Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga's Who's In Charge? Free will and the science of the brain is fascinating, but doesn't deliver on its promise
ABOUT half way through this fascinating book, Michael Gazzaniga harks back to his previous one, Human. He wanted to call it Phase Shift, he says, but his publisher overruled him.
Gazzaniga - one of the giants of modern neuroscience - tells this story to illustrate a point about the difference between animal and human brains, but by the end of the book it has taken on a different complexion. Because while Who's In Charge? is full of wonderful material, anybody expecting an answer to the vexing question of free will is going to come away disappointed.
The book is based on Gazzaniga's contribution to the Gifford lecture series, established in 1887 at four prestigious British universities to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term". It romps around the intersection of neuroscience and the human condition, from Gazzaniga's own astonishing work on split-brain patients to social neuroscience, consciousness, morality and more. Free will gets a look in, but is far from the centrepiece. To subtitle the book Free will and the science of the brain frankly sets up expectations that are never met, and which prove very distracting.
As one example of how the title does disservice to the content, Gazzaniga opens his final chapter with the harrowing story of Lawrence Singleton, who in 1978 raped a teenage girl in California, hacked off her forearms with an axe and left her to die by the roadside. She survived, and her testimony helped put Singleton away. He got 14 years but served just eight. After being released for good behaviour, he went on to murder a prostitute. He died on death row in 2001.
As I read this horrific tale, I was expecting it to be the point where Gazzaniga finally takes on the problem of free will. Singleton's acts were monstrous, but was he really responsible? Frustratingly, the story turns out to be a preamble for a discussion of how our brains deal with justice and retribution. Interesting stuff, but my own brain was plotting a bit of justice and retribution of its own for being misled.
So what of free will? The problem is a familiar one. We live in a deterministic universe. Given enough information about its present state, we could extrapolate to any past or future state with 100 per cent accuracy. Everything that has or will happen was determined at the big bang - and given that our brains are part of the physical universe, free will does not exist. Depressingly, neuroscience itself offers little comfort that this isn't the case.
Gazzaniga's solution is also a familiar one. Post-Newtonian physics has retreated from strict determinism in the form of quantum mechanics, chaos theory and emergence. Perhaps neuroscience can use them to rescue free will? Gazzaniga throws all of these at the problem but ultimately they bounce off, leaving determinism's hard and unforgiving core intact.
There is a great book waiting to be written on free will. This isn't it, but it's worth reading all the same.
Google lets Wi-Fi network owners opt out of mapping
Simply adding "_nomap" to the name you've given your domestic WiFi network will prevent Google Maps-equipped cellphones using your home as a position fix, Google announced last night. The idea is to allow people the chance to opt out of helping provide Google's commercial positioning service - even though doing so is likely to degrade its accuracy.
Google announced the opt-out option on its blog today in a further move to assuage the criticism it faced over its infamous Wi-Fi data sniffing operation carried out in 2010. When Google's Street View cars photographed our streets and used laser radar to get the shapes of buildings right in Google Earth, it also sniffed the air for two key ID numbers on the Wi-Fi networks at each property: the router's hardwired Media Access Control (MAC) address and the Service Set Identifier (SSID) - the name you've given your network. However, lax controls on the MAC/SSID sniffing software resulted in Google also acquiring personal data, such as snippets of our emails and web requests - leaving it censured by data protection authorities.
Why use Wi-Fi data for positioning? When phones can't get a GPS satellite fix in a built-up area, triangulating signals from either cellphone antennas and/or Wi-Fi routers can provide a reasonably accurate position fix. So, Google and rival providers like Skyhook look for and store our MAC and SSID data on their location servers.
However, pressure groups like Privacy International complain that databases of Wi-Fi IDs were surreptitiously compiled and that people should be able to opt out. This is what Google has provided today. But while adding _nomap to your SSID will prevent passing Google devices using your network, it won't stop its rivals using it. But Google hopes the opt-out format will be adopted by its rivals, too.
Google announced the opt-out option on its blog today in a further move to assuage the criticism it faced over its infamous Wi-Fi data sniffing operation carried out in 2010. When Google's Street View cars photographed our streets and used laser radar to get the shapes of buildings right in Google Earth, it also sniffed the air for two key ID numbers on the Wi-Fi networks at each property: the router's hardwired Media Access Control (MAC) address and the Service Set Identifier (SSID) - the name you've given your network. However, lax controls on the MAC/SSID sniffing software resulted in Google also acquiring personal data, such as snippets of our emails and web requests - leaving it censured by data protection authorities.
