My hunch: If marijuana were traditionally consumed in liquid form — as a tasty beverage with or without a tiny paper umbrella protruding out the top — it would be legal today. Although it continues to be illegal in the vast majority of U.S. regions, some cities, and even the entire state of California, have rethought or are rethinking it’s legal status.
Over the past decades a big argument against legalization was the claim that marijuana is a “gateway” drug. That it leads to the use and possible addiction to harder, more physically and socially injurious drugs.
Is marijuana a gateway drug? The answer to that question depends upon what studies you consider. From some research the logical conclusion would be, seems so. From other research, maybe not.
A recent study falls into the second category.
New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that the “gateway effect” of marijuana – that teenagers who use marijuana are more likely to move on to harder illicit drugs as young adults – is overblown. [source]
Reading and thinking carefully here, the use of the word “overblown” suggests there may be a small link, a minor influence of marijuana use on whether or not an individual later uses other, more truly dangerous drugs.
Oh darn. Damn those precise scientists! Can’t give us a completely black or completely white answer! We’ll have to go to a preacher or politician for one of those.
Additionally, the small gateway effect appears transient.
[O]nce young adults reach age 21, the gateway effect subsides entirely.
Drug use is a complicated subject. A couple other variables that seem involved were exposed by this study. The first being employment. When gainfully employed, individuals are much less likely to “move on” to the use of harder drugs.
And then there was this surprising finding (at least to me) -
The researchers found that the strongest predictor of other illicit drug use appears to be race-ethnicity, not prior use of marijuana. Non-Hispanic whites show the greatest odds of other illicit substance use, followed by Hispanics, and then by African Americans. [emphasis added]
Hmm. Now that’s food for thought. No, not hash brownies. Regular food. At least not until you punch-out on Friday.
I like science. Sure, it has many practical consequences. For example, I much prefer to send RSVPs for upcoming events by email rather than pony express. But I also like science for another reason: as entertainment. Being exposed to new findings is exciting. It’s not unlike intellectual travel. I get to see things I’ve never seen before. So to speak. Science . . . I can feel jumps sparking over the relative canyons of my neuronal synapses right now.
In the spirit of travel, let’s take a brief cruise this very minute. Shall we?
First stop: The Origin of Morality
Where does our moral sense come from? Good question. Many argue “from religion.” But this can’t be, for psychological studies and anthropological research has shown that people without religion have morals and behave as morally as those with. Even other primates and some animals show a rudimentary moral sense. A new study suggests that the capacity for a “moral faculty” evolved out of more mundane forms of cognition and emotion.
Specifically -
Scientists at Harvard University have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in more mundane choices related to money and food. [source]
Who gets the last piece of pizza? It seems how that question is answered might tell us a lot about where morality comes from.
Second Stop: A Transient Gender Difference
In a new paper in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, we find — hold onto your hats now — Study suggests boys and girls not as different as previously thought
Say it ain’t so! (Being facetious here.) Thinking of females as large, living Barbi-s, males as large, living G.I. Joes, just got a bit more antiquated.
Here’s the surprise -
Although girls tend to hang out in smaller, more intimate groups than boys, this difference vanishes by the time children reach the eighth grade.
So some gender differences are a mere flash-in-the-years? Could be.
Final Stop: A Less-Explored Dark Side to Vitamins
Okay, this destination could be a bit of a bummer for some. Like visiting a war memorial. Only what could be said to have been slain here is the hope of easy, natural health improvement — without drawbacks and dangers — provided by . . . vitamins. Vitamins? Doesn’t the very world have pure and uplifting connotations only? How could vitamins be bad?
Truth is, any substance that can influence our biology in good ways can also have side-effects or even outright detrimental influences under certain conditions or in a specific individual/population.
One such case gets spelled out with this headline: Vitamin A increases the presence of the HIV virus in breast milk.
