Meaning matching is the process of recognizing The idea of the machinelike brain has inspired

elements (referents) in the message and and guided neuroscience since it was first
accessing our memory to find the meanings we proposed in the seventeenth century, replacing
have memorized for those elements. This is a more mystical notions about the soul and the
relatively automatic task. It may require a good body. Scientists, impressed by the discoveries of
deal of effort to learn to recognize symbols in Galileo, who showed that the planets could be
media messages and to memorize their standard understood as inanimate bodies moved by
meanings, but once learned this process mechanical forces, came to believe that all
becomes routine. To illustrate, think back to nature functioned as a large cosmic clock,
when you first learned to read. You had to subject to the laws of physics. And they began
learn how to recognize words printed on a page. to explain individual living things, including our
Then you had to memorize the meaning of each bodily organs, mechanistically, as though they
word. The first time you saw the sentence “Dick too were machines. This idea that all nature
threw the ball to Jane,” it required a good deal was like a vast mechanism, and that our organs
of work to divide the sentence into words, to were machinelike, to replace the two-
recall the meaning of each word, and to put it thousand-year-old Greek idea that viewed all
all together. With practice, you were able to nature as a vast living organism, and our bodily
perform this process more quickly and more organs as anything but inanimate mechanisms.
easily. Learning to read in elementary school is But the first great accomplishment of this new
essentially the process of being able to “mechanistic biology” was a brilliant and
recognize a longer list of referents and to original achievement.
memorize their denoted meanings.
There is little doubt that climate change will Guilt must be distinguished from shame. The
make it harder to produce enough food for the difference lies in how widely the bad feeling is
world’s growing population and will alter the generalized. Guilt focuses narrowly on the
seasonal timing, availability, and quality of water action, whereas shame spreads to the whole
resources. To avoid extending agriculture into person. Guilt says, “I did a bad thing.” Shame
already environmentally threatened areas, the says, “I am a bad person.” Research based on
current rate of agricultural productivity growth that distinction has repeatedly shown that
will have to be doubled, according to the World shame is usually destructive, whereas guilt is
Bank, while minimizing the associated usually constructive. This may be worth keeping
environmental damage. In the extreme event of in mind when you deal with your assistants and
a 5°C warming, agricultural productivity would workers, or your children, or your students (or
be likely to decline throughout the world, even your romantic partners). How do you
particularly in the tropics, even with changes in criticize them when they do something wrong?
farming practices. This could mean that more Calling their attention to what they did wrong
than 3 million additional people could die from may seem necessary, but phrasing your
malnutrition each year. Even the more likely 2°C criticism in terms of being a bad person (e.g.,
warming would produce new weather patterns “you liar”) is not nearly as constructive as
challenging conventional agricultural practices, allowing them to be a person who did a bad
and between 100 million and 400 million more thing (e.g., “you shouldn’t have lied”).
people could be at risk of hunger.
Success at innovation will have a major impact Attempting to quantify human behaviour and
on the quality of life in the years ahead as will reducing this behaviour to a set of statistics is
failure. Perhaps a vaccine can be found to difficult and likely meaningless. Instead,
prevent cancer. Perhaps an effective means will anthropologists rely on qualitative research,
be found of providing clean, inexhaustible, which involves long-term observation of, and
affordable energy for the entire planet. Perhaps participation in, the daily lives and activities of
there is a large asteroid hiding somewhere and the people they are studying. This is known as
intent upon destroying the Earth — a participant observation, and its value cannot be
catastrophe that, through innovation, can overstated, even in contemporary research.
perhaps be prevented. The quality of life in Living in close proximity to the study group,
developed countries today heavily depends upon learning their language, and participating in
advancements in science and technology — and their daily lives allow anthropologists to develop
this is increasingly becoming the case for all a much deeper understanding of the range of
the world’s nations. But the benefits of scientific human behaviour. The adage “See me as I do,
advancements often accrue, not simply to the not as I say” is remarkably accurate when
individual investor but to society at large, thus studying human behaviour. For both
making it essential that the general public anthropologists and the general public, trying to
support both education and research in science understand other people by listening, observing,
and technology. Only in this manner can our and even participating goes a long way toward
children and grandchildren hope to enjoy a dispelling some of the stereotypes and
standard of living higher than that of the intolerance we hold for other ways of living.
generations that have preceded them.
