and more
time listening to that made by others.  If you look at surveys conducted by
the National Endowment for the Arts (Robinson 1993, Bradshaw 1998) you see
that adult participation in public musical performance (once a year or more)
is quite low, well below 10% or even 5% for most types of performance.

If active music-making and dance are indeed required for proper neural
development in humans, then we, the advanced nations of the world, are in
trouble.  We are three generations from a world in which everyone sang
and/or played a musical instrument on a regular basis.  Alas, our major
concern about music seems to be focused on ownership of sound recordings,
not on the fact that such recordings have usurped the place of active
music-making in our lives.

AFRICAN AMERICANS

There is some small evidence that African Americans are less likely to be
diagnosed with ADHD than are whites.  A study of 30,000 primary school
children in two Virginia cities revealed that 8% and 10% of them received
ADHD medication in school, with twice as many blacks as whites receiving the
medication (LeFever, Dawson, and Morrow 1999).  At the same time, we have
evidence that low income African Americans have a cultural style that
emphasizes physical movement, music, and dancing for children (Boykin and
Bailey 2000).  If my argument is correct, then the lower incidence of ADHD
medication among blacks might, in fact, be the result of that different
cultural style.

Unfortunately, the ADHD evidence is too sketchy to warrant that conclusion
in any strong way.  For one thing, it is possible that the incidence of ADHD
in the study population is as high among blacks as it is among whites, but
that it is not being diagnosed and treated as frequently among blacks.  For
example, another study shows that black parents are less likely to be aware
of ADHD than black parents (Bussing, Schoenberg and Perwien, 1998).  Even if
the figures for medication use give an accurate index of ADHD incidence, we
have no reason to believe that the Virginia population in that particular
study is representative of the entire population in the United States, much
less of the world.  Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not; we simply don¹t know.

There is another bit of evidence that seems relevant.  In 1998 the National
Institutes of Health convened a conference to consider all of the evidence
about ADHD.  Dr. Hector Bird (1999) made a presentation to the conference
covering evidence about ADHD ³in different cultural settings throughout the
world, including the United States and Canada, Great Britain, several other
countries in Western Europe, China, India, Israel, Brazil, Chile, Puerto
Rico, Australia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Thailand.²  The incidence of ADHD
varies between 1% and 20% over that range of societies and cultures.  While
Bird suggests that ³these differences may be more a function of the
diagnostic system employed to classify the syndrome, the methods of
ascertainment, and other methodological artifacts than an actual
manifestation of cultural differences,² he doesn¹t argue that conclusion in
any strong way. That is certainly a reasonable argument to make, and I would
be surprised if such factors didn¹t account for some of the observed
variation.  Further, given the variation in the distribution the 7R allele
of DRD4, some of this variation may reflect genetic differences as well.  I
would like to suggest, however, that some of that variation may also reflect
cultural differences in the incidence of dancing and music-making.  While
mass media and sound reproduction equipment exist on every continent and in
every nation, not all of the world¹s peoples are so given to mere listening
as are the peoples of the industrialized West and East.

NOTE 7

7. The hypothesis that 7R is related to male competition suggests an
interesting variation on Geoffrey Miller¹s (2000) recent work arguing that
music originated through sexual selection.  While I have my doubts about
that, perhaps post-agricultural male competition has had some effect on
elite musicians, the only ones whose performance Miller has actually
considered.

REFERENCES

Auerbach, J. G., J. Benjamin, et al. (2001). "DRD4 related to infant
attention and information processing: a developmental link to ADHD?"
Psychiatric Genetics 11: 31-35.

Barkley, R. A. (1997). ADHD and the Nature of Self Control. New York, The
Guilford Press.

Bird, Hector (1999).  ³The Prevalence and Cross-Cultural Validity of
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.²  URL:
http://add.about.com/health/add/library/weekly/aa1119e.htm.  Accessed on
2.23.2002.

Boykin, A. W. and C. T. Bailey (2000). The Role of Cultural Factors in
School Relevant Cognitive Functioning:  Synthesis of Findings on Cultural
Contexts, Cultural Orientations, and Individual Differences. Washington, D.
C., Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk
(CRESPAR), Howard University.

Bradshaw, T. (1998). 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.
Washington, Research Division, National Endowment for the Arts.

Bussing, R., N. E. Schoenberg and A. R. Perwien (1998). "Knowledge and
information about ADHD: evidence of cultural differences among
African-American and white parents." Soc Sci Med 46(7): 919-928.

Comings, D. E., R. Gade-Andavolu, et al. (2000). "Multivariate analysis of
associations of 42 genes in ADHD, ODD and conduct disorder." Clin Genet
58(1): 31-40.

Ding, Y.-C., H.-C. Chi, et al. (2002). "Evidence of positive selection
acting at the human dopamine receptor D4 gene locus." PNAS 99(1): 309-314.

Harpending, H. and G. Cochran (2002). "In our genes." Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 99(1): 10-12.

LeFever, G. B., Dawson, K. V., Morrow, A. L (1999). The extent of drug
therapy for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder among children in
public schools. Am J Public Health 89(9): 1359-64.

Robinson, J. P. (1993). Arts Participation in America: 1982-1991, Research
Division, National Endowment for the Arts.

Schmidt, L. A., N. A. Fox, et al. (2001). "Association of DRD4 with
attention problems in normal childhood development." Psychiatric Genetics
11: 25-29.

Swanson, J., J. Oosterlaan, et al. (2000). "Attention deficit/hyperactivity
disorder children with a 7-repeat allele of the dopamine receptor D4 gene
have extreme behavior but normal performance on critical neuropsychological
tests of attention." PNAS 97(9): 4754-4759.

Todd, R. D. and E. A. Lobos (2002). "Mutation screening of the dopamine D2
receptor gene in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder subtypes:
Preliminary report of a research strategy." Am J Med Genet 114(1): 34-41.

Turnbull, C. (1962). The Forest People. New York, Simon and Schuster.

Werner, D. (1990). Amazon Journey: An Anthropologist's Year Among Brazil's
Mekranoti Indians. Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall.

