Friday, October 04, 2002

Reason Online Biology vs. the Blank Slate

"Evolutionary psychology is addressing age-old questions about human nature. Are people inherently good? Are they social animals? Are they rational, utility-maximizing individuals? If both nature and nurture shape our characters and determine our destinies, what is the precise contribution of each? Do we have free will? These questions lie at the heart of centuries-long political, philosophical, and religious conflicts. And the answers inform how we think social, political, and economic life should be organized.

Evolutionary psychology discomfits many intellectuals and scientists and Pinker has been savagely attacked by both the left and the right. Marxists such as Harvard's Richard Lewontin and the late Stephen Jay Gould assert that evolutionary psychology is little more than fatuous cocktail party speculation, while conservative commentators in The Weekly Standard and First Things charge Pinker with trying to undermine the religious basis of morality."

The Edge A BIOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN NATURE: A TALK WITH STEVEN PINKER

"The third fear is a fear of determinism: that we will no longer be able to hold people responsible for their behavior because they can they can always blame it on their brain or their genes or their evolutionary history--the evolutionary-urge or killer-gene defense. The fear is misplaced for two reasons. One is that the silliest excuses for bad behavior have in fact invoked the environment, rather than biology, anyway--such as the abuse excuse that got the Menendez brothers off the hook in their first trial, the "black rage" defense that was used to try to exonerate the Long Island Railroad gunman, the "pornography made me to it" defense that some rapists have tried. If there's a threat to responsibility it doesn't come from biological determinism but from any determinism, including childhood upbringing, mass media, social conditioning, and so on.

redux [08.30.00]
Salon Flameproof racism

"Are blacks programmed by their genes to be promiscuous? Can we read any morality off our genes at all? Is religion pernicious nonsense? The field of evolutionary psychology attempts to illuminate such inquiries into human nature with the insights of modern Darwinism. It raises questions that have a prickly, intense and scary quality. To get inside them is like putting on a hair shirt with explosives strapped to it. Even in sober academic journals, the discussion can rapidly become a screaming match. On the Internet, home of the flame, any attempt at a reasonable discussion seems completely futile."

"Given the volatility of online debate, the existence, then, of the Evolutionary Psychology mailing list seems like a miracle. All these unspeakable things and more are debated there, yet it is actually possible to learn new things -- and the arguments, however ruthless, are always polite."

The Edge Getting Human Nature Right

"The 'implication' that seems to worry people most of all is so-called 'genetic determinism'. It's the notion that, if human nature was shaped by evolution, then it's fixed and so we're simply stuck with it -- there's nothing we can do about it. We can never change the world to be the way we want, we can never institute fairer societies; policy-making and politics are pointless.

Now, that's a complete misunderstanding. It doesn't distinguish between human nature -- our evolved psychology -- and the behavior that results from it. Certainly, human nature is fixed. It's universal and unchanging -- common to every baby that's born, down through the history of our species. But human behavior -- which is generated by that nature -- is endlessly variable and diverse. After all, fixed rules can give rise to an inexhaustible range of outcomes. Natural selection equipped us with the fixed rules -- the rules that constitute our human nature. And it designed those rules to generate behavior that's sensitive to the environment. So, the answer to 'genetic determinism' is simple. If you want to change behavior, just change the environment. And, of course, to know which changes would be appropriate and effective, you have to know those Darwinian rules. You need only to understand human nature, not to change it."

Science as Culture SOCIOBIOLOGY SANITIZED: THE EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND GENIC SELECTIONISM DEBATES

"In the late 1970s I attended meetings at which sociobiologists E. O. Wilson and David Barash, critic Stephen J. Gould, and others were on a panel. Standing blocked by the crowd in the hall outside the doorway to the packed hall I was unable hear the speakers. I spied a little door near the stage, and figured that if I could get to that door, I could get next to the stage and the front row. I sneaked through the hotel kitchen and found the door. Just as I opened it I was passed by a number of African American students who ran up on stage and poured water on Wilson's head. Wilson responded by saying to the audience that he felt like he had been speared by an aborigine. The crowd applauded the martyred Wilson (on crutches at the time--from a skiing accident) and some in the front row muttered epithets at the disrupters and at me, who appeared to have held the door for the demonstrators. The water pitcher story has been repeated scores of times in journalistic accounts, but none of these mention Wilson's racially tinged response. Two decades later the debate concerning the genetic determination of human behavior has been reanimated in the general intellectual and middle-brow media with a somewhat more restrained tone. The study of evolutionary accounts of human behavior is now called "evolutionary psychology" to avoid some of the justifiably bad connotations that were associated with sociobiology. During the last few years the linguist Steve Pinker, (1997) philosopher Daniel Dennett, (1995) New Republic editor and science popularizer Robert Wright,(1994) and science writer Matt Ridley (1994, 1997) have produced feisty, polemical expositions of evolutionary psychology for a broad audience. Stephen J. Gould has returned to the breach to criticize evolutionary psychology, but several writers considered to be on the left have defended sociobiological approaches and criticized postmodern rejection of biologism.

