[tips] Scientific American Tribute to Jose Delgado

[Mike Palij]

The Scientific American website has an updated version of a 2005
article about Jose Delgado, he of stopping the bull with a chip implanted
in the bull's brain, which Tipsters might find interesting. See:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/tribute-to-jose-delgado-legendary-and-slightly-scary-pioneer-of-mind-control/

One observation made in the article is that Delgado's work has
not been cited much in recent years and it could be because
of the scary implications of mind control.  However, there is
a quote from Delgado in the article that resonates with my own
feelings about the issue of whether cognitive function is localized
or involves global brain activity and I reproduce it here:

"People are trying to investigate: Where is the area of
the brain essential to consciousness? That's a silly
question," because consciousness and cognition in
general almost certainly stem from the workings
of the entire brain. "The whole brain is involved in everything!"

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu

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[tips] Tenure Track Position in Clinical/Counseling Psychology at Fitchburg State University in MA

[Sara Levine]

Hi all,

Fitchburg State University, located west of Boston, MA, is seeking candidates 
for our tenure track faculty position in Clinical/Counseling.

General Statement of Duties:  Full-time, tenure-track assistant professor in 
the area of Clinical/Counseling Psychology.  The candidate must be able to 
teach undergraduate courses in the core curriculum (e.g., Introduction to 
Psychological Science, Abnormal Psychology, and Psychology of Personality) as 
well as elective courses in the candidate's area of specialization.  Doctorate 
in Psychology required.  Specialization in diversity or cross-cultural studies 
preferred.

Additional information and a link to the application can be found here:
https://fitchburg.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdetails.jsp?JOBID=89217

Thanks!

Sara Levine

Sara Pollak Levine
Professor & Chair of Psychological Science
Fitchburg State University
McKay 206B
978-665-3611

For appts please contact Brenda Coleman, Administrative Assistant for 
Psychological Science, at 
bcole...@fitchburgstate.edu or 978-665-3355.

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[tips] Rats In Pants

[Mike Palij]

Do you wear polyester pants?  Ever wonder if they affected your
reproductive ability in additional to making a fashion statement?
Yeah, me neither.  But one Egyptian doctor was very much
concerned about this (i.e., reproductive aspects, not the fashion
part) and even did studies in which rats wore little pants made
from different materials (now THAT is an example to use
when teaching ANOVA) as well as studies with other animals
and humans.  A short article on this remarkable researcher
can be read here:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/polyester-rat-pants-ahmed-shafik-science-reprodcution-static-electricity

The article notes that the dedicated researcher won a posthumous
Ig Nobel prize in 2016.  Now how did I miss that?

For some reason, I can imagine an old Monty Python type
comedy sketch involving the presentation of research results
involving rats wearing polyester pants.  And questions about
whether the rats wore or took off the pants while having
sex (makes one wonder about humans in the same situation ;-).

One wonders if one can get pigeons to wear pants too. ;-)

-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu




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[tips] Random Thought: From an "Awful" to an "Awe-full" Classroom, IV

[Louis Eugene Schmier]

Boy, did I have to run for my fire extinguisher to douse the searing flames 
that jumped out from a message I recently received.  “….Emotions have no place 
in the classroom.  My task is to be totally objective, to be devoted to my 
discipline, to solely disseminate information, and to develop thinking skills.  
I am a professor, not a teacher.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  I will not 
coddle anyone who doesn’t wish to acquire a mastery of the subject.  I care 
about students, but it they aren’t up to it, if they don’t do what I want, I 
don’t see where it should be my concern.”  Then, in a final flicker, this 
professor summed up his response to my last few reflections on the role of awe 
in our lives in general and in the classroom specifically,  “Such 
foolishness.!!”

The beginning of my answer was in six parts.  First, I said, “If you are turned 
off by such words as ’soul,’ ’spirit,’ ‘heart,’ ‘hope,’ ‘faith,’ and ‘love,’  
feeling that feeling has no place in academia, getting emotional about 
incorporating emotion in the teaching and learning processes, substitute them 
with the more acceptable word, ‘brain.’  After all, I have been talking about 
integrated functions in the brain that are being discovered and described by 
what is called ‘brain-based research.’  But, when you do, understand two 
things.  First, as Rabbi Abraham Herschel said, ‘Words create worlds,’  yours 
and theirs.  What you say and how you say it matters.  And, second, understand 
that academia, like the whole of society,  is inside something of a cage.  It 
has traditionally and errantly elevated the intellect to the levels of higher 
order of human wisdom while divorcing it from ‘emotion’ that was dismissed and 
denigrated to the depths of a lower, neanthderthal-like, brutish order.  Yet, 
modern studies reveal that our brain functions as an integrated whole; it isn’t 
physically divided into separately operating cognitive and emotive compartments 
or that it functions in a way on one side, the objective side, totally 
separated from and uninfluenced by from the other, the subjective emotional 
side, or visa versa.”

Second, I said, “Everyone in that class is alive.  Things are happening in 
front of us, not in our lecture notes.  So many of us have the greatest disdain 
for so many students for a minimum number of reasons that closes us to the 
students.  It’s a barrier to unconditional and non-judgmental connection and 
commitment, for being supportive and encouraging sources of courage, hope, 
faith, and love.  The primary test of what we do is how we behave towards the 
so-called average or poor student, that student who needs us the most.  It is 
easy to “care about” the good or honors students.  It’s like asking a physician 
to care only for the healthy.  But, the caring for the ‘lesser student’ is the 
true judgment of who we are and what we do.  Isn’t it our task to help the 
supposed ‘don’t belong’ belong, to assist the ‘don’t know hows’ to learn how?  
For me, awe doesn’t allow me to get smug by focusing on what I’m doing right at 
that moment with those particular students.   But, they are changing day by day 
and term by term.  So, I have to ask myself, everyday and every week and every 
month: What haven’t I done?  What do I have to do? What do I have to 
differently?  What can I do better?  Take care, we should be concerned 
unconditionally for the needs of each and every student.  We should believe in 
and have faith in and have hope for each student, if for no other reason, then 
we do not know what potential lies beneath the surface waiting to be tapped.  
Callous indifference, bred by selective conditional and judgmental ‘caring,’ 
and by ‘it’s always been done this way’ habits, that has diminished empathy and 
compassion, is one of the greatest threats to education.”

The third part of my reply was: “What I am sharing is not foolish, and 
certainly not useless.  Again, it’s the current science.  So, to repeat what 
I’ve said in my previous reflection, all the researchers looking into the power 
of ‘awe,’ whom I have mentioned, have concluded that being ‘awe-full,’ when the 
rubber of awe hits the road, when putting the pedals of faith and hope and love 
to the metal, helps you to be able to see the mighty oak in that supposedly 
insignificance acorn.If we know that in the ordinary acorn are the 
beginnings of the extraordinary oak, why can’t we see that in each supposedly 
unimportant average or poor student are the potential beginnings of importance? 
 Awe tends, in the words of Keltner,  ‘to increase people’s feeling of 
connectedness and willingness to help others.’

Fourth, I said, “Keltner and Piff found that when people experience ‘awe-full,' 
they tend to cooperate more, share more, and sacrificed more for others who 
will then achieve more.  And, if achievement is truly your goal for the 
students, you should be interested, intensely interested, in the stimulating 
and inspiring power of “awe-f