Dr. Spence is correct.  The sentence should read:


A study of 30,000 primary school children in two Virginia cities revealed
that 8% and 10% of them received ADHD medication in school, with twice as
many whites as blacks receiving the medication (LeFever, Dawson, and Morrow
1999).


----------
> From: "Lester K. Spence" <kspence@...>
> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 10:16:30 -0600
> To: "'William Benzon'" <bbenzon@...>
> Subject: RE: Music and ADHD
>
> In your beginning paragraph comparing rates of adhd of blacks and
> whites, I think you switched the racial terms...arguing blacks were
> twice as likely as whites to get medication.  This isn't what you mean
> right?
>

Comings for sure sees the whole psychiatric spectrum as having a lot of
shared genes. This means that dopamin is probably only a small part of
the genetic background.

As for the 7R study, you should really read the whole study. It doesn't
seem very likely the 7R allele orginated as a rare mutational event. It
requires 6 mutations in that small area, and just as many in the
sorrounding 1000bp. This doesn't sound like a recent mutation, especially
since they calculated it's age to 30-50ky, simulatanious with AMH expansion
and Neanderthal - AMH encounter.

As for the prevalence of ADHD, I think it's correct. The frequency really
varies a lot. It must if 7R was mutated 30-50ky ago, regardless if it was
imported from Neanderthals, or really were 6+ simultanious mutational events.

In fact, the same higher prevalence for non-blacks can also be observed
in Asperger and Tourette. ADHD and autism is also related to European
descent diseases like celiac and cystic fibrosis.

Leif

This is a useful study to use as an example of confusing cause with effect.
Since the lead was not administered randomly to children there is no way
that it can be concluded that the lead caused the antisocial behavior.
There are a myriad of factors that both effect exposure to lead and
influence antisocial  behavior and thus render any interpretation
problematic.

George K. Cunningham
University of Louisville

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Pitchford [mailto:ian.pitchford@...]
> Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 3:29 AM
> To: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: psychiatry-research@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [evol-psych] Study links lead exposure to antisocial behavior
>

[snip]

> The study is published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology.
>
>
> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-02/chmc-sll022802.php

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, William Benzon wrote:

> Dr. Spence is correct.  The sentence should read:
>
>
> A study of 30,000 primary school children in two Virginia cities revealed
> that 8% and 10% of them received ADHD medication in school, with twice as
> many whites as blacks receiving the medication (LeFever, Dawson, and Morrow
> 1999).

	 This is a long standing finding, dating back to the days when
it was called simply hyperkinesis (then progressing to hyperactivity,
minimal brain dysfunction, ADD, and eventually ADHD) - It has also been
documented though these stages that lower SES children of all races are
less likely to acquire the label than than their middle or upper SES
counterparts. There have been various attempts at explanation, but the
one I favor is that lower SES children who become bored, inattentive and
disruptive in classrooms are more likely to receive the less socially
acceptable designations of Conduct Disorder or Cultural-Familial
Retardation.

on 3/1/02 1:37 PM, Leif at leif@... wrote:

> William Benzon wrote:
>> Condon and others have also investigated interactional synchrony in children
>> suffering from various pathologies, including dyslexia and autism. Here they
>> find multiple entrainment. They have observed dyslexic children whose the
>> right side would entrain within the normal 42-millisecond period, while the
>> left side would entrain with the same sound at a delay of 100 to 266
>> milliseconds. Autistic children were similar, except that it is the right
>> side that is delayed.
>
> I have a hard time to believe this difference since dyslexia and autism is
> closely related, ie the dyslexia's way of processing information is identical
> to the autistic way. Maybe this instead is related to left vs right
> handedness?
> Left handedness is more common in autistics, so this might explain the
> left vs right issue.
>


You might want to take a look at Condon's research:


Condon, W. S. (1974). "Synchrony Demonstrated between Movements of the
Neonate and Adult Speech." Child Development 45: 456-462.

Condon, W. S. (1975). "Multiple response to sound in dysfunctional
children." Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia 5: 37-56.

Condon, W. S. (1986). Communication: Rhythm and Structure. Rhythm in
Psychological, Linguistic and Musical Processes. J. R. Evans and M. Clynes.
Springfield, Illinois, Charles C Thomas € Publisher: 55-78.

on 3/1/02 11:15 AM, Leif at leif@... wrote:

[snip]

>
> In fact, the same higher prevalence for non-blacks can also be observed
> in Asperger and Tourette. ADHD and autism is also related to European
> descent diseases like celiac and cystic fibrosis.

Concerning autism, from Beethoven's Anvil, pp. 25-27:

For over three decades, William Condon and his colleagues have been studying
the rhythmic structure of human speech communication. They make films of
people interacting and then do a frame-by-frame analysis of body motions and
speech sounds. They have discovered two kinds of synchrony, self synchrony
and interactional synchrony. Self synchrony is the relationship between a
person¹s speech patterns and their body movements: head, shoulders, arm and
hand gestures, and so on. Interactional synchrony is about the relationship
between the listener¹s body and the speaker¹s voice.

It is not particularly surprising that self synchrony exists. After all, the
same nervous system is doing both the speaking and the gesturing, and the
cortical structures for speech and manipulation are close to one another.
But Condon found a close synchrony between speakers and listeners as well.
How do the listener¹s gestures become synchronized with the speaker¹s vocal
patterns? To be sure, the synchrony isn¹t exact‹the listener¹s body
movements lag behind the speech patterns by 42 milliseconds or less (roughly
one frame of film at 24 frames per second), ³like a car following a
continuously rapidly curving road². That is a small enough lag to make one
entertain thoughts of mind-reading.

It¹s not simply that gestures move to the same basic pulse as speech. That
is easy enough to understand, at least superficially: the speaker needs only
to detect the pulse¹s period and adopt it for herself‹all, of course,
unconsciously. Synchrony, both self and interactional, involves more than
this. Speech is hierarchical. Phonemes are organized into words, words into
phrases, and phrases into statements (see Figure 1).


