The greatest sin–and virtue–of human memory

The human brain has a remarkable ability to categorize data. We use heuristics, or mental “rules of thumb”, to make sense of the world around is with efficiency, and usually, accuracy. That vital ability to generalize has protected us from harm since the beginning of our species, and it still aids us immensely in processing and storing information.

But the human tendency to generalize also gets us in a lot of trouble. The brain’s predisposition to throw sensory and contextual data into categories takes much of the blame for forms of human illogic such as stereotyping, prejudice, and jumping to conclusions.

Disillusioned with the failings of our logical process, we may feel tempted to shirk the instinct to generalize all together. At first blush, it sounds like a fantastic (if impossible) way to cure the world of much its ignorance and needless hate. If we could remove the part of the brain that draws quick conclusions automatically, where would that leave us as a species?

Well, it would make us autistic.

Psychologists associate autism with poor social skills, lacking communication ability, and a stubbornly structured and highly literal way of information processing. According to Harvard University Professor of Psychology Daniel Schacter in his book The Seven Sins of Memory, Autistics lack real-world critical thinking skills because they look at everything in an individualized, literal way. This explains in part why autistics tend to have astounding rote memorization, yet lack any grasp of context.

Without the ability to generalize, we …

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Are you a rebel? What is your birth order?

Here’s an interesting example on how intuition can go awry.  What would you guess to be the primary factor for determining whether a scientist is receptive to new and innovative scientific theories?  Education? Economic resources? Gender? None of the above! 

In Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (1996), a meticulously researched book that has now withstood a decade of criticism, Frank Sulloway concluded that those people who tend to cling to old paradigms, who are not confortable with new innovative scientific theories, have something surprising in common.  They tend to be firstborns. Sulloway based his conclusions on the analysis of the written positions of 3,890 persons, writers who have commented over the past several hundred years on controversial new scientific theories.

Firstborns are significantly more likely to “identify more closely with parents and authority,” and more “conforming, conventional and defensive—attributes that are all negative features of openness to experience.” [pp. 21-22.] 

Sulloway analyzed the attitudes of the writers of published commentary regarding the theory of Copernicus during the early stages of that controversy:

[I]ndividual laterborns were 5.4 times more likely than individual firstborns to support Copernicus’s claim that the earth revolves around the sun.  Copernicus himself was the youngest of four children.

[p. 38] There are many books written for a lay audience on the topic of birth order, but very few of them are carefully documented with statistical analyses.  Sulloway’s book is a shining exception to the rule.  It is a highly detailed work …

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The magazines of Wal-Mart

Wal-mart is where America shops, right?  Therefore, the magazines offered by Wal-Mart must be what America reads.  On this assumption I traveled to a sprawling St. Louis Wal-Mart supercenter yesterday to photograph the magazine rack.  There were many titles, indeed.  You’ll see them in the photos embedded in this post.  Because there are so many titles, there must also be quite a breadth of information, right?  You’ll be the judge.  I’m putting up this post with the hope that we can all put our heads together and do a bit of anthropology.

Now for the tour. Here are the magazines of Wal-Mart from left to right):

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The first thing you might notice is that the literature is categorized a bit differently than it is in a public library.  For instance, the Dewey Decimal System uses the following major categories:

000 Generalities
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature & rhetoric
900 Geography & history

It’s a bit different at Wal-Mart, where you’ll find these categories:

  • Automotive
  • Fashion
  • Teen
  • Entertainment
  • Woman
  • Information
  • Sports
  • Men’s
  • Home/Garden
  • Puzzles & Games
  • Computers

There doesn’t seem to be any overlap at all.  Perhaps the Dewey system can be revamped to take advantage of this cutting edge Wal-Mart catergorization.  I realize, now, that these Wal-Mart topic labels are not literal and exact.  For instance, the fact that one section is called “Information” doesn’t mean that there is …

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The One-Percent Doctrine

The “One Percent Doctrine” is the title of a new book by Ron Suskind about the so-called “strategic thinking” of our current presidential administration. In case you are still wondering why we attacked Iraq, and you don’t buy any of the president’s ever-changing explanations, you might want to check out…

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