Oh darn. That’s not good. Clearly spelling out the danger we’ve got this lead paragraph -
Vitamin A and beta-carotene supplements are unsafe for HIV-positive women who breastfeed because they may boost the excretion of HIV in breast milk—thereby increasing the chances of transmitting the infection to the child, a pair of new studies suggest.
And there you have it. Brief intellectual travels completed. I like to think that besides providing entertainment, such travels also bring an increased understanding of the world. Which has lasting benefits.
[recycled post; first appeared here]
An imagined dialogue:
Biologist: Young man, you don’t really like breasts . . .
Young Man: What?! I love breasts! Are you crazy?! Do you think I’m gay?!
B: Let me finish. You are not attracted to breasts for the breasts alone.
YM: Sure I am. Show me a photo of just a set of breasts, preferably full and upright and naked breasts, and I’ll be attracted to them.
B: Hold on. What I am trying to say is that your genes are causing you to be excited by signs of sexual maturity and fertility.
YM: If they are signs they definitely aren’t “Stop” signs. Maybe “Go” signs. Or “dangerous curves ahead.” But really, I just like breasts and that’s all there is to it.
B: Okay. Consider this: Is the reason why you crack open a nut simply because you enjoy cracking nuts?
YM: From breasts to nuts, I think you have issues, man.
B: The purpose to cracking open nuts is to get at the edible nut-meat. And the purpose of that is to eat and satisfy your hunger. One of the purposes of that, in turn, is to feed your liver fats and sugars that will keep you fueled during the hours between meals.
YM: I don’t eat for my liver. I eat because I am hungry. Screw my liver.
B: It may seem that way. But there are causes deeper than what our minds can readily perceive.
YM: I’ll tell you one thing – I definitely prefer breasts over nuts.
Have you heard? A new generation of robots may be just around the corner. As the ScienceDaily piece words it:
The first prototype robots capable of developing emotions as they interact with their human caregivers and expressing a whole range of emotions have been finalised by researchers. [link; all emphases mine]
Robots developing emotion? Isn’t that somehow oxymoronic? Robots are machines and machines don’t have feelings. Right?
More about the breakthrough machines robots:
The robots are capable of expressing anger, fear, sadness, happiness, excitement and pride and will demonstrate very visible distress if the caregiver fails to provide them comfort when confronted by a stressful situation that they cannot cope with or to interact with them when they need it.
Oh boy. Pardon my emotional reaction here, but . . . crap. I’m having trouble coping right now. There is just so much to this topic to be skeptical about. And there certainly is that crucial element that, when pushed to it’s logical extreme, challenges my own understanding of being and self.
First off, human emotion is tremendously complex. An “emotion” can include a few or most of the following incomplete list of changes to: facial expression, gestural expression, vocal qualities, posture, muscle tone, heart rate, blood pressure, hormone and neurotransmitter levels, blood flow to specific regions of the brain resulting in what has been called a “priming” of types of memories/thoughts, etc.
Beyond the measurable, physical changes, emotions are a social phenomenon. Only social animals develop and express emotions. It seems the development in robots has smartly focused on this social aspect. But it’s the personal element that I wonder about. And this is the element we can’t really verify. Not now.
Consider this claim from the write-up:
[T]hese robots differ from others in the way that they form attachments, interact and express emotion through bodily expression.
Sure, they may seem to form attachments. But are they only “going through the motions”? Are these robots merely very good mimics?
Granted, they may be a real step in the direction of creating “beings” that learn and respond on many levels, just as we do. Machines that can have motives and undergo fluctuations in their intent and energy level, among other things. And as these robots develop, thinkers like you and I will be forced to wonder when mimicry crosses the line to a “real” thing.
Sure, humans are made of flesh, and robots are not. But when it comes down to the very nitty-gritty, are we not just incredibly elaborate meat machines? In suspecting that robots could never have true emotions, am I merely being xenophobic; is my innate instinct to be alarmed by potential deceit (as all we hyper-social primates are) merely being triggered? Don’t be fooled by the robot! It isn’t really a person. It is deceiving you!