[Figure 1 deleted]


In both self synchrony and interactional synchrony this hierarchical
structure is reflected in the synchronized movements. Larger gestures,
perhaps of the whole arm, will track phrases while smaller gestures, such as
finger movements, will track words or phonemes. Furthermore, infants exhibit
near-adult competence at interactional synchrony within 20 minutes of birth.
Since the human auditory system becomes active three or four months before
birth, we may become entrained to speech patterns in utero.

Condon and others have also investigated interactional synchrony in children
suffering from various pathologies, including dyslexia and autism. Here they
find multiple entrainment. They have observed dyslexic children whose the
right side would entrain within the normal 42-millisecond period, while the
left side would entrain with the same sound at a delay of 100 to 266
milliseconds. Autistic children were similar, except that it is the right
side that is delayed.

The ability to match one¹s movements to another¹s seems to be a condition of
normal interaction with others. When this capacity is hampered, as it is in
dyslexia and autism, communication is compromised. Synchrony creates a space
of communicative interaction, a coupling between two brains in which they
can affect one another¹s internal states.

Interactional synchrony is not conscious or deliberate; it is not something
one thinks about. It just happens, at least for most of us. That
interactional synchrony is working at birth implies that it is mediated by
core brain structures, structures that are phylogenetically old, for only
these structures are operative at birth. The newest and largest brain
structure, the cerebral cortex, is an uninsulated mass of nerves incapable
of coherent processing at birth. Its fibres become insulated over the first
several years of life.  That is to say, tightly synchronized interaction
with others constitutes part of the maturational environment for the
cerebral cortex, just as the sounds of adult speech penetrate the womb and
thus become part of the maturational environment for those neural structures
active at birth. Before we can see the external world and grasp objects, we
hear sounds and are able to kick and wiggle in response.

MONITOR ON PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 33, No. 3 March 2002

The power of pretending
Researchers set out to determine whether children's pretending does them any
good.

BY BETH AZAR

Watch young children at play for just a few minutes and you're reminded that
they live in a far more wondrous, whimsical world than the rest of us. A pile
of wooden blocks is a vast city, and some sticks the inhabitants. Indeed, often
about the time babies begin to walk and talk, they also begin to
pretend--giving a stuffed animal a sip from their cup or covering up a doll for
sleep.

Is it all just flights of fancy? Or does it have implications for child
development? That's what some researchers are trying to find out.

Full text
http://www.apa.org/monitor/pretend.html

MONITOR ON PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 33, No. 3 March 2002

It's more than fun and games
Play may foster everything from physical fitness to social and cognitive
development, experts say.

BY BETH AZAR

From puppies romping through a field or rat pups wrestling and nipping at each
other to an infant shaking a rattle, nearly all social animals play in some
form. Myriad species spend some of their time in activities that have no
obvious function other than fun.

Why would a behavior develop across multiple species if it doesn't have some
ulterior function? The most common theory is that juveniles play at the skills
they will need as adults. But some newer thinking proposes it's more than that.
In fact, play seems to have some immediate perks, such as aerobic conditioning,
as well as long-term benefits that include preparing animals for the unexpected
and giving them a sense of morality.

Research suggests that play likely serves multiple developmental needs. And,
says psychologist Peter Smith, PhD, of Goldsmiths College, University of
London, the reasons may have changed for different species, and almost
certainly vary depending on the type of play. For physical activity play and
rough-and-tumble play, researchers can attempt some comparisons from
animals--especially dogs, cats and monkeys--to human children. For object and
especially pretend play, there are probably different functions, and these
kinds of play are more specifically human.

Full text
http://www.apa.org/monitor/morefun.html

I had meant to post this to the list when the strand first started, but
evidentially sent it to only one person.

	 I have not read the literature on the relationship of music to
development, and accordingly cannot comment on it. However, I have
researched the incidence of ADHD in both England where it has not been
heavily diagnosed (1999 <1.0%) and the US (diagnosis potentially >7% or
as noted below +/-10%). In an article being published in the March, 2002
American Anthropologist I make the point that ADHD-like behaviors appear
to be frequently and consistently exhibited by non-diagnosed children.
There may be a few children (<1.0%) with severe controle/attentional
problems, but even with this group I seriously doubt any genetic
causality will ever be found. In fact, I do not believe that there is a
relationship between ADHD-like behaviors and school achievement. Rather,
the differences in the interpretation of and manner of dealing with
these "normal" behaviors in the two societies, I would argue, can be
found in evolved cultural differences.

	 I would also point out in answer to recent comments, that culture is a
broad enough concept to include diagnostic criteria. In fact, I argue in
my article that how behaviors are perceived is the explanation for
differentials in diagnosis. Thus, the neuroscientific/genetic literature
probably needs to be read with a degree of skepticism.

	 In specific response to Silverman's comment, I agree that children are
perceived differently by teachers, and that many children become bored
in class. I would caution about drawing conclusions with respect to SES
without sound comparative studies. There is no question that children
from some minority backgrounds have lower achievement in school, and
there is also no question that failure to achieve is the trigger for
labeling, but the explanations for that phenomenon can be quite varied,
and may well be based on cultural factors including epistemological
perspective. However, the people usually triggering the evaluation
process for ADHD are  parents. Some minority parents, like the parents
of the English children in my study, may not feel there is anything
particularly alarming about ADHD-like behaviors even when they recognize
then in their children. Thus, I would disagree that any minorities are
under diagnosed for ADHD. Conduct Disorder may well be a diagnosis
triggered by school authority, and as such might reflect prejudice,
although again I think that charge needs to be well documented.