Why use Wi-Fi data for positioning? When phones can't get a GPS satellite fix in a built-up area, triangulating signals from either cellphone antennas and/or Wi-Fi routers can provide a reasonably accurate position fix. So, Google and rival providers like Skyhook look for and store our MAC and SSID data on their location servers.
However, pressure groups like Privacy International complain that databases of Wi-Fi IDs were surreptitiously compiled and that people should be able to opt out. This is what Google has provided today. But while adding _nomap to your SSID will prevent passing Google devices using your network, it won't stop its rivals using it. But Google hopes the opt-out format will be adopted by its rivals, too.
Defence witnesses testify in Nature libel trial
A libel case brought against the scientific journal Nature by an independent physicist is hearing statements from defence witnesses this week in London. Mohamed El Naschie, a former editor of the physics journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, is claiming that an article published in Nature in November 2008 damaged his reputation. The article is currently unavailable on the Nature website.
The article questioned the peer-review process at Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, where El Naschie served as editor and published many of his own papers. Peer review is at the heart of science publishing: research papers submitted to journals are assessed by scientists who are experts in the relevant field.
The Nature article also reported that several of El Naschie's claims of affiliation with academic institutions could not be verified.
The trial started in London's High Court on Friday, although El Naschie, who is representing himself, has not been present during the proceedings.
The article questioned the peer-review process at Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, where El Naschie served as editor and published many of his own papers. Peer review is at the heart of science publishing: research papers submitted to journals are assessed by scientists who are experts in the relevant field.
The Nature article also reported that several of El Naschie's claims of affiliation with academic institutions could not be verified.
The trial started in London's High Court on Friday, although El Naschie, who is representing himself, has not been present during the proceedings.
Humans killing at least 750 Bornean orang-utans a year
Indonesians are killing endangered orang-utans at an alarming rate. At least 750 were killed in one recent year, according to a new survey.
The survey focused on Bornean orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus) living in Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of the island of Borneo. Led by Erik Meijaard of People and Nature Consulting International in Jakarta, Indonesia, researchers interviewed 6983 people from 687 villages between April 2008 and September 2009 about bushmeat.
Tallying up individual accounts, they estimate that between 750 and 1800 orang-utans were killed in the year leading up to April 2008. In previous years, however, things were even worse: the researchers calculate that between 1950 and 3100 were killed each year.
Interviews suggest 54 per cent were killed for food and eaten by local people. Conflict between humans and orang-utans also seems to be a factor: 10 per cent of orang-utans were said to have been killed because they were raiding crops, and 15 per cent of respondents said the orang-utans had come into conflict with local people.
Even without the threat of becoming bushmeat, Bornean orang-utans are already endangered, with no more than 69,000 left in the wild. The main culprit is habitat loss, with expanding palm-oil plantations often blamed. The high rate of killing only adds to the pressure on the species.
Seventy-three per cent of respondents knew that orang-utans were protected by Indonesian law. "If people are found holding a dead orang-utan they should be prosecuted," says Ashley Leiman, director of the Orangutan Foundation in London. But that is not the case, she says. Killing orang-utans is illegal, but the Indonesian government rarely prosecutes or punishes perpetrators. She is aware of just one successful prosecution; another case is pending.
The survey focused on Bornean orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus) living in Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of the island of Borneo. Led by Erik Meijaard of People and Nature Consulting International in Jakarta, Indonesia, researchers interviewed 6983 people from 687 villages between April 2008 and September 2009 about bushmeat.
Tallying up individual accounts, they estimate that between 750 and 1800 orang-utans were killed in the year leading up to April 2008. In previous years, however, things were even worse: the researchers calculate that between 1950 and 3100 were killed each year.
Interviews suggest 54 per cent were killed for food and eaten by local people. Conflict between humans and orang-utans also seems to be a factor: 10 per cent of orang-utans were said to have been killed because they were raiding crops, and 15 per cent of respondents said the orang-utans had come into conflict with local people.
Even without the threat of becoming bushmeat, Bornean orang-utans are already endangered, with no more than 69,000 left in the wild. The main culprit is habitat loss, with expanding palm-oil plantations often blamed. The high rate of killing only adds to the pressure on the species.
Seventy-three per cent of respondents knew that orang-utans were protected by Indonesian law. "If people are found holding a dead orang-utan they should be prosecuted," says Ashley Leiman, director of the Orangutan Foundation in London. But that is not the case, she says. Killing orang-utans is illegal, but the Indonesian government rarely prosecutes or punishes perpetrators. She is aware of just one successful prosecution; another case is pending.
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