Becoming a Man
http://quillette.com/2018/04/09/becoming-a-man/
EXCERPT: There are commonalities of human behavior that extend beyond any geographic or cultural boundary. Every known society has a sexual division of labor – many facets of which are ubiquitous the world over. Some activities are universally considered to be primarily, or exclusively, the responsibility of men, such as hunting large mammals, metalworking, and warfare. Other activities, such as caregiving, cooking, and preparing vegetable foods, are nearly always considered primarily the responsibility of women. In my last article for Quillette, I noted that in every known society males are more likely to kill another person than females are, and that this pattern is ultimately fairly predictable in light of some basic sex differences in reproductive biology. Here, I want to explore the functions of socialization, and ideology, as they contribute to the differing sex roles of males and females across cultures. In particular – how boys become men, and what the social demands of masculinity often entail...
MORE: http://quillette.com/2018/04/09/becoming-a-man/
A cosmic gorilla effect could blind the detection of aliens
http://www.agenciasinc.es/en/News/A-cosm...-of-aliens
EXCERPT: . . . The authors state that our own neurophysiology, psychology and consciousness can play an important role in the search for non-terrestrial civilizations; an aspect that they consider has been neglected until now. In relation to this, they conducted an experiment with 137 people, who had to distinguish aerial photographs with artificial structures (buildings, roads ...) from others with natural elements (mountains, rivers ...). In one of the images, a tiny character disguised as a gorilla was inserted to see if the participants noticed.
[...] "It is very striking, but very significant and representative at the same time, how our brain works," says De la Torre, who explains how the results were similar in the case of his experiment with the images. "In addition, our surprise was greater," he adds, "since before doing the test to see the inattentional blindness we assessed the participants with a series of questions to determine their cognitive style (if they were more intuitive or rational), and it turned out that the intuitive individuals identified the gorilla of our photo more times than those more rational and methodical".
"If we transfer this to the problem of searching for other non-terrestrial intelligences, the question arises about whether our current strategy may result in us not perceiving the gorilla," stresses the researcher [...] Another example presented in the article is an apparently geometric structure that can be seen in the images of Occator, a crater of the dwarf planet Ceres famous for its bright spots. "Our structured mind tells us that this structure looks like a triangle with a square inside, something that theoretically is not possible in Ceres," says De la Torre, "but maybe we are seeing things where there are none, what in psychology is called pareidolia”.
MORE: http://www.agenciasinc.es/en/News/A-cosm...-of-aliens
http://quillette.com/2018/04/09/becoming-a-man/
EXCERPT: There are commonalities of human behavior that extend beyond any geographic or cultural boundary. Every known society has a sexual division of labor – many facets of which are ubiquitous the world over. Some activities are universally considered to be primarily, or exclusively, the responsibility of men, such as hunting large mammals, metalworking, and warfare. Other activities, such as caregiving, cooking, and preparing vegetable foods, are nearly always considered primarily the responsibility of women. In my last article for Quillette, I noted that in every known society males are more likely to kill another person than females are, and that this pattern is ultimately fairly predictable in light of some basic sex differences in reproductive biology. Here, I want to explore the functions of socialization, and ideology, as they contribute to the differing sex roles of males and females across cultures. In particular – how boys become men, and what the social demands of masculinity often entail...
MORE: http://quillette.com/2018/04/09/becoming-a-man/
A cosmic gorilla effect could blind the detection of aliens
http://www.agenciasinc.es/en/News/A-cosm...-of-aliens
EXCERPT: . . . The authors state that our own neurophysiology, psychology and consciousness can play an important role in the search for non-terrestrial civilizations; an aspect that they consider has been neglected until now. In relation to this, they conducted an experiment with 137 people, who had to distinguish aerial photographs with artificial structures (buildings, roads ...) from others with natural elements (mountains, rivers ...). In one of the images, a tiny character disguised as a gorilla was inserted to see if the participants noticed.
[...] "It is very striking, but very significant and representative at the same time, how our brain works," says De la Torre, who explains how the results were similar in the case of his experiment with the images. "In addition, our surprise was greater," he adds, "since before doing the test to see the inattentional blindness we assessed the participants with a series of questions to determine their cognitive style (if they were more intuitive or rational), and it turned out that the intuitive individuals identified the gorilla of our photo more times than those more rational and methodical".
"If we transfer this to the problem of searching for other non-terrestrial intelligences, the question arises about whether our current strategy may result in us not perceiving the gorilla," stresses the researcher [...] Another example presented in the article is an apparently geometric structure that can be seen in the images of Occator, a crater of the dwarf planet Ceres famous for its bright spots. "Our structured mind tells us that this structure looks like a triangle with a square inside, something that theoretically is not possible in Ceres," says De la Torre, "but maybe we are seeing things where there are none, what in psychology is called pareidolia”.
MORE: http://www.agenciasinc.es/en/News/A-cosm...-of-aliens