Irwin Silverman wrote:
>
> On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, William Benzon wrote:
>
> > Dr. Spence is correct.  The sentence should read:
> >
> >
> > A study of 30,000 primary school children in two Virginia cities revealed
> > that 8% and 10% of them received ADHD medication in school, with twice as
> > many whites as blacks receiving the medication (LeFever, Dawson, and Morrow
> > 1999).
>
>         This is a long standing finding, dating back to the days when
> it was called simply hyperkinesis (then progressing to hyperactivity,
> minimal brain dysfunction, ADD, and eventually ADHD) - It has also been
> documented though these stages that lower SES children of all races are
> less likely to acquire the label than than their middle or upper SES
> counterparts. There have been various attempts at explanation, but the
> one I favor is that lower SES children who become bored, inattentive and
> disruptive in classrooms are more likely to receive the less socially
> acceptable designations of Conduct Disorder or Cultural-Familial
> Retardation.
>
>
>
> __________
>
> Unsubscribe or change your subscription options at
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/
> Archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/messages/
> Join Evolutionary Psychology:
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Daniel Dennett (Contemporary Philosophy in Focus)
by Andrew Brook (Editor), Don Ross (Editor)
Paperback - 320 pages (February 2002)
Cambridge Univ Pr (Pap Txt); ISBN: 0521008646
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521008646/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521008646/humannaturecom/

Amazon.com

Daniel Dennett is a close look at one of the most significant living American
philosophers. The book is part of Cambridge University Press's Contemporary
Philosophy in Focus series, which highlights today's major philosophers.
Indeed, Dennett's writings have had enormous consequences for our understanding
of artificial intelligence, game theory, neuroscience, and developmental
psychology, among other matters.
The book does not require an intimate knowledge of Dennett's work nor a
specialist's interest in the philosophy of mind. Instead, editors Andrew Brook
and Don Ross have assembled a disparate group of contributors to elucidate "the
influence Dennett has had beyond the bounds of academic philosophy." Readers
will find an insightful overview of Dennett's philosophy, as well as expert
explanations of his significance in a variety of fields. The book is in some
respects a tribute to Dennett--the introduction is a fond perspective on a
great mind--but the essays themselves engage Dennett's thought with respectful
criticism even while they demonstrate his importance. --Eric de Place

Synopsis

The Contemporary Philosophy in Focus series offers introductory volumes to many
of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the modern age. Each volume consists
of newly commissioned essays that cover all the major contributions of a
pre-eminent philosopher in a systematic and accessible manner. Author of such
groundbreaking and influential books as "Consciousness Explained" and "Darwin's
Dangerous Idea", Daniel C. Dennett has reached a huge general and professional
audience that extends way beyond the confines of academic philosophy. He has
made significant contributions to the study of consciousness, the development
of the child's mind, cognitive ethnology, explanation in the social sciences,
artificial intelligence, and evolutionary theory. This volume is an
introductory collection that traces these connections, explores the
implications of Dennett's work, and furnishes the non-specialist with a
fully-rounded account of why Dennett is such an important voice on the
philosophical scene.

Chapter Contents

Part I. Introduction: 1. Dennett's place in the intellectual world Andrew Brook
and Don Ross; Part II. Consciousness: 2. The appearance of things Andrew Brook;
3. Catching consciousness in a recurrent net Paul M. Churchland; Part III. Uses
of Dennett's Method: 4. The intentional stance: developmental and
neurocognitive perspectives Richard Griffin and Simon Baron-Cohen; 5. Dennett's
contribution to research on the animal mind Robert M. Seyfarth and Dorothy L.
Cheney; 6. Dennettian behavioral explanations and the roles of the social
sciences Don Ross; Part IV. Two Concerns: 7. That special something: Dennett on
the making of minds and selves Andy Clark; 8. A question of content Kathleen
Akins; Part V. Artificial Intelligence and Evolutionary Theory: 9. Dennett and
artificial intelligence: on the same side, and if so, so what? Yorick Wilks;
10. Dennett and the Darwin wars Don Ross.

NEW YORK TIMES
March 3, 2002

Black Intellectuals Seek the Way Out of Here
By GERALD EARLY

NIGGER
The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.
By Randall Kennedy.
226 pp. New York: Pantheon Books. $22.

THE ANATOMY OF RACIAL INEQUALITY
By Glenn C. Loury.
226 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. $22.95.

THE ENVY OF THE WORLD
On Being a Black Man in America.
By Ellis Cose.
163 pp. New York: Washington Square Press. $22.

The Martin Luther King holiday and Black History Month offer African-American
intellectuals something like a season, not only a marketing device but also an
occasion of some moment, a moment almost exclusively the creation of
African-Americans themselves. (Blacks pushed for the King holiday, and the
black historian Carter G. Woodson originated Negro History Week in 1926. It has
since morphed into a month, a result of black advocacy.)

On the other hand, there is something about this that smacks a bit of
separate-but-equal, and something that seems to put African-American
intellectuals in a ghetto that limits, in both subtle and blatant ways, what
they can talk about and when it is best for them to do so. But in the United
States it is probably better to have a niche one needs to rebel against than to
have no niche at all, better, as James Baldwin suggested in 1955, to have a
''special space in this scheme'' than to ''have no place in any scheme.''

Full text
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/books/review/03EARLYT.html?pagewanted=all
Glenn Loury's About Face (January 20, 2002)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/20/magazine/20LOURY.html
First Chapter: 'Nigger' (March 3, 2002)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/books/chapters/0303-1st-kenne.html
First Chapter: 'The Envy of the World' (March 3, 2002)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/03/books/chapters/0303-1st-cose.html

______

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
by Randall Kennedy
Hardcover - 256 pages 1 Ed edition (January 8, 2002)
Pantheon Books; ISBN: 0375421726
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375421726/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375421726/humannaturecom/

Amazon.com
Nigger is Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy's ornate, lively monograph on
what he calls the "paradigmatic" racial slur in the English language. A neutral
noun in the 17th century, nigger had, by 1830, become an "influential" insult.
Kennedy traces the word's history in literature, song, film, politics, sports,
everyday speech, and the courtroom. He also discusses its plastic,
contradictory, and volatile place in contemporary American society. Should it
be eradicated from dictionaries and the language? Should it be, somehow,
regulated? What is the significance of its emergence among some blacks as a
term with "undertones of warmth and good will"? Do blacks have a historical
right to its use or does that place the term under a "protectionist pall"? With
courage and grave measure Kennedy has, in effect, created a forum for
discussion of the word he calls a "reminder of the ironies and dilemmas, the
tragedies and glories, of the American experience." --H. O'Billovitch

