I mean, these could be very reliable findings. But they rest on some major assumptions: 1. that psychopathy is at the level of brain a single thing. 2. that the analyses included in the met-analysis are not biased at all...
...and 3. that the size of different brain regions is relatable to (and explains differences in) complex psychological functions like moral reasoning
Again, it *could*, but it's a very crude measure and conceptually naive hypothesis, IMO: Are bigger bits of brains better? wiringthebrain.com/2020/08/are-bi…
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How a ‘fatally, tragically flawed’ paradigm has derailed the science of obesity statnews.com/2021/09/13/how… - is obesity due to over-eating or dysregulated fat storage? cc @StephenORahilly
One point not commented on in article is that genes implicated in obesity (through rare or common variants) are enriched for nervous system expression and function...
Do these regulate appetite (many clearly do) or brain mechanisms controlling fat metabolism? Or both?
Kathryn Paige Harden: ‘Studies have found genetic variants that correlate with going further in school’ theguardian.com/science/2021/s… - tricky stuff here...
It should be no surprise to anyone that children differ in ways that affect (not determine, but contribute to) how far they go in education.
Some of those differences are genetic in origin, others may be the result of variation in brain development (explaining why even identical twins may differ)
Reading here about Higher-Order Thought (HOT) theories of consciousness, which make a lot of sense to me: plato.stanford.edu/entries/consci…
Basic idea is that conscious awareness (of a percept or an intention) requires a secondary representation - the recognition that you are having that percept or intention
That all fits with lots of neural and neurological findings, though there are many possible criticisms of this framework...
This book is brilliant. Incredibly precise exposition of how reasons - grounded in beliefs, desires, and knowledge - drive behavior
This is the kind of philosophy I really enjoy. No outlandish thought experiments, no semantic sleight-of-hand, no clever moves aimed to stump opponents... Just clear, rigorous analysis
One key insight: the distinction between a triggering cause (stimulus A -> action/outcome B) and a structuring cause (the reason *why* A->B)
Really excellent, insightful article highlighting crucial role of culture in understanding variation in heritability 👇 But I have a quibble... (thread below)
The article frames phenotypic variance as capable of being partitioned into a component explained by genetic variance and a component explained by environmental variance. 2/n
And it looks in detail at how environmental variance and gene-environment interactions (and therefore heritability) are all sensitive to cultural differences, clustering, sampling effects, etc. 3/n