Marc and Michael- The hardwiring analogy is brutally imprecise and dismissive (as I think Marc is saying). It is pure psychobabble (except it is also physiobabble, neurobabble, etc.). The original idea was, if memory serves, to differentiate more "fixed" elements from those that are more mutable. Unfortunately, shallow thinkers (certainly no reference to Marc's post!) ran with it and dragged it into political and other realms to justify prior beliefs more than pursuit of knowledge (imho). But I think Lance and others are hardwired in some senses (Marc's reference to Lance being a physiological outlier- I prefer that to freak though your characterization is true as you used it). On the other hand, it is true that all the professional cyclists are "freaks" in that sense. Ulrich, Basso, and most of the others have similar numbers physiologically (Landis' numbers on VO2 max and O transport are higher than Lance's for example). What seems to explain Lance to me is more a combination of the experience of overcoming cancer, having been near death, etc. Plus, he's a very driven individual (contrast that to Landis' laid back, humorous, lighthearted exterior- I am just referring to the public image, which, of course, is partly the result of their press). The results of Lance's tour exploits are difficult to explain without an engine aerobically (which is both genetic and built), drive, opportunity, luck, a great team and support (witness T-Mobile's failures over recent times despite their being 1/3 better funded than any other team), and a host of other factors. Luck is obvious if one observes the recently announced hip problems for Landis. Will he ever win with an artificial hip- seems unlikely but a seven time winner whose is a cancer survivor seems implausible as well (at least it used to!). But this, and human nature and cynicism, are also reasons these folk are so easy and attractive to accuse of doping, etc. (Ok. My personal feeling is that Lance's success seems hard to explain- but so was Merck's domination. And Merck was thrown out of a Giro because of doping- though most believe he was "set up" and the history of the Giro is replete with intrigue to get Italians to win! It is equally hard to explain why Lance got away with it, if he did, and never got caught. I just don't see him as being that intelligent or careful.) Anyway, nothing is as simple as "hardwiring" or similar concepts tend to indicate. Tim _______________________________ Timothy O. Shearon, PhD Professor and Chair Department of Psychology Albertson College of Idaho Caldwell, ID 83605 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history and systems -----Original Message----- From: Marc Carter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mon 7/24/2006 8:31 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] RE: Are you hardwired? Hmm. I would disagree with the characterization of Armstrong's abilities as being the result of his being "hard-wired" and instead refer to him as a physiologic freak -- but in a very, very good way. His ability to metabolize oxygen is well outside the range of normal and almost surely contributed to his success as a cyclist, but it has little or nothing to do with hard-wiring in his brain. Is there evidence of hard-wiring in the brain? Hmm. I'm hard-wired to seek food when I'm hungry, to seek rest when tired, to categorize objects, to perceive spectral differences as colors. I'm hard-wired to want to have sex, to infer causality from the repeated conjunction of two events, and things like that. There're tons of instances of hard-wired-ness in human brains. But just because we're hard-wired in some respects doesn't take anything away from our plasticity in other respects. Your last question refers to an "explanation," but I don't see the referent in the rest of your post. m ------- "Mauchly's Test of Sphericity: Tests the null hypothesis that the error covariance matrix of the orthonormalized transformed dependent variables is proportional to an identity matrix." --- SPSS ________________________________ From: Michael Sylvester [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 7:48 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Are you hardwired? The expression hardwired seems to be going around as a possible explanation for motivation and some behavior.For example cycling legend Lance Armstrong and others who excel despite of their infirmities are said to be hardwired for their specific accomplishes. Is there any evidence for hiredwiredness in the brain? or is this just another psychobabble? And to the religious tipsters,could this explanation be construed as a form of teleogical predestination? Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang= english --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
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