From Publishers Weekly
The word is paradigmatically ugly, racist and inflammatory. But is it different
when Ice Cube uses it in a song than when, during the O.J. Simpson trial, Mark
Fuhrman was accused of saying it? What about when Lenny Bruce uses it to
"defang" it by sheer repetition? Or when Mark Twain uses it in The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn to make an antiracist statement? Kennedy, a professor at
Harvard Law School and noted legal scholar, has produced an insightful and
highly provocative book that raises vital questions about the relationship
between language, politics, social norms and how society and culture confront
racism. Drawing on a wide range of historical, legal and cultural instances
Harry S. Truman calling Adam Clayton Powell "that damned nigger preacher";
Title VII court cases in which the use of the word was proof of condoning a
"racially hostile work environment"; Quentin Tarantino's liberal use of the
word in his films Kennedy repeatedly shows not only the complicated cultural
history of the word, but how its meaning, intent and even substance change in
context. Smart, well argued and never afraid of facing serious, difficult and
painful questions in an unflinching and unsentimental manner, this is an
important work of cultural and political criticism. As Kennedy notes in
closing: "For bad or for good, nigger is... destined to remain with us for the
foreseeable future a reminder of the ironies and dilemmas, the tragedies and
glories, of the American experience." (Jan. 22)Forecast: This may be the book
that reignites larger debates over race eclipsed by September 11. Look for a
bestselling run and huge talk show and magazine coverage as the Afghanistan
news cycle continues to slow; the book had already been the subject of two New
York Times stories by early January.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
Nigger: it is arguably the most consequential social insult in American
history, though, at the same time, a word that reminds us of "the ironies and
dilemmas, tragedies and glories of the American experience." In this tour de
force, distinguished Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy-author of the
highly acclaimed Race, Crime, and the Law- "put[s] a tracer on nigger," to
identify how it has been used and by whom, while analyzing the controversies to
which it has given rise.

With unprecedented candor and insight Kennedy explores such questions as: How
should nigger be defined? Is it, as some have declared, necessarily more
hurtful than other racial epithets? Do blacks have a right to use nigger even
as others do not? Should the law view nigger baiting as a provocation strong
enough to reduce the culpability of a person who responds violently to it?
Should a person be fired from his or her job for saying nigger? How might the
destructiveness of nigger be assuaged?

To be ignorant of the meanings and effects of nigger, says Kennedy, is to
render oneself vulnerable to all manner of peril. This book brilliantly and
sensitively addresses that concern.

About the Author
Randall Kennedy is the author of Race, Crime and the Law (available in
paperback from Vintage Books). He received his undergraduate degree from
Princeton and his law degree from Yale. A Rhodes Scholar, he served as a law
clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He is a professor at Harvard
Law School and lives in Dedham, Massachusetts.

_______


The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures)
by Glenn C. Loury
Hardcover - 160 pages (February 2002)
Harvard Univ Pr; ISBN: 0674006259
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674006259/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674006259/humannaturecom/

From Publishers Weekly
In this highly persuasive analysis of race stigma in U.S. society, Loury, a
political commentator and director of the Institute of Race and Social Division
at Boston University, argues that it is not simply racial discrimination (which
is "about how people are treated") that keeps African-Americans from achieving
their goals, but rather the more complex reality of "racial stigma" "which is
about who, at the deepest cognitive level, they are understood to be." Loury
argues that the image white Americans have of black Americans as less than full
citizens influences policy far more than who African-Americans actually are.
Although much of Loury's argument is theoretical (his training as an economist
is evident in his proposing and then testing various axioms), he grapples
eloquently and vigorously with such concrete examples as affirmative action,
arguments about racial IQ differences and racial profiling. He concludes that
the employment of color-blind policies will not address widespread racial
inequalities since they do not take into account either the external or
internal harm done to African-Americans from "a protracted, ignoble history
during which rewarding bias against blacks was the norm." Originally given as
the W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures at Harvard, Loury's arguments are provocative and
productive. (Feb. 8) Forecast: The controversies generated by books as diverse
as Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve and Lani Guinier's The Tyranny of the
Majority could be replicated by this short, cogently argued book if the public
bandwidth is available for it at the time of its release. If not, expect the
ideas to bubble up over the years via campus and lobbyist discussion.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Speaking wisely and provocatively about the political economy of race, Glenn
Loury has become one of our most prominent black intellectuals--and, because of
his challenges to the orthodoxies of both left and right, one of the most
controversial. A major statement of a position developed over the past decade,
this book both epitomizes and explains Loury's understanding of the depressed
conditions of so much of black society today--and the origins, consequences,
and implications for the future of these conditions. Using an economist's
approach, Loury describes a vicious cycle of tainted social information that
has resulted in a self-replicating pattern of racial stereotypes that
rationalize and sustain discrimination. His analysis shows how the restrictions
placed on black development by stereotypical and stigmatizing racial thinking
deny a whole segment of the population the possibility of self-actualization
that American society reveres--something that many contend would be undermined
by remedies such as affirmative action. On the contrary, this book persuasively
argues that the promise of fairness and individual freedom and dignity will
remain unfulfilled without some forms of intervention based on race. Brilliant
in its account of how racial classifications are created and perpetuated, and
how they resonate through the social, psychological, spiritual, and economic li
fe of the nation, this compelling and passionate book gives us a new way of
seeing--and, perhaps, seeing beyond--the damning categorization of race in
America.

About the Author
Glenn C. Loury is a distinguished economic theorist. His many scholarly
articles include contributions to the fields of welfare economics, game theory,
industrial organization, natural resource economics, and the economics of
income distribution. Professor Loury is also a prominent social critic and
public intellectual.