Exclusive technology can be used only by the Oftentimes people talk about their “ideal day.”
elites who have access to required resources, Perhaps they like sleeping in, only to be woken
and have the aptitude and means to benefit up by the calming sounds of the ocean’s rising
from special training. Agriculture requires tide. Breakfast mimosas replace brunch, and
warmth, rainfall, and soil, which are not they lie on the beach with a good book and a
available for people living on high mountains year-round tan. This is often defined as your
and dry deserts. The invention of writing led to ultimate day. And while it sounds fun in theory,
the formation of a class of scribes and elites, the reality is you will likely not be living your
who had the necessary time and means to learn ultimate day every day. It is not practical, and
writing, and had access to books that were to be honest, it would not be as special if you
hand copied and kept in libraries away from the did it every day. Think of it like buying your
general population. This led to a division of the dream car vs. renting it for a week. If you buy
population into the literate lords and priests the dream car, eventually you have to change
with knowledge and power, who ruled over the its oil, replace its tires, be concerned about
illiterate common people. When a technology is parking it and getting scratches — your dream
new, it tends to be used only by the elite to becomes tainted with problems. But if you
increase inequality; as the years go by and the occasionally rent the car, you get all the joys
cost keeps falling, it becomes more affordable and fun of it without having to worry about the
for everyone and thereby more egalitarian. problems. That’s what an ultimate day is more
like, which is why making an ultimate day your
every day is problematic.
Change is a common trait of living things. Each
living thing changes as it grows older, but more
important forms of change occur from one
generation to the next: Children are different
from their parents. Nature cannot plan ahead
and design a certain kind of change. Instead,
nature produces changes that are essentially
random. That is, the complicated processes that
mix the genes of two parents to produce a
unique set of genes in the baby sometimes
produce novel outcomes in the form of new
traits. However, powerful forces react to these
random changes. As a result, some random
changes will disappear, whereas others will
endure. The process of natural selection decides
which traits will disappear and which will
continue.
For example, imagine that one baby was born
with no ears, another with one leg longer than
the other, and the third with eyes that could
see farther than the average eye. Having no
ears or having legs of unequal length would
probably be disadvantages, and natural selection
would not preserve these traits for future
generations. A significant improvement in vision
might, however, be selected to remain because
the baby who grew up seeing better than other
people would be able to find more food and
spot danger from a safer distance. The genes
for better vision would therefore remain in the
gene pool (assuming that this baby would grow
up and have babies), and so in future
generations more and more people would enjoy
this improvement.
One aspect in which virtual relationships are Information technology has great potential for
different from other more tangible forms is that, influencing markets. It bridges time and distance
because the interaction is mediated and in a completely new way, and opens markets
abstracted away from the physical person, that were previously unattainable because they
people may experiment with different aspects of were geographically too remote. Until recently, a
their personas in a manner not easily executed small town would have no more than three
in face-to-face interaction. For example, there banks competing with each other for the
are instances of gender inversion, whereby a business of the town’s residents. Today, we
man may use a female avatar to participate in have a situation in which literally thousands of
an online community and vice versa. Also, national and international banks compete with
depending on the application or game, age, each other for customers in that same small
weight, skin color, and other phenotypes can be town. Financial institutions, such as banks, no
altered so that the player may try out a longer have to maintain a physical presence to
different look and see how he or she is be able to do business. Financial transactions,
accepted by the community. Although there is such as buying and selling shares, are being
evidence that many people will adapt their executed electronically and the customer can
virtual selves to look a lot like themselves monitor the progress of such transactions on
offline, there is an understanding among those his or her personal Internet page. In 2000, more
in the virtual community that it is acceptable than half of all stock orders placed by
practice to experiment. Thus, virtual individuals in the United States were initiated
communities provide spaces for some networked via the Internet.
individuals to connect, interact, play, and
experiment, and for their participants they are a
source of meaningful interaction and purposeful
relationships.
Emotions play a gatekeeper role in cognition. One day I walked out of the washroom to find
The allocation of attention and working memory my wife and children laughing heartily on the
does not happen by miracle. We attempt to couch. My wife had just told our daughters to
solve problems that are only emotionally listen at the door, promising that I would
important to us. Think of emotions as a whistle shortly before I departed. Apparently I
biological thermostat that activates attention, had. I say apparently, because I certainly wasn’t
which then activates a rich set of problem aware of it. Having no recollection of whistling,
solving and response systems. When danger or I concluded that they were just having fun with
opportunity arises, information from our senses me. Several days later, lost in deep thought in
triggers an emotional reaction that informs the the washroom, I reached for the toilet paper. I
rest of the brain that something requires heard myself whistle. Shocked, I started to
further attention and maybe even some problem laugh. What was going on? Upon reflection I
solving. Emotions operate unconsciously determined the origin of such odd behavior.
constantly evaluating sensory information from During my toilet-training, my mother would
our total environment, even while we’re asleep often leave me seated on the toilet while she
or attending to other things. When our emotions went about her housework. I was to alert her
enter awareness, we call it a feeling, and then when I finished. I would signal my readiness
we can begin to consciously deal with the with a whistle — a behavior that became
challenge using our reasoning abilities. unconsciously ingrained.
