For my book review, I read Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It by Gabor Maté. Based on his own experience as someone with ADD and his clinical experience with patients, he covers the origins of ADD, how it impacts relationships, and possible ways for people with ADD to deal with the challenges the condition presents in life.
Maté defines ADD as those who exhibit at least two of the following characteristics: poor attention skills, deficient impulse control, and hyperactivity. He explains that the neurological origins of ADD are rooted in missing neural connections and blood vessels in the prefrontal cortex. Dopamine and endorphins are central in generating the creation of new neural connections. These connections increase with an increase in the amount of endorphins and dopamine released which occurs when one has joyful, happy experiences. Those who are deprived of these experiences develop fewer dopamine receptors and blood vessels in the right prefrontal cortex; ADD is the result. Maté argues that this means that those with ADD were deprived of the happy experiences that nurture these attributes and as a result develop ADD.
Maté posits that a person's first few months of life are particularly important in the development of ADD. During this time, infinite amounts of neural pathways are being formed. Stress placed on the child inhibits synapses to form which results in hyperactivity persisting longer than is typical for the child's age. For Maté, parents are central in the child's development of ADD. I agree that it is probably true that certain environments allow ADD to thrive more than others, but what about the child that has two devoted parents in a nurturing environment and is still diagnosed with ADD? If ADD were to be attributed entirely to environmental factors, all children with negative parenting experiences would be ADD. Maté's inclusion of the genetic prerequisite for ADD appears to serve as a safety net for his argument as the rest of the book is focused on the environmental factors, particularly the parent-child relationship. Of course no environment or parent-child relationship is perfect so it is always possible to argue that these factors are responsible for ADD, but to me it seems like biology would play a bigger part in this scenario than Maté leads the reader to believe. Perhaps if he had spent more time developing the biological side of the argument then it would not seem as though this was the case.
One aspect of the book that I found particularly interesting and that I thought connected well with the rest of the class was Maté's description of ADD in respect to society. Something I really enjoyed about our class discussions was that we constantly questioned our own experiences as well as many agreements that society seems to have reached when it comes to conditions such as ADD. Maté's own approach to ADD is very similar. He views ADD as a condition that results from a different organization of the brain than what is considered "normal." The strategies he poses are ways for people to compensate for this different organization in a world that is not forgiving of those who are atypical. Rather than jumping to the conclusion that those with ADD are in need of medication, he explores alternatives to medication and how the person with ADD as well as those around them can aide them in coping with their condition. What is particularly refreshing is that Maté insists that if patterns of behavior are changed, new neural pathways can be formed and the negative aspects of ADD can be mitigated, no matter what the age of the person. For me this course really challenged me to look at the nervous system from many different perspectives and to question my previously held notions of reality. In many respects, Maté asks his readers to do the same through the lens of ADD.
That being said, he also emphasizes the drastic improvement that medication can have on someone who is struggling with ADD. He points out that it is essential for the patient, whether it is a child or adult, to willing take the medication. Additionally, the doctor prescribing the medication must be knowledgeable about ADD and what an appropriate dose of mediation is for the individual. He stresses that although medication can be used as a way for people to keep focus, ADD should not be seen as a disease that needs to be cured. Furthermore, he suggests that medication should not be the only treatment for ADD, but rather one of many lifestyle alterations that aides in combating the challenges faced by those with ADD.
Another part of the book that I found particularly interesting was Maté's correlation between ADD and addiction. He explains that among those with ADD, there is also a high incidence of people with addictions. He notes that the rush that people get from their addictive behavior regardless of whether it is gambling, smoking, or shopping releases neurochemicals which make them "feel good." For people with ADD, it is thought that the addictive behavior can serve as self medication and a source of dopamine and endorphin release.
Although this book is at times an interesting analysis of ADD, I found that Maté relies too heavily on his own personal experience as someone with ADD and his relationship with his wife and children to draw conclusions. For the majority of the book, I felt that I was reading his autobiography as opposed to a book about ADD. Furthermore, I felt that he would go off on tangents in order to explain background information about the brain in general and it was only after several paragraphs that he would make a weak connection to how it related to ADD. This could have been because his book is aimed at a general audience with little background in neurobiology or psychology. However even if this is the case, his personal stories and anecdotes detract from the explanation of ADD and the strategies those with ADD can use to compensate for the differences in the organization of their brain compared with what is considered "normal." Despite the aspects of this book that I found problematic, Maté provides an interesting overview of ADD and how those with ADD can cope in our society.

 “…To be Abstracted From the World”[1]: The Function of Dreaming 

  Why do we dream? My interest in this question was prompted by a fellow student’s remark in class in one morning. Most of our physiological processes seem to have a function, she observed, but what about dreaming? While the conversation that followed was rich and informative (and I especially liked Paul’s story of dreams as providing a whole new range of experiences, and that dreaming offers us a means of “trying out ourselves” in different circumstances) I was curious to learn what other neuroscientists had to say on the subject.