The core theories of evolutionary psychology are the same as those of sociobiology. Several of the commonly made distinctions between evolutionary psychology and sociobiology turn out not to distinguish the two. So what has changed and what is new?"

Thursday, October 03, 2002

The Economist What does the Internet look like?

"FEW questions are simultaneously so baffling and so significant as: "what is the structure of the Internet?" Baffling, because the thing has grown without any planning or central organisation. Significant, because knowing how the routing computers that are the net's physical embodiment are interconnected is vital if it is to be used properly. At the latest count, there were 228,265 of these routers around the world. They direct the packets of data that make up Internet traffic.

Any effort to map the Internet is necessarily incomplete and out of date the moment it appears. Instead, Albert-Laslo Barabasi and his colleagues at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, treat the net as though it were a natural phenomenon. What scientists generally do with a natural phenomenon that they do not understand is to build a model of it."

redux [04.05.01]
Mappa Mundi What Does the Internet Look Like, Jellyfish Perhaps?

"The Internet is often likened to an organic entity and this analogy seems particularly appropriate in the light of some striking new visualizations of the complex mesh of Internet pathways. The images are results of a new graph visualization tool, code-named Walrus, being developed by researcher, Young Hyun, at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) [1]. Although Walrus is still in early days of development, I think these preliminary results are some of the most intriguing and evocative images of the Internet's structure that we have seen in last year or two."

"Of course this is not real shape of the Internet. One must always be wary when viewing and interpreting any particular graph visualization as much of the final "look and feel" results from subjective decisions of the analyst, rather than inherent in the underlying phenomena."

redux [12.24.00]
The New York Times First Cells, Then Species, Now the Web
[requires 'free' registration]

"As the Internet continues to proliferate, it has become natural to think of it biologically -- as a flourishing ecosystem of computers or a sprawling brain of Pentium-powered neurons. However you mix and match metaphors, it is hard to escape the eerie feeling that an alien presence has fallen to earth, confronting scientists with something new to prod and understand.

The result has been an eruption of papers scrutinizing this artificial network and concluding, to many people's surprise, that it may be designed according to the same rules that nature uses to spin webs of its own. The networks of molecules in a cell, of species in an ecosystem, and of people in a social group may be woven on the same mathematical loom as the Internet and the World Wide Web."

redux [03.22.00]
News.Com Researchers find Web divided into 4 regions

"A study by researchers from Compaq Computer, Web portal AltaVista and IBM concluded that the Web has distinct regions, including some that are inaccessible to one another. The layout, researchers said, resembles a bow tie with four sections: a "strongly connected core," "origination" pages, "termination" pages and "disconnected" pages.

Within the core, the knot of the bow tie, Web surfers can travel smoothly between sites through hyperlinks. One side of the bow contains origination pages that allow surfers to reach the central knot. The other side of consists of termination pages that can be accessed from the core but are not linked back to it.

Wednesday, October 02, 2002

Ananova Children 'know more about internet than books'

"Schoolchildren are more knowledgeable about the internet than they are books, according to new research.

Six out of 10 youngsters questioned knew the term "homepage" meant the introduction to a website yet only 9% could explain the meaning of a preface in a book."

BBC News What the net is doing to you

"In 1949 Chinese communist leader Chou En-lai was asked about the importance of the 1789 French Revolution.

After thinking for a moment he replied: "It is too soon to say."

The effect of the internet on the lives of its users is just as hard to determine."

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

Forbes U.S. House cancels vote on Webcasters royalty rates

"The House of Representatives canceled a vote on Tuesday that would have postponed royalty payments for Internet radio broadcasts, after industry players said they could settle the issue on their own."

" A lobbyist for a performing artists' union said the deal could set a separate rate structure for smaller mom-and-pop Webcasters, or could cover large players like Clear Channel Communications Inc."

Salon Radio killed the radio star

"Radio execs share an almost palpable tenet that holds that radio is bulletproof. They see the medium as we see cockroaches and Twinkies: indestructible.