_____

The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America
by Ellis Cose
Hardcover - 160 pages (January 29, 2002)
Washington Square Pr; ISBN: 0743427157
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743427157/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743427157/humannaturecom/

From Publishers Weekly
Cose, a contributing editor and columnist at Newsweek and author of the
critically acclaimed The Rage of the Privileged Class, was ordered out of a San
Francisco restaurant because the maOtre d' claimed he was a "troublemaker."
Drawing from his own experience (much of it, thankfully, much less hateful), as
well as that of men he interviewed, Cose in nice prose details the myriad
experiences of black men, among them Henry Louis Gates at Harvard University;
Antwan Allen, a Harlem teenager who rejects what "being black" means on the
street; Useni Eugene Perkins, poet and author of Home is a Dirty Secret; and
Loquillo, who died of a heroin overdose at the age of 45. Spinning these
stories, Cose begins to map the complex social, emotional and political fabric
in which African-American men such as Tiger Woods and Colin Powell are lionized
or like Willie Horton, scorned and feared. He presents an impressive array of
statistics "twenty-eight percent of all black males... eventually will end up
in jail"; a Harvard study that showed "black students were nearly three times
as likely as whites to be labeled `retarded' " which are used not simply to
prove racism but to explore the underlying cultural and racial contradictions
that produce it. Examining a wide range of cultural artifacts, from William
Foote Whyte's classic 1943 Street Corner Society to the 2001 movie Whiteboys,
and never avoiding hard questions such as black-on-black crime or interracial
sex, Cose charts both an urgently argued history of black masculinity and a
moving and nuanced snapshot of where it is now. A six-city author tour should
draw Cose's regular Newsweek readers and move copies of the book. Agent,
Michael Congdon.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In a very personalized manner, Cose focuses on how individuals--black men,
specifically--can deal with racism in the U.S. Noting the special love-hate
relationship that white Americans have with black men, Cose explores how the
image of the rap star and the athlete contains aspects of what is projected and
perceived as "cool." The image is so compelling that many young black men
stifle their own individuality for a cool image, often leading to negative
attention from law enforcement. What can individual black men do to avoid the
negative fallout of this love-hate relationship? Cose advises against
overplaying the race card, conforming ambitions to the expectations of others,
and expecting others to be overly concerned about the plight of the black man
in the U.S. Cose's recommendations provide a solid base for coping, coming as
they do from an individual who has succeeded but knows the racial obstacles
that face black men and yet can recognize and identify opportunities. Cose's
stated objective of opening a discussion on how racism affects individuals
makes this book interesting reading for a broad range of readers. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Library Journal
More probing commentary from Newsweek contributing editor Cose (The Rage of the
Privileged Class).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Book Description


With an eloquence and compassion reminiscent of James Baldwin's Letter to My
Nephew, Ellis Cose presents a frank and realistic examination of the daunting
challenges facing black men in twenty-first-century America and offers a way
out of the cycle of defeatism and despair that wreaks havoc on America's black
communities.

Black men have never had more opportunity for success than they do today. Yet,
as Ellis Cose bluntly puts it, "We are watching the largest group of black
males in history stumbling through life with a ball and chain wrapped around
their legs. If brought together in one incorporated region, the population of
black males behind bars would instantly become the twelfth largest urban area
in America." Add to that the ravages of AIDS, murder, poverty, and illiteracy,
the raging anger between many black men and women, and the widening gap
separating the black elite from the so-called underclass, and you have a
prescription for a paralyzing pessimism.

But even as he acknowledges the systemic obstacles that confront black men of
all social strata, Ellis Cose refuses to accept them as reasons for giving up
or giving in. In powerful and stirring prose, Cose rails against the historical
worldview that has categorized academic achievement as a source of shame
instead of pride in many black communities; he also outlines steps black males
can take to enhance their odds for success.

With insightful anecdotes about a broad range of black men -- from Franklin
Raines, the first black man to run a Fortune 500 company, to unlettered
ex-prisoners -- Cose documents the amazing journey the black race has made, and
contemplates the challenges ahead. Both a warning of the vast social tragedy
that is wasted black potential and a vital call to arms that can enable black
men to reclaim their destiny, The Envy of the World is an honest and important
book for anyone concerned about the future of America.

A life in writing
A voyage to the origin of species

Edward Larson talks to Tim Radford about the draw of the Galapagos islands and
the mighty influence of Charles Darwin

Interview by Tim Radford
Guardian

Saturday March 2, 2002


Edward Larson writes the first drafts of his books in pencil on yellow pads of
paper, but he writes his articles straight onto a computer. For him, books are
different things. And Evolution's Workshop, newly paperbacked by Penguin this
week, is a word-lover's book: it evokes the desolate, cinder-strewn and
tortoise-trodden Galapagos Islands, as seen by writers and voyagers over 300
years.

Of course, the visitor that everybody remembers was Charles Darwin: what Darwin
saw on the Galapagos changed both his life and the world's vision of life. When
Larson first visited the islands he knew little about them other than that
Darwin had been there there. Then he caught a glimpse of a much more complex
story, in which the islands themselves were adopted a metaphor, first of hell,
then of paradise.

Full text
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4365693,00.html

Public release date: 1-Mar-2002
Contact: Karen Emerton karen.emerton@... 44-1793-413122
Economic & Social Research Council
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/

Involved fathers key for children

Girls whose fathers are involved in their upbringing are less likely to have
mental health problems in later life whilst good father relations can prevent
boys from getting into trouble with the police says new research released
during National Science Week 2002 which runs from 8 -17 March.

'Good father-child relationships are associated with an absence of emotional
and behavioural difficulties in adolescence and greater academic motivation
too' say Dr Eirini Flouri and Ann Buchanan co authors of the research.
'Teenagers who have grown up feeling close to their fathers in adolescence also
go on to have more satisfactory adult marital relationships' she adds.

The ESRC funded research at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work,
University of Oxford aimed to discover whether it could back up previous US
research showing positive outcomes for children whose fathers were more
'involved' in their care. 'An involved father is one who reads to his child,
takes outings with his child, is interested in the child's education and takes
an equal role in managing his child' explains Dr Flouri. 'That does not
necessarily mean that he lives with the child's mother or is even the
biological father of the child' she adds.

