Two heads are not better than one

A recent study claims, “People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group” than when alone.

Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.

The researchers speculate that when a group of people receives information, the inclination is to discuss it. The more times one option is said aloud, the harder it is for individuals to recall other options.

MSNBC

Novel list

J. Peder Zane, book review editor of the Raleigh News & Observer, asked 125 noted writers for their 10 favorite works and compiled a list of the all-time Top 10.

The winners (in order, from top to bottom) are: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; Tolstoy’s War and Peace; Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita; Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Shakespeare’s Hamlet; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; Proust’s In Search of Lost Time; the stories of Anton Chekhov; and George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

An unexceptionable list, right? Well, only until you start thinking about it. Critic Sven Birkerts, in his introductory essay, picks up on two oddities: first, only one of the works is by a woman (and she, Mary Ann Evans, used the male pen name of George Eliot); second, only one was written before the 19th century. No Homer, no Dante, no Chaucer.

Also no Charles Dickens. Or Jane Austen. In fact, Middlemarch is the only British novel on the list, which itself seems strange.

Philadelphia Inquirer

It’s all relative

Ponder this:

Imagine you have a choice between earning $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000 or earning $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000. Prices of goods and services are the same. Which would you prefer? Surprisingly, studies show that the majority of people select the first option. As H. L. Mencken is said to have quipped, “A wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife’s sister’s husband.”

Now read why people tend to choose the first option: Scientific American

Moral calculations

What would you do?

Imagine a tram hurtling out of control towards five pedestrians. If you could flick a lever to switch the tram on to a track with just one person, is it permissible to kill one to save five?

Then think of yourself on a bridge above the track. Now the only way to stop the tram is to push down a heavy object – and there is one beside you, in the form of a fat stranger.

Is there a difference in these two situations? What is the difference?

FT.com

Tell me the truth about love

For Valentine’s Day, a fascinating collection of research and factoids about love, lust, relationships can be found in this article in The Independent. For example, here are a couple of items.

In one study of married and cohabitating couples:

The lowest mortality rates were found in those who were named by their partner as a key source of emotional support and closeness, but who themselves actually named someone else as the one special person in their life.

Another item confirms that, indeed, we become stupid when we fall in love:

Scientists have discovered that certain parts of the brain become deactivated when we’re in love, including areas linked with negative emotions, planning, critical social assessment, the evaluation of trustworthiness and fear.

Biological studies have found that this phase of reduced cognitive function, during which faults are ignored, can last from one to two and a half years. This temporary state of delusion has a vital human function. If we immediately saw all our partner’s faults, we would be less likely to form a stable relationship in which to produce children.

Someone else owns your genes

Through the absurdity of patent law, by now one-fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned.

Desperado

Apparently, the social phenomenon of speed dating now allows researchers new ways to study the mystery of initial attraction. (The short answer: Don’t seem desperate, even if you really are.)

Conventional wisdom has long taught that one of the best ways to get someone to like you is to make it clear that you like them. Now researchers have discovered that this law of reciprocity is in dire need of an asterisk in the domain of romantic attraction.

The more you tend to experience romantic desire for all the potential romantic partners you meet, the study shows, the less likely it is that they will desire you in return. (Think too desperate, too indiscriminate.)

In contrast, when you desire a potential partner above and beyond your other options, only then is your desire likely to be reciprocated. (Think hallelujah, finally, someone really gets me.)

Biology News Net

$91 million left on New York City streets

Every year, $91 million are left on the streets of New York. Here’s one man who harvests some of it to survive. Link

He and others like him call themselves canners and they are the modern day gleaners.

From indieWire:

For her latest documentary, “The Gleaners and I,” [Agnès] Varda turned her mini DV-camera on an old practice — foraging for wheat left after the harvest — to create a portrait of modern day “gleaners,” those hungry people who live on the leftovers the rest of us have discarded, and those, like herself, who create art of the images and materials they collect.

indieWIRE: Gleaning is such an unusual subject. I wonder what drew you to it as the topic for a documentary.

Agnès Varda: Gleaning itself is not known — is forgotten. The word is passé. So I was intrigued, by these people in the street picking food. And then I thought, what’s happening to the fields of wheat? Nothing is left in the fields of wheat. So I went to the potatoes, and I found these heart-shaped potatoes, and it made me feel good. Made me feel that I was on the right track.

Heart-shaped potatoes, like other odd-shaped potatoes, are leftover because shoppers only pick round, perfectly shaped ones.

To choose or not to choose

If ethics is about deciding whether something that “can” be done “should” be done, this seems like a perfect paradigm of an ethical question.

If people want to choose their baby’s sex before pregnancy, should doctors help?

Some parents would love the chance to decide, while others wouldn’t dream of meddling with nature. The medical world is also divided. Professional groups say sex selection is allowable in certain situations, but differ as to which ones. Meanwhile, it’s not illegal, and some doctors are already cashing in on the demand.

NY Times

Football Wisdom

You never know where you will find wisdom; I’ve been finding a lot in the sports columns lately, thanks to TMQ, Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN.com

Hillary Tempts the Election Gods: “I’m in, and I’m in to win.” So began the announcement Hillary Clinton sent to her supporters. Matt Hasselbeck [quarterback for Seattle Seahawks] once said at the coin flip of a playoff overtime, “We want the ball and we’re gonna score.” That didn’t turn out so well. [They lost.]

Unload Your Sorghum Futures, Buy Stocks: The Wall Street Journal predicted last week that the Bears-Colts Super Bowl pairing will cause the stock market to rise in 2007. Whenever a team in the original, premerger NFL wins the Super Bowl, the market usually rises that year; whenever a former AFL team or expansion team wins the Super Bowl, the market usually declines. This indicator has held for 32 of the 40 Super Bowls thus far. Because the Bears play the Colts, an original-NFL victory is assured; the Indianapolis Colts were in the original premerger NFL as the Baltimore Colts.