I thought that the videos highlighted in the article were excellent portrayals of the student, their personality and the skills and interests they could bring to the university.
I know that if I were on the admissions board, these students would be rocketed to the top of the pile.

Also included in the article was a link to an article about a high school dub-off. The videos were put together by AV students in rival high schools. The quality of work was superb for this level. It would serve as a very nice addition to their portfolios when applying to colleges.

The article author brought up some very good points about the pros and cons of this potential trend. And I agreed with the points being made.
However, I think the benefits of allowing these types of products into the application portfolio easily outweigh the downsides of doing so.
The creativity exhibited in these videos is wonderful. Colleges should be encouraging this sort of thinking and the first step towards doing so is to let creative students attend their college. They should also be teaching creativity and designing the classroom environment and assignments in such a way as to facilitate and reward creativity. Not all classes, mind you, but enough that college graduates should have the ability and some practice at being more creative after attending college than they were when they entered college.

I support the idea of teaching and fostering creativity at all levels of the educational process. I support this idea in word and deed. I do this because I believe that creativity is good for the individual and good for society. I KNOW it is good for the economy.

” … a perfect example of what British science writer Alastair Clarke has dubbed: “The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humor,” a new theory in a field in need of one.”

I understand the difference between primary and secondary sources of scientific information. I also am interested in both pattern recognition and humor. I am familiar with the incongruity theory of humor and wondered how Clarke’s pattern recognition theory differed from incongruity theory. Consequently, I looked in PsycInfo (the psychology journal article database) to find the research on which Alistair Clarke’s theory was based.  There was none.

I thought maybe Alistair Clarke wasn’t publishing in psychology journals, so I used Google Scholar to try to locate the primary research on which his theory was based. This search was also unsuccessful at identifying such research.

Further searching brought me to Mr. Clarke’s website in which I found that he was not affiliated with any university and had left graduate school without receiving an advanced degree. Let me say at this point that I have no problems with Mr. Clarke developing his own theory of humor and writing a book about it. As far as I can tell, he has not made any unjustified claims about his qualifications in regards to developing theories of humor.  What I DO have problems with are the various science-based blogs treating his work as “science,” when in fact, the theory is just rationalism (at best) or opinion (at worst).

I say this because what I DID find when searching for primary source information on the pattern recognition theory of humor was a series of science-based blogs and websites that treated Mr. Clarke’s work as science. For example, the Science Daily news website (“Your Source for the Latest Research News”) reports Mr. Clarke’s theory as follows:

“First universal theory of humour answers how and why we find things funny. Published June 12, The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humour by Alastair Clarke answers the centuries old question of what is humour.”

The rest of the Science Daily article just quotes Mr. Clarke.  They also provide instructions following the article about how to “cite this story in your essay, paper or report.”

The website, ScienceBlogging, reported Clarke’s theory similarly, introducing it as

“Published today, The Pattern Recognition Theory of Humour, by Alastair Clarke, answers the eternal question about the nature of humor. Clarke explains how and why we find things funny and identifies the reason humor is common to all human societies, its fundamental role in the evolution of humans and its continuing importance in the cognitive development of infants.”

I believe this gives the impression that the information being reported is science with all the credibility that goes along with something being scientific. However, the theory they are reporting is anything but scientific.

I’m sorry to say that the original article in Psychology Today that got me started on this rant is no better. In it, the author says the following:

“Author Arnold Glasow argued that laughter is “a tranquilizer with no side effects,” while the political commentator Norman Cousins felt is ‘a powerful way to tap positive emotions.’ While neither of these men are psychologists their answers represent some of the earlier ideas about where humor comes from and why we use it.

Robert Provine, on the other hand, spent over a decade studying the topic and later wrote in the pages of this magazine: “laughter is primarily a social vocalization that binds people together….a hidden language we all speak. It is not a learned group reaction but an instinctive behavior programmed by our genes.”
Clarke disagrees with all of them. In his just published theory, he had gone hunting for a ‘global theory of laughter.’ Because researchers have been interested more in what we laugh at (content) rather than mechanism, this kind of universal theory is one many thought impossible. But what Clarke realized is that laughter is just another example of our brain’s pattern recognition system at work.”

The blog author then explains Mr. Clarke’s ideas about why Robert Provine is wrong and his Pattern Recognition of Humor is correct.

I looked up Robert Provine’s work in the PsycInfo database and found 38 articles in which he was one of the authors. He was first author on many of the articles which dealt with issues of language, laughter, emotion and, yes, even evolution.

Dr. Provine’s work IS science. His understanding of laughter and his opinions about the nature of laughter are based in science and deserved to be reported as science. It annoys me that his opinions are so lightly brushed aside by Steven Kotler in his Psychology Today blog.

In fact, Dr. Provine is one of many top-notch scientists who blog for Psychology Today. Two psychologists I know and for which I have the highest respect have Psychology Today blogs. Though they sometimes post on topics outside their area of research, they make very clear the distinction between science-based information and opinion-based information when discussing those topics. I only wish the other science blogs would do the same.

