Tag Archives: Evolution

Television, Addiction, Evolution and You

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Scientific America has reposted Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi’s edifying report on television addiction. Here’s a key section explaining the physiological impulse that television exploits:

What is it about TV that has such a hold on us? In part, the attraction seems to spring from our biological “orienting response.” First described by Ivan Pavlov in 1927, the orienting response is our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity to movement and potential predatory threats. Typical orienting reactions include dilation of the blood vessels to the brain, slowing of the heart, and constriction of blood vessels to major muscle groups. Alpha waves are blocked for a few seconds before returning to their baseline level, which is determined by the general level of mental arousal. The brain focuses its attention on gathering more information while the rest of the body quiets.

In 1986 Byron Reeves of Stanford University, Esther Thorson of the University of Missouri and their colleagues began to study whether the simple formal features of television–cuts, edits, zooms, pans, sudden noises–activate the orienting response, thereby keeping attention on the screen. By watching how brain waves were affected by formal features, the researchers concluded that these stylistic tricks can indeed trigger involuntary responses and “derive their attentional value through the evolutionary significance of detecting movement…. It is the form, not the content, of television that is unique.”

The orienting response may partly explain common viewer remarks such as: “If a television is on, I just can’t keep my eyes off it,” “I don’t want to watch as much as I do, but I can’t help it,” and “I feel hypnotized when I watch television.” In the years since Reeves and Thorson published their pioneering work, researchers have delved deeper. Annie Lang’s research team at Indiana University has shown that heart rate decreases for four to six seconds after an orienting stimulus. In ads, action sequences and music videos, formal features frequently come at a rate of one per second, thus activating the orienting response continuously. [emphasis mine]

I guess this explains why commercials agitate me and often reduce me to a howling gibbon–hopping and screaming at the shiny, flashy television.

If you haven’t already read the article I recommend checking it out.

Cave Dwellers Cursing The Darkness

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There’s a body of men and women who systematically observe things and test theories through research and experiment. These people publish the results of their tests to be scrutinized, reviewed and rejected or accepted by their peers. For the sake of argument, let’s call these people scientists and let’s call what they do “science.”

Let’s say this rigorous method science is value-neutral; an objective process that works the same for anyone. It knows no ideology. It favors no creed, race or nation above others.

Finally, let’s assume that science has established a massive body of understanding which has, over time, improved the general condition of humankind and solved many long-standing mysteries. We can sort answers provided by science into specific categories: astronomy, biology, physics, botany, medicine, etc. The body of knowledge collected, while far from complete or infallible, provides a basis for understanding the living world and a foundation for further investigation.

Now, let’s say that there is a group of people who maintain a particular belief–an assertation, claim or expectation about reality that is presumed–and that this belief is undermined or threatened by science. Let’s call these people believers. The manner in which believers come to terms with the apparent contradiction between their own personal belief and science can vary, but generally they will reject or deny the findings of science or they will contort or modify their scientific understanding to custom fit their beliefs–at which point the process can no longer be considered science, since it is negated when it is adulterated by personal prejudice.

Kathy Cox, Georgian Superintendent of Schools, has taken a third route to placate believers: by suggesting that a word that represents a broad, complex and commonly accepted scientific process be banned from the state’s public schools.

In this case the scientific word is “evolution” and the believers are Christian conservatives. According to Cox, “evolution” is a buzzword; the connotation is that it is controversial and disturbing to some people. This means it disturbs religious conservatives.

I wish I could say that this is just appallingly bad judgement on Cox’s part, but there’s a deeper point illuminated here: her suggestion underscores how political pressure from organized religious groups have become powerful enough to potentially strike scientific words from the pedagogical lexicon.

These groups, some funded by right-wing conservatives (such as the ironically-named Discovery Institute) have applied pressure over the years to alter science standards and to recast evolution as a political matter instead of a scientific one. To these people, science is a matter of policy, not rigorous study or pursuit of knowledge. Over time these conservative policy groups have managed to transform a material matter of biological science into an ideological “buzzword”, one which apparently compels public servants to divorce themselves of any semblance of logic and utter unfounded, idiotic decrees.

Related Links
+ Talkdesign.org critically examines the “intelligent design” movement.
+ “Advances in Deception.” by Carl Zimmer
+ Talk.Origins Archive