Jim Boyle, a Wall Street analyst for Wachovia Securities, moderated the panel at which Reese spoke. He comes from a family that's been in the radio business for 45 years, and he summed up this particular philosophy nicely when he told me: "Radio is 82 years young. It has survived a lot of new media, survived a lot of different options inside the car space: you've had CB radios, you've had cassettes, you've had eight-track cartridges, you've had six- and now 10-CD changers in the trunk. You've had satellite radio that's shown up ... so it does seem to be a situation where 10 years from now, 20 years from now, there's still gonna be radio."

In their "experiments," radio execs have starved their stations of manpower and research and music testing and polluted them with extra commercials and digital disc jockeys. They're betting it will all work out just fine."

redux [06.21.02]
The New York Times Internet Radio Criticizes Rate on Royalties
[requires 'free' registration]

"Under the ruling, radio companies will pay the recording industry 0.07 cent each time they play a song over the Internet. Webcasters, who have been slow to find advertisers despite drawing large audiences, had hoped that the rate would be set at a percentage of revenue, a move that they argued would allow them time to build a new outlet for music.

"For a lot of independent Webcasting companies, this is going to take them out," said John Jeffrey, executive vice president of Live 365, a network of 47,000 stations. "There's going to be less music put out on the Web, and that's not good for artists or anyone else.""

USA Today Neither side happy with Net radio royalty rates

"Webcasters like Live365, a network of about 30,000 radio stations created by individual Internet users, wanted a rate based on a percentage of revenue to pay performers and record labels. Webcasters, like over-the-air radio stations, already use such an arrangement to pay songwriters and composers.

But the Copyright Office said that because many webcasters have such small revenues, there would be little compensation for those who own the copyrights to songs."

redux [04.03.02]
Salon The battle over Web radio continues

"Now to your propaganda about webcaster finances. First, you point out that most webcasters are either out of business or on shoestring budgets. For those out of business, I assume you'd agree that royalties had nothing to do with it because they'd never paid a dime (e.g., NetRadio went out of business before the royalty rates were even announced thus denying record companies and artists in the millions of dollars). For the others, you claim that most are using Shoutcast or other free software. But they still must be either paying for bandwidth costs that would generally exceed their royalties, or having someone like live365 pay on their behalf. Live365 participated in the CARP proceeding (and actually hired two different high-priced law firms to represent them!). In the proceeding, live365 submitted evidence demonstrating how their costs for bandwidth, employment, sales and marketing, and hardware and software were many, many times their revenues."

"We understand that hobbyists are different. We are prepared and intend to work with true hobbyists to find a solution."

Monday, September 30, 2002

SiliconValley.Com Internet arrives in Iraq

"After resisting the Internet as a freewheeling tool of globalization and political anarchy for a decade, Saddam Hussein's government has cautiously embraced it.

Internet cafes have sprung up all over Baghdad in recent months, and even in smaller cities such as Karbala, a religiously conservative city 75 miles southwest of the capital. Just last month, the government took another major step, permitting some citizens to have Internet connections at home

Iraqis can now surf the Web and send e-mail to their hearts' content -- as long as they do it via www.uruklink.net, the government-controlled service provider monitored by Saddam's agents."

redux [08.29.02]
The New York Times Saudi Censorship of Web Ranges Far Beyond Tenets of Islam, Study Finds
[requires 'free' registration]

"THE Saudi government is censoring public Internet access to a degree that goes significantly but haphazardly beyond its stated central goal of blocking sexually explicit content that violates the values of Islam, according to a recent study by Harvard Law School researchers.

The study's detailed list of blocked sites offers a glimpse into the areas that the Saudi government has deemed most troubling. Among them are sites related to pornography, women's rights, gays and lesbians, non-Islamic religions and criticism of political restrictions. Many humor and entertainment sites have also been blocked."

The device has been the kind of purchase people imagined someone else might enjoy."

redux [06.25.02]
News.Com Russia poised to restrict Net activities

""This version of the bill still allows the ability to prevent Internet activities without any necessity," said Kovalev, a 72-year old civil libertarian and member of the liberal "soyuz peravikh sil" faction.

Kovalev cited the portion of the bill that says it is "forbidden to use computer networks for extremism" and pledges a vague punishment that may "take into consideration" existing Russian criminal laws."

Wired News Egyptians Flock to New Net Plan

"Unlike the less-populated but richer countries Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which only last year overtook Egypt as having the largest Arab Internet population, Egypt is not trying to restrict the Internet.

But security police are monitoring chat rooms and local sites deemed immoral or damaging to the state or religion have been shut down. A few people have been imprisoned for soliciting sex on the Net."

redux [06.06.02]
BBC China loses grip on internet

""Without the internet the story may still have got out," said Mr Zheng. "With so many people killed it would have been hard to keep it a secret for ever, but it would have been much more difficult."

