Proposed: Understanding the brain doesn't suck.

"... recall the famous quip from Jeff Hammerbacher, a former Facebook engineer, who said, 'The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.' We contend that working in biostatistics using complex neuroimaging data to solve the biggest puzzle of them all – understanding the human brain – is a worthy alternative."

-from "WANTED: Neuro-quants" by Brian Caffo, Martin Lindquist, and Ciprian Crainiceanu, which appears in the the Huffington Post.

Remember my laryngitis?

It resulted in a number of epiphanies! I wrote about what I learned about communication by not speaking, just published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Here's an excerpt:

Losing my voice for several days was a fascinating exercise. I gleaned empathy for people who cannot speak, express themselves immediately, or yell for help. My biggest epiphany was around questions: I was distressed that I could not ask my husband about his day, what he was reading, or what he was telling me. I thought a lot about how questions express interest and how they also influence conversation. I realized that questions are about helping the person questioned be heard and better understood; they can also be about selfishly amplifying the voice of the questioner.

And here's the full link.

"Teaching to see."

May I suggest that you find a big screen and a comfy chair before clicking through to watch this amazing 38-minute video produced by Edward Tufte?

"How strange is the lot of us mortals!"

"Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." 

- Albert Einstein.


h/t: Andrew Sullivan

Some good advice from Karen Amstrong.

"There are times when you have to speak out against injustice or cruelty. But if you speak — and this is what Gandhi said — in order to punish or wound, you will do more harm than good. The Dalai Lama said that to condemn injustice with hatred in your voice will make the injustice worse. ... So it does no good to attack viciously. The thing to do is not to rise to the bait."

-from an interview with Karen Armstrong in the June issue of the Believer magazine.

Title of the Week!

"Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing" appears in the journal Science.

Our final word about beer, this year.

Just one sentence by Mr. Garrett Oliver – from the second paragraph of his editor's introduction to The Oxford Companion to Beer:

"Beer does not resemble wine so much as it resembles music."

Why Story Matters - Syracuse Edition

Tomorrow evening, November 14, I will presenting a lecture on Why Story Matters at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University - my alma mater! The lecture, which is open to the public, begins at 7 PM. Upstate NY NeuroCooking readers, please join me!

I am told this event will be live-tweeted, with the hashtag #pekar.

On Wednesday evening, I will be conducting a workshop with the Women Presidents' Organization, Syracuse Chapter. This will focus on why story matters in leadership. This program is by invitation-only.

"The Hero of Saratoga"

When NeuroCooking last reported on David Kosizek in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, he was reading a letter home from the Korean War. Yesterday, we caught up again there with Mr. Kosizek – or should we say with General Benedict Arnold, conquerer of Ticonderoga, hero of Saratoga, and commander of West Point:

In a small theater in the museum, General Arnold defended his record to audience members who arrived more familiar with certain later events, such as, um, his attempt to sell to the British the plans to West Point, in order to ensure its capture.

A modest proposal...

Now that it has been reported that "... greater liberalism [is] associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism [is] associated with increased volume of the right amygdala", we have no doubt that candidates for high political office in the USA will soon be expected to disclose not just their tax returns and medical evaluations, but also their brain scans.

"But, if you want the best person, ..."

In 1940, Frank Graham, President of the University of North Carolina, asked George Snedecor, a leader in statistics whom he had recently happened to meet on a train, for a favor. Could Snedecore recommend a man to lead the new statistics department in North Carolina? Snedecore responded with a letter that listed ten men, and then stated:

"These are the ten best men I can think of. But, if you want the best person, I would recommend Gertrude Cox."

Cox got the job.

_____

Source: "The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century" by David Salsburg, 2001 (chapter 19).

"My feeling about you is just the opposite."

In 1926, Wolfgang Pauli attended a lecture by Paul Ehrenfest. Afterwards, Pauli made many criticisms, and an exasperated Ehrenfest said:

"I like your publications better than I like you."

Pauli responded:

"Strange. My feeling about you is just the opposite."

____

Source: "137: Jung, Pauli, and the pursuit of a scientific obsession" by Arthur I. Miller.

Just play!

Baris Yuksel, one of my brilliant Improv classmates, shared his Improv-induced epiphany: "It's not about me; it's about getting the work done."

He was talking about writing a document that he had to share with a large group of colleagues, who were sure to offer ample edits, additions, and suggestions for improvement. Baris thought about waiting a couple of days after completing the draft to perfect it prior to sending it out. Then he realized, No, just send it; in two days, the project will be done.

This is leadership. Act at 80%; the last 20% doesn't make much difference - it is, essentially, time spent striving for perfection. Why stress about achieving perfection as a soloist when you are truly engaged in group process? Respect your team's creativity and contributions, and contribute with generosity and a true respect for pluralism: the openness to be changed by anothers' input. Allow every member of the team to own the project. Write the story together.