Literature, like biological evolution, does evolve, adapting and changing overtime.  Specifically when literature evolves the themes and literary devices central to literature and writing evolve as well.  Sex, both human nature and therefore a common theme in literature has evolved across authors and genres.  The descriptions of sex, and the literary devices used to describe it, have changed drastically over time thus portraying different messages and meanings to readers.   Sex is not only a strong literary theme but also a driving force in human reproduction and human nature and is therefore an important evolutionary topic to study.  Sexual contact is presented in different literary forms and mediums from the biblical scriptures to Shakespeare’s plays to Forster’s book Howard’s End and Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty.  In the Bible and Shakespeare sex is portrayed to the reader in a shorter concise manner, while in On Beauty almost every aspect of sexual intercourse is described.  Interestingly, in Forster sex is almost not described at all. By studying the evolving course of this literary theme we will be able to explore why the theme may have evolved this way, what this then says about the themes evolutionary history in the past and its future and how the evolution of this theme relates to man kind.  The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alonebut also to his wife (1)           

Trying to conceive of the geometry of a fourth dimension involves disregarding everything you thought you “knew” about reality, existence, and your ability to perceive the world around you. Typically when one hears about the fourth dimension, the mind goes directly to time, but in reality it doesn’t matter whether you call time the fourth dimension or the fortieth dimension. Each dimension must be perpendicular to all of the other dimensions, and it doesn’t matter what order you examine them in. In terms of this paper, the fourth dimension refers to a fourth spatial dimension.

Why seek to scale Mount Everest,
Queen of the Air,
Why strive to crown that cruel crest
And deathward dare?
Said Mallory of dauntless quest
`Because it's there.'

-Robert William Service

Inspired by George Mallory, a British mountaineer, Robert William Service’s poem, “Dauntless Quest”, poses a very interesting question (1). Why risk everything to climb one of the most dangerous mountains in the world for no tangible benefit? Or for that matter why risk losing your life for fifteen minutes of an adrenaline rush? For many years, extreme sports such as bungee jumping and skydiving, have appealed to many people despite the threat they pose to a person’s life. Personally, I have not partaken in many forms of extreme activity, but as strange as it sounds, I would very much like to satisfy my desire to jump thousands of feet out of a moving plane.

Biology/English 223: Evolution of Stories

Final Paper

In conjunction with our presentation given on May 1, 2007

The Author of a Theory and the Reader of a Text: Intentionality in Science and Literature

Introduction to the Project

            The idea of intentionality, in scientific theories and in fiction writing, has been an important and controversial one for our Evolution of Stories class.  Our class has mainly examined science, through biological evolution, as a non-intentioned, non-teleological process of development, and we have mainly examined literature as a product of the author’s craft and as an indication of his unique self.  My presentation, with Caitlin Evans and Jen Dodwell, aims to look at intentionality through different lenses than did our class.  Caitlin and Jen will turn in their papers and do their parts of the presentation separately from me, but I would like to situate my project by briefly explaining how Caitlin and Jen approached intentionality.  Caitlin reverses the paradigm through which our class has viewed science by showing how the scientist’s intention, and his analysis of his experiments and statistics, affects the scientific process, and she uses the novel, The Missing Moment by Robert Pollock to help prove her point.  Jen examines the relationship between the reader and the text.  What I examine, which follows this introduction, is the relationship between the author and the text, and how different conceptions of that relationship present differing and opposing opinions about how readers should engage with text.  I will do this by comparing what we have examined in class, Zadie Smith’s “Fail Better,” to a new postmodern framework laid down by Roland Barthes in his article, “The Death of the Author” and by Michel Foucault, in “What is an author?”  We aim to complicate and enrich the way our class has viewed the subject of intentionality in evolution and in literature.

Isabelle Winer

Professor Dalke

Story of Evolution

 “And She Aches Just Like a Woman”

The fight for social change does not occur for the iconoclasts only against the established norm but also with their own desires for security.  While convincing others to the cause may seem impossible, the battle within is simply a lost cause.  From birth we are constantly being initiated into our culture as we learn the social constructs, such as gender, which will serve as internal laws for the rest of our lives.  Like the process of evolution, true social change occurs slowly and over the passage of many generations.  For example each generation of women is fighting a gradually mutating battle for equality, causing each generation to struggle with a similarly gradual and mutating self-doubt.  Howards End and On Beauty portray how this doubt can manifest in two different time periods for two well-respected, self-sufficient women.  Margaret in Howards End feels that she is unable to make the decisions of a man and wants the comfort a husband can provide, despite the fact that she is financially independent.  While the women in On Beauty have gained political equality, Kiki has come to doubt her own intellectual self-worth outside of the accomplishments of her husband.  Both of these women display how difficult it is to maintain the resolve necessary for radical change.  

Empathy, defined by the American Dictionary Heritage as the “identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives,” is a capacity that is extremely essential to the development of social relationships between humans.  Empathy is a type of emotional intelligence that not only helps us to build strong, rewarding relationships, but also reduces friction in our social interactions.  When a person is capable of putting herself in someone else’s shoes she is better apt to predict how someone might respond to her actions and words, and thus avoiding unnecessary conflicts.  Besides from enabling us to predict the intentions and emotions behind other’s actions, empathy also allows us to learn vicariously through other’s actions.  In this way we learn the lessons and know the adverse emotional, physical, and mental consequences of certain actions without having to repeat the same mistakes of others.
 

I have three hours to complete my digital clock in my last advanced Physics lab of the second semester of my junior year. In front of me, I have a soldering iron, a partially completed breadboard and ten fingers that are shaking. The shaking makes the chips on my violet nail polish even more revolting. I sit on my hands, now a barrier between myself and the lab bench. The seven other seats in the lab