The rights to freedom of speech and access to One of the most important developments in
certain information apply as equally to sports journalism in recent years has been the
journalists as they do to private citizens. growth of online publishing, or websites on the
Journalists have always resisted attempts to Internet. Websites have provided thousands of
make them different, partly because if the media new outlets for sports journalists, created many
were to have special privileges it might also be new jobs and offered new ways of satisfying the
expected to have special obligations. However, growing thirst for sporting information. Because
this is not the case throughout the world, and websites are easy to set up and relatively cheap
in some European countries journalists have to service and maintain, the growth has been
special rights and special rights of access to rapid. Almost every sports club and governing
information unavailable to the general public. In body now has its own site, many of them
Belgium, for instance, journalists have special employing professional journalists. The web now
travel rights and cut-price telephone calls. In supports sites operated by everyone from
Portugal, journalists have special rights of commercial and public service media
access to government sources of information organisations, through sporting organisations
and a legal right not to be coerced into acting and individual athletes, to fans. Not surprisingly,
against their consciences, while in both Portugal the quality of sporting websites is equally
and Italy, journalists cannot work for the media variable.
without being registered and obtaining a press
card. France, Britain, Luxembourg and the
Netherlands all have national identity card
schemes in cooperation with the police. These
are voluntary and you can operate as a
journalist without them, but they do make
working in dramatic situations such as
demonstrations, riots and disasters much easier.
Until far into the nineteenth century, history Sometimes we refer to practicing as a process
was seen as being essentially the result of the of acquiring experience, implying that we can
actions of kings, statesmen, generals, and other collect and store our practice experiences. This
dignitaries. Readers expected the historian to metaphor is helpful. If we were unable to store
explain the actions of such people; this was the memories of past physical activity experiences,
measure of the historian’s success. each trial would be like our first. We would be
Furthermore, it was generally believed that in the same situation as people who have lost
common sense was all that is needed for the their short-term memory because of damage to
historian to be able to give such a plausible and an area of the brain known as the basal
convincing account of the actions of kings and ganglia. Because such people can’t store
statesmen. And since common sense is, in information about their previous response in
Descartes’s well-known view, the most justly memory, successive repetitions of a skill usually
distributed good, since nobody complains about do not bring about learning. They may have
having too little of it, there was no need for the played the piano 100 times, but each attempt is
historian to have any specific abilities as a an entirely new experience. With a normally
historian. The only talent that was needed, functioning brain, however, we can benefit from
beyond mere common sense, was the historian’s memories of our experiences and gradually
ability to write a sufficiently coherent and reshape our motor responses in ways that allow
convincing narrative. Rhetoric was the discipline us to attain skill goals more accurately and with
that taught the historian how to be such a greater efficiency.
successful storyteller — hence, history was
conceived as a branch of (applied) rhetoric
rather than as a discipline in its own right.
In 1958, a group of social scientists tested
different techniques of brainstorming. They
posed a thought-provoking question: If humans
had an extra thumb on each hand, what
benefits and problems would emerge? Then they
had two different types of groups brainstorm
answers. In one group, the members worked
face to face; in the other group, the members
each worked independently, then pooled their
answers at the end. You might expect the
people working face to face to be more
productive, but that wasn’t the case. The team
with independently working members produced
almost twice as many ideas. Other studies
confirmed these results. Traditional
brainstorming simply doesn’t work as well as
thinking alone, then pooling results.
That’s because, the scientists found, groups that
have direct contact suffer from two problems.
The big one is blocking — a great idea pops
into your head, but by the time the group calls
on you, you’ve forgotten it. The other is social
dampening: outspoken, extroverted members
wind up dominating, and their ideas get adopted
by others, even if they’re not very good ones.
Introverted members don’t speak up. In
contrast, when group members work physically
separately from one another — in what
researchers call “virtual groups” — it avoids
this problem because everyone can generate
ideas without being cognitively overshadowed or
blocked.