The internet is changing China in subtle but profound ways. Information is now being spread and exchanged in ways unthinkable just a few years ago.

The Chinese state's once total control on information has been broken and hard as it may try it has little hope of regaining that control."

redux [04.16.02]
Online Journalism Review Censorship Wins Out

"A decade or so ago, it was all clear: the Internet was believed to be such a revolutionary new medium, so inherently empowering and democratizing, that old authoritarian regimes would crumble before it. What we've learned in the intervening years is that the Internet does not inevitably lead to democracy any more than it inevitably leads to great wealth.

The idea that the Internet itself is a threat to authoritarian regimes was a bit of delusional post-Cold War optimism."

redux [03.21.02]
Salon Will the Net save China?

"Mao once said, "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." The entrepreneurs in China Dawn seem to want to change the last phrase to "ISP access."

But their enthusiasm betrays a streak of naivete. As Tiananmen so amply demonstrated, in China today, political power still grows from the barrel of a gun. And the prediction that the rise of the Internet will liberate Chinese from authoritarian rule is far from certain."

South China Morning Post Who let the blogs out?

"One notable loophole in the content watch list are weblogs. Weblogs are content websites maintained by ordinary users that can act as introspective online diaries, soapboxes to rant opinions, and a vehicle guide the horde of Internet users to swarm to other obscure links to be found on the net. They are easy to update, cheap to maintain, and difficult to block because so many new ones appear each day. They utilize a client relationship with a server and can be updated with a simple browser."

The bureaucrats and censors in China who block and monitor websites will be hard pressed to try and control the future flow of weblogs both in and out of China due to the number and diversity of this new information platform. Having met actual Internet content censors from China, they are decent people but come from a different time and different place in terms of technology. They don't really get it yet since weblogs remain a concept difficult for them to understand for now."

redux [08.08.01]
First Monday The Internet and State Control in Authoritarian Regimes: China, Cuba, and the Counterrevolution

"It is widely believed that the Internet poses an insurmountable threat to authoritarian rule. But political science scholarship has provided little support for this conventional wisdom, and a number of case studies from around the world show that authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and counter the political impact of Internet use. While the long-term political impact of the Internet remains an open question, we argue that these strategies for control may continue to be viable in the short to medium term."

"In this paper we illustrate how two authoritarian regimes, China and Cuba, are maintainng control over the Internet's political impact through different combinations of reactive and proactive strategies. These cases illustrate that, contrary to assumptions, different types of authoritarian regimes may be able to control and profit from the Internet. Examining the experiences of these two countries may help to shed light on other authoritarian regimes' strategies for Internet development, as well as help to develop generalizable conclusions about the impact of the Internet on authoritarian rule."

redux [06.19.01]
Ananova Political heavyweight warns of 'web threat to democracy'

"Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister has warned the internet threatens democracy and people's sense of patriotism.

Lee Hsien Loong says governments must find new ways to build a consensus on national issues and strengthen national identities."

"The internet "opens up societies and helps individuals link up with like-minded souls anywhere in cyberspace," he said.

But it "may weaken the bonds of place and circumstance that have always tied citizens to their home and nation," he added."

redux [10.26.00]
Center for Strategic and International Studies Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age

"The world is changing fundamentally. Images and information respect neither time nor borders. Hierarchy is giving way to networking. Openness is crowding out secrecy and exclusivity. Ideas and capital move swiftly and unimpeded across a global network of governments, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations. In this world of instantaneous information, traditional diplomacy struggles to sustain its relevance."

"Nations once connected by foreign ministries and traders are now linked through millions of individuals by fiber optics, satellite, wireless, and cable in a complex network without central control. The Internet, with 100 million users today, will reach one billion people by 2005 and will be available to half the world's population by 2010. The network will become the central nervous system of international relations."

redux [10.10.00]
MediaChannel.Org A Tower Aflame: Media, Metaphor and Revolution

"Metaphors, symbols and sayings are mighty mind-setters. They captivate our minds and focus our attention to one main point, effectively excluding others. Putin used the burning of the Ostankino television tower, once hailed as a symbol of Soviet supremacy, as a metaphor for the desperate economic need of Russia. The global media played along with this tune, once again showcasing images of Russia's decay. But there is another largely untold story to be extracted from Putin's metaphor: TV towers are more than symbols - indeed they are very concrete centers of mind control, distributing the flow of information and entertainment."

"Who chose the crumbling Berlin Wall as the icon and metaphor for the breakdown of communism and the end of the Cold War? Wouldn't a TV tower in flames be more accurate? It wasn't about the free flow of capital. It was about the free flow of information."