How Christian Fundamentalism Feeds the Toxic Partisanship of US Politics

Stephan:  Here is the latest in the Theocratic Right's hateful attempt to shape education policy in an almost bizarrely nasty way. I am so tired of these people, and discouraged that a large portion of American citizens support this sort of stuff. The American Family Association, in my view, is an organization advancing a sickness in the American Psyché.

Mix It Up at Lunch Day is one of those programs that just seems like a nice thing to do.

The idea is that on one day of the school year, kids are invited to have lunch with the kind of kids they don’t usually hang out with: the jocks mix with the nerds, lunch tables are racially integrated, et cetera. Sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of their Teaching Tolerance division, it arose out of a broad effort to tackle the problems of bullying in the schools and bigotry in society – and it appears to have been effective in breaking down stereotypes and reducing prejudice. Over 2,000 schools nationwide now participate in the program, which is set to take place this year on 30 October.

You can argue about how permanent its effects are, or whether other approaches might be better, but the idea of making new friends in the lunchroom seems utterly benign. Right?

Wrong, as it turns out – at least, according to the American Family Association, a radical rightwing evangelical policy group. Mix It Up at Lunch Day is, in fact, part of ‘a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools’, according […]

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Empathy Represses Analytic Thought, and Vice Versa: Brain Physiology Limits Simultaneous Use of Both Networks

Stephan:  Increasingly we know how the mind operates. Yet we do not integrate this knowledge when developing social policies. Ideology and theology are more important. The research is published in the current online issue of NeuroImage. Sources: Case Western Reserve University (2012, October 30). Empathy represses analytic thought, and vice versa: Brain physiology limits simultaneous use of both networks. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 30, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2012/10/121030161416.htm Anthony I. Jack, Abigail Dawson, Katelyn Begany, Regina L. Leckie, Kevin Barry, Angela Ciccia, Abraham Snyder. fMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains. NeuroImage, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.061

New research shows a simple reason why even the most intelligent, complex brains can be taken by a swindler’s story — one that upon a second look offers clues it was false.

When the brain fires up the network of neurons that allows us to empathize, it suppresses the network used for analysis, a pivotal study led by a Case Western Reserve University researcher shows.

How could a CEO be so blind to the public relations fiasco his cost-cutting decision has made?

When the analytic network is engaged, our ability to appreciate the human cost of our action is repressed.

At rest, our brains cycle between the social and analytical networks. But when presented with a task, healthy adults engage the appropriate neural pathway, the researchers found.

The study shows for the first time that we have a built-in neural constraint on our ability to be both empathetic and analytic at the same time

The work suggests that established theories about two competing networks within the brain must be revised. More, it provides insights into the operation of a healthy mind versus those of the mentally ill or developmentally disabled.

‘This is the cognitive structure we’ve evolved,’ said Anthony Jack, an assistant professor of cognitive science at […]

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Modern Alchemy Leaches Gold From Water

Stephan:  This is one of several new technologies that represent an advanced approach to recycling.

SAINT-PIERRE-LES-NEMOURS, FRANCE - A small French start-up company is selling a technology with a hint of alchemy: turning water into gold.

It does so by extracting from industrial waste water the last traces of any rare - and increasingly valuable - metal.

‘We leave only a microgramme per litre,

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Anti-bullying Program Grows Despite Being Accused of Gay Agenda

Stephan:  In spite of the mean-spirited lunacies of the Theocratic Right, thankfully there are enough decent people with a compassionate socially progressive approach to block some of the Right's worst excesses. Here is an example.

TUPELO, MISS. — A record number of schools will participate in a national anti-bullying program, organizers said, despite a conservative Christian group’s push for a boycott of the event on the grounds it would ‘promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.’

Nearly 3,000 schools nationwide – about 30 percent more than last year – will take part on Oct. 30, in ‘Mix It Up at Lunch Day,’ an annual event that encourages students to sit by someone in the cafeteria with whom they would not normally socialize.

The initiative is organized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a rights group that defines ‘Mix It Up Day’ as an opportunity to teach students tolerance. The center makes no reference to homosexuality in its program overview, listing it only as a sample topic among dozens of others that schools can chose to discuss.

It is the first time the program, now in its 11th year, has been condemned by the American Family Association. In an Oct. 1 alert to supporters, the group based in Tupelo, Miss., called the event ‘a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools.’

The organization urged parents to boycott the event by keeping children home from school that day.

Bryan […]

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Buddhist Monk Is the World’s Happiest Man

Stephan:  If you read SR regularly you know my view that the greatest gift you can ever give yourself is to develop the daily practice of meditation. (See:http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2811%2900236-9/fulltext) Here is one reason why.

As he grins serenely and his burgundy robes billow in the fresh Himalayan wind, it is not difficult to see why scientists declared Matthieu Ricard the happiest man they had ever tested.

The monk, molecular geneticist and confidant of the Dalai Lama, is passionately setting out why meditation can alter the brain and improve people’s happiness in the same way that lifting weights puts on muscle.

‘It’s a wonderful area of research because it shows that meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree but it completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are,’ the Frenchman told AFP.

Ricard, a globe-trotting polymath who left everything behind to become a Tibetan Buddhist in a Himalayan hermitage, says anyone can be happy if they only train their brain.

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson wired up Ricard’s skull with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin four years ago as part of research on hundreds of advanced practitioners of meditation.

The scans showed that when meditating on compassion, Ricard’s brain produces a level of gamma waves — those linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory — ‘never reported before in the neuroscience literature’, Davidson said.

The scans also showed excessive activity in his brain’s left prefrontal cortex […]

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