The research also shows that a good relationship with the father or father
figure can also protect against adolescent psychological problems in families
where the parents have separated. 'There was a particularly strong association
between father involvement with daughters during adolescence and a lack of
psychological distress in adult life' says Dr Flouri. 'For boys who have
involved fathers it was quite marked that they were less likely to be in
trouble with the police as they grew older' she adds.

The study also showed that early father involvement is associated with
continuing involvement throughout childhood and adolescence. 'At different ages
fathers relate to their children in different ways but the underlying concept
of father involvement is a continuous one' says Dr Buchanan. 'Generally
speaking the higher the father's level of educational attainment the more
'involved' he was with his children' she adds.

Other key findings of the research included:

· Father involvement at age 7 is strongly related to children's later
educational attainment

· Father involvement protects against adult experience of homelessness in sons
of manual workers

The study was based on 17,000 children who were born in the UK in 1958 and who
were followed up at ages 7, 11, 16, 23 and 33. 'The research has wide
implications for work life balance questions. Since father time is clearly so
important for children it is obvious that they need to become involved early in
a child's life. It also raises issues about whether health education and other
services involved with families could become more 'father friendly' says Dr
Buchanan.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-03/esr-ifk030102.php

The fact that about 90% of the victims of Ritalin are boys surely tells us
something about the drug's special use in seeking to urge males to female
behavioral patterns - what appears to be becoming the default of the school
system.

Ritalin and similar drugs are illegal in France. The country survives.

Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair wrote:

> This modular approach does not demand that there is any adaptive function to
homosexuality.

> One important lesson every class on EP must learn is to be skeptic of
adaptationism - and every class on EP and individual differences ought to be
taught that it is possible that many of these are not adaptations.

I've maintained my skepticism of adaptation long enough to fully examine a
modular
(i.e., molecular/cellular) approach, which strongly suggests that homosexuality
is merely
a variation on a theme of sexuality (e.g., heterosexuality, asexuality,
bisexuality).
A broad based mammalian model of sexual differentiation explains these
variations. All
that is required for these variations is to alter the development of the
gonadotropin
releasing
hormone (GnRH) neuronal system, since GnRH pulse frequency modulates all of
sexual
differentiation. Thus, GnRH pulse frequency is responsible for sexual
differentiation
of the olfactory system(s), the only sensory system(s) that are sexually
dimorphic at
birth.

If GnRH pulse frequency is insufficient due to a gene (Kalig-1) that halts the
embryonic
development of the GnRH neuronal system and development of the olfactory
systems,
the result is asexuality (in humans). If sexual differentiation of the olfactory
system(s)
is incomplete in male rats -- where sexual differentiation occurs postnatally,
the result
is
bisexual male rats. If sexual differentiation is complete in any mammalian
species the
result is heterosexuality--unless, in humans, there is sufficient psychological
trauma, or
other imprinting on
odor stimuli that manifests itself in as aversion to heterosexual contact, or in
fetishistic
behaviors (which may run the gamut of sexually oriented human behavior).

With continuing focus on sexual differentiation of the olfactory system(s), late
last year
Savic et al., showed that human pheromones are processed in different parts of
the brain
depending on whether the subject was male or female. One particular area of
focus was the
medial preoptic area (MPOA) of the hypothalamus, which appears to be somewhat
sexually
differentiated and is very much involved in regulating GnRH pulse frequency.
Without going
into neuroanatomical detail, suffice it to say that portions of the hypothalamus
(e.g.,
specific nuclei) also have been presented as being applicable to human male
sexual
orientation (LeVay 1991?)and Byne et al (2001?). It has also been proposed that
a gay
gene might alter the neuroendocrine development of the hypothalamus by altering
GnRH
(Hamer and Copeland ??).

Without going into neuroendocrine detail, suffice it to say that potential
variations
in GnRH pulse frequency also correlate well with studies suggesting that the
homosexual
male brain is incompletely differentiated and this is manifest in variability of
the
response to estrogen priming that alters the degree of cyclic changes in
luteinizing
hormone (LH) that are clearly linked to determination of whether one is male or
female and
the degree to which males and females are sexually differentiated (Doerner ??).

Thus, it is extremely pertinent to note that mammalian, including human,
pheromones
have been shown to alter LH levels in other humans, which means that they alter
GnRH
pulsatility (as shown by studies of other mammals in which GnRH can be measured
directly).
What this means is that human pheromones are social environmental sensory
stimuli that
have the unique ability to alter postnatal sexual differentiation of the brain
(e.g.,
the hypothalamus), which is, of course, the most important organ of any organ
system
involved in behavior--whether that behavior is typically male; typically female;
typically animalistic; or typically human.

What we now have is an overview of how the GnRH neuronal system is responsible
for
all of what is typically considered to be the most important aspects of sexual
differentiation (prenatally and postnatally), with an additional overview of how
mammalian, including human pheromones, contribute to postnatal sexual
differentiation.
This overview is based upon a logical pathway linking genetic determination
(nature) to
social environmental sensory input (nurture) via the only pathway capable of
linking
the nature and nurture of behavior at the genetic level: gene-cell-tissue-organ-
organ system. Mammalian pheromones activate genes in cells of tissue in the
brain, the
most important organ or any organ system involved in behavior.

Nearly all, if not all, of mammalian sexual behavior can be attributed to strict
adherence to this nature-nurture link, via olfaction/pheromones. There also is
a very good mammalian model for homosexual male human sexuality: homosexual rams
that respond to the odors of other males, as if they were estrus ewes. (These
males
also have estradiol receptor content in the amygdala--an odor processing
center--
that appears to correlate well with sexual orientation, and this receptor
content
would be dependent upon sexual differentiation/GnRH pulse frequency.) During the
past few years, research has progressed from sexual differentiation in rodents,
to
sexual differentiation in humans--and still the most important sexual
differentiation
appears to be that of the olfactory system(s).

From a biological perspective, sexual differentiation - whether complete or
partial
appears to have nothing to do with adaptation, but everything to do with sexual
orientation/sexual behavior in mammals, including humans. I remain skeptical of
any approach that includes adaptation in an attempt to explain human
homosexuality.
Not only is there no hard evidence for this adaptation, from an evolutionary
perspective, it is impossible to provide a non-olfactory explanation for any
degree
of variation in sexual orientation/sexual behavior in any other species of
mammal.
I hope that your EP class(es) will consider this fact.

-
James V. Kohl
http://www.pheromones.com

"...a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
opponents and making them see the light, but rather because
its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up
that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

P.S. Whether or not the human vomeronasal organ is functional is of little
concern,
since the unconscious affect of human pheromones is manifest in LH levels.

















-

In response to this posting by Graeme Deeth, I wonder if we cannot watch our
way of speaking to each other.

The phrase below FEMALE FAIRY TALE is hideously sarcastic, mocking, and
scornful.  Many studies have been done on women who are very matter of fact
about sex, such as Iris Murdoch, and, contrarywise, on what the sense of
loyalty and love does to preserve social forms, ongoingness, family
cohesion, trust and pleasure.  On both sides--women who have no other
coordinates to sexual passion and experiment, and women who do, the comment
was unnecessary and cast into doubt ALL of the other analysis.

EASocolow
----------
>From: "Graeme Deeth" <marshalldeeth@...>
>To: <evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com>, "Joseph A. Buckhalt"
<buckhja@...>, "Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair" <leiedoke@...>
>Subject: Re: [evol-psych] 2 questions from a class
>Date: Fri, Mar 1, 2002, 2:06 AM
>

>Leif Edward
>If I may add a couple of thoughts re homosexuality.  I recall a paper
>examining sexual fantasy, (Sexual Fantasy: Harold Leitenberg & Kris Henning,
>1995; Psych Bulletin 17 (1) 469-496 {interesting pages numbers!}) in which
>so-called homosexuals and heterosexuals (if such a distinction exists in
>reality) described in detail their sexual fantasies.  When analysed, the top
>several fantasies were shared by those who would identify as homo or hetero.
>The usual suspects headed the list; sex with someone other than the primary
>partner, sex with multiple partners, and surprise-surpirse - sex with the
>opposite sex for those claiming homo status, and sex with the same sex for
>those claiming hetero status.  Males and females differed little as I
>recall, except on the usual emotional attachment and female fairytale
>dimensions.
>Sounds a lot like Freud's polymorphous perversity - unconstrained by social
>taboos, we will try it on with whomever we can obtain.  My experience
>clinically supports this cynical view. If one takes the trouble to explore
>reasons for sexual choices in depth, there is often an element of "I'd have
>sex with the opposite sex if I was game, but because the risk of rejection
>is high, I'll settle for the easier option - my own sex"   Such a response
>need not be related to realistic assessment of mate value, only the
>perception of inferiority would be required.
>Finally, it is worth noting just how common homosexual behaviour is in the
>non-human world.  This is merely part of the sexual behaviour repertoire,
>not the entire agmut of an individual's lifetime sexual experience.  For a
>viewpoint from another discipline, Marjorie Garber's Vice Versa illuminates
>the blinkers through which bisexuality is viewed in Western cultures.
>Animals of course don't have well developed social, and religious taboos
>prohibiting that which feels so good - just do it!
>Regards
>Graeme Deeth
>ps: when will we begin to value in-depth qualitative research on a par with
>quantitative versions.  The former allows people to be (more) truthful about
>taboo topics (read sexuality in any puritanical culture).

"10 Good reasons to be sceptical of evolutionary psychology"
by Tom Stafford t.stafford@...

Last issue I infected the PsyPag quarterly with (what I laughably call) my
opinions on Evolutionary Psychology (EP). I defended EP against the charges
made, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, against it. Those kinds of
accusations are most commonly found outside of biological and psychological
academic circles. Which brings me to cause for scepticism number 1.

Full text
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~abrg/tom/10reasons.htm

Misconceptions about evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary Psychology makes people angry. Evolutionary psychologists can come
across as a bunch of nasty reductionists trying to explain away the human
spirit as a bunch of simple heuristics and, along the way, validate various
social injustices under the auspices of scientific determinism. This may be
true, but many of the common criticisms levelled against Evolutionary
Psychology ('EP' for short) miss the mark. Clearly EP isn't going to go away,
and it certainly has something to offer, albeit while carrying more
socio-political risk than most perspectives. Here are a few common
misunderstandings of evolutionary psychology. To see examples just skim any
public debate or clever-clever commentary by a broadsheet columnist on the
latest piece of pop genetic determinism.

Full text
http://www.shef.ac.uk/~abrg/tom/misconceptions.htm

Informational Warfare
Hess, Nicole C. and Hagen, Edward H. (2002) Informational Warfare.

Full text available as: Adobe PDF

Abstract

Recent empirical and theoretical work suggests that reputation was an important
mediator of access to resources in ancestral human environments. Reputations
were built and maintained by the collection, analysis, and dissemination of
information about the actions and capabilities of group members-that is, by
gossiping. Strategic gossiping would have been an excellent strategy for
manipulating reputations and thereby competing effectively for resources and
for cooperative relationships with group members who could best provide such
resources. Coalitions (cliques) may have increased members' abilities to
manipulate reputations by gossiping. Because, over evolutionary time, women may
have experienced more within-group competition than men, and because female
reputations may have been more vulnerable than male reputations to gossip,
gossiping may have been a more important strategy for women than men.
Consequently, women may have evolved specializations for gossiping alone and in
coalitions. We develop and partially test this theory.

Keywords: gossip, female coalitions, friendship, reputation, status
Subjects: Biology: Sociobiology
Psychology: Evolutionary Psychology
Psychology: Social Psychology

ID code: cog00002112
Deposited by: Edward Hagen on 27 February 2002
Alternative Locations: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~hess/gossip.pdf

Full text
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/21/12/index.html