By failing to critically evaluate the science they are reporting, science blogs are potentially guilty of promulgating misinformation, pseudoscience or out-and-out falsehoods to the general public. It is my opinion that if you are making yourself out to be a science-based purveyor of information, you are obligated to critically evaluate the scientific integrity of that information.

Why do I believe that critically evaluating the information is up to those reporting that information rather than those consuming the information? Because it takes training to effectively engage in the kind of critical analysis that is sometimes necessary to distinguish science from pseudoscience. One has to understand the scientific process and know how to determine whether the information being communicated was obtained through a scientific process. Though the general public should be thinking critically about the information they consume, they may never have had the training necessary in order to verify the scientific integrity of the information. Consequently, they rely on the expertise of those publishing the science blogs to report scientific information accurately.

As science bloggers, how are we to inspire public acceptance, understanding and enthusiasm for science if we don’t report good science? Education should not be sacrificed in favor of entertainment.

Suburban Bear on the way to Work

For those of you reading my Twitter and Facebook feeds, you may have noticed that today was filled with a series of  bizarre updates revolving around the day in the life of a suburban bear.

It was actually a full day Twitter experiment.

I had looked at Twitter in the past but didn’t see any added benefit beyond what other Social Networking sites such as Facebook or LiveJournal offered.  In fact, it appeared to offer less in the way of interaction and activities than what other social networking sites provided.  I have a few friends that use Twitter as their primary application but they couldn’t really explain what it was exactly that they liked about Twitter.  In fact, this inability to explain the attraction of Twitter seems to be a recurring theme with the service.

However, after a stimulating lunch with the Oakland University faculty (most of whom were from Writing and Rhetoric) at the E-Learning brown bag, I decided to give Twitter a try.  I could see almost immediately how it was an effective application for businesses and entrepreneurs who needed to frequently update their followers about current offerings, meetings and whatnot.

I also appreciated the links posted by some of the Rhetoric faculty who attended that eLearning brown bag. And there was also the pleasure of getting to know new people through their updates. However, using Twitter to update others of your day to day activities and interesting articles you have encountered is something that I do already in Facebook. And, frankly, I enjoy reading people’s comments to each other’s updates and links in Facebook.  In Twitter, I frequently feel as if I am only hearing one side of the story.  I still couldn’t figure out why some many people consider Twitter to be a big deal or how I could use it to communicate better with others.  However, I put in an effort to use it to post my own tweets and to follow the tweets of some of my friends and some businesses (if you consider “The Onion” or “Somecards” to be tweeting about business).

So what does this all have to do with suburban bears?

Well, for some reason this morning as I was getting ready for work, I was thinking about Twitter and wondering how else I could use the application.  It was then that I came up with the idea to post Twitter updates during the day in the form of a story (I think this was partially inspired by blogs posted by a friend of mine for “Blog Like its the End of the World” Day). For some reason, I decided to post them in the form of a nature documentary focusing on “Ursus Unfamiliaris” – the suburban bear. This “twitter-mentary” focused on the day in the life of a specific bear whom I called “Cee.”

I then posted about the events during my day as if they were happening to Cee the Suburban Bear and being commented upon by the narrator of the documentary.

It was actually a fun experiment. It was very challenging to explain what was happening with a 140 character twitter update, to restrict the updates to just the major events in the day, to maintain the story line throughout the day while trying to also be entertaining.

Judging from the comments to my posts on Facebook, I think some people were entertained, others were probably confused and a couple joined in the fun with one friend in particular expanding on the Twitter update with storyline.

This experiment allowed me to think more flexibly about Twitter and how it can be used.

I know it was fun enough that I want to spend another day making narritive Twitters throughout the day.

For those of you who missed the Day in the Life of the Suburban Bear Twitter-mentary, here are the posts:

11:15 PM: We conclude this day with Cee and her family secure in their den, contemplating the universe through the windows of their laptop screens.

8:06 PM: The mothering instinct is strong in suburban bears. “Cee” feeds and nurtures both mature family members and canine companions. AMAZING!

6:35 PM: Suburban bears form lasting pair bonds and greet each other enthusiastically after even relatively brief separations.

2:44 PM: Unlike most animals (who search their environment for fruit and berries), “Cee” the suburban bear, is searching her campus for monitors

12:50 PM: Cee wages battle with the computers in the computer lab! The howls and roars are terrifying!

9:25 AM: Cee searches the parking lot for signs of friends or foes before entering Pryale Hall.

9:06 AM: Familiar with her surroundings, Cee successfully forages for eggs, grains, roots and coffee on the way to work.

8:46 AM: “Cee” grooms herself carefully knowing that her status will be judged by the appearance of her glossy fur.

8:38 AM: Today we have the rare opportunity to observe a mature female of the species Ursus Unfamiliaris (more commonly known as the “Suburban Bear”)