At this point in time, I have very strong doubts about robots developing what we might call true emotion. But I don’t know. When I think about it . . . Why not? No, we aren’t talking about an evil engineer using a syringe to magically inject a soul into his contraption of sheet metal, stainless steel bolts, and tangles of wire. It’s much more complicated than that.
And soul, what is that? I don’t believe in it. Not as something distinct from the workings of an animal body. But what about the personal part. That dynamic but not fully plastic, distinct agency we perceive as “soul,” as an individual’s persisting essence?
I don’t know.
And frankly, I’m a bit confused as to why anyone would want to develop or own such a robot. Still. With the progressive development of these . . . machines many, many important questions are being raised.
This study on painkillers blunting social pain screams for follow-up. But it intrigues nonetheless:
Over-the-counter painkiller may help ease emotional slights, UF study finds
Why does it scream? No, not for lack of emotion-easing acetaminophen. Because it was one study with a limited number of subjects. And I’m not sure about the measure of the second variable. The social pain part. Here’s some of the specifics -
By random assignment, nearly half the participants, 24 women and six men, took a 500-mg pill of acetaminophen immediately after waking up each day and another 500-mg pill one hour before going to sleep, while 24 women and eight men took a placebo. Each night the participants filled out a survey to assess their level of hurt feelings during the day.
Throughout the three weeks, those who took acetaminophen reported significantly fewer hurt feelings on average than participants in the placebo group, Webster said. In addition, they showed much less activity in areas of the brain linked with emotional feelings, such as hurt and rejection, he said.
Random assignment . . . placebo group. Good. But what is “significantly fewer hurt feelings” — in other words, how large was the effect — and how was it measured? The “much less activity in areas of the brain” was gauged via use of fMRI technology. So that seem solid. But it brings to mind another question: Was the reading of the fMRI scans blinded?
One thing I don’t question much, to quote study co-author Gregory Webster, is “[t]he possibility of this link between physical and social pain systems.” That possibility is highly plausible, judging by what is already understood about human psychology and physiology. Yes, as Webster pointed out, “we live in a dualistic society where people see the mind and body as being very separate.” But that’s changing. I think. I hope.
Years ago, as an undergraduate student, I was taught about Abraham Maslow’s pyramid-shaped “hierarchy of needs.” I thought it was kinda neat. But I wasn’t a full-fledged critical thinker yet, so it didn’t dawn on me to question how Maslow knew that esteem was a higher need than love — indeed, that it was a basic need at all — and that self-actualization was the highest human need. Did Maslow conduct research? What cross-cultural data did he consult? Or was the pyramid idea the result of Maslow looking into the crystal ball of his creative intuition?
Because psychologists began to realize that Moslow’s model had all the weight of Styrofoam, it ceased being included in many general psychology texts. Including the one I last used in the classroom.
Recently I read of a renovation to Maslow’s pyramid by a team of psychologists and published in Perspectives on Psychological Sciences [source]. Allow me to present “before” and “after” images.
Before -
After -
The article announcing the re-build begins like this:
If you have ever felt that your children are your life’s work, then you may in fact be recognizing a high-level psychological need. Caring for your children, feeding them, nurturing them, educating them and making sure they get off on the right foot in life – all of the things that make parenting successful – may actually be deep rooted psychological urges that we fulfill as part of being human. [emphases added]
Hmmm. While I do prefer the newer version, I’m not sure about the whole pyramid design with higher and lower relationships. And I do wonder what data informed the revision.
The announcement ends with these words -
“The pyramid of needs is a wonderful idea of Maslow’s,” Kenrick said. “He just got some of it wrong. Now people are talking about it again, which will help us get it right.”
I was left with this question: perhaps the whole pyramid idea is off-base, and thus if we stick to it we will never “get it right.” Maybe a “snowflake/constellation of needs,” or something else, might provide a better foundation from which to build our understanding.
If you ask me, remodeling a one-time popular but bogus structure is not a good way to progress. Raze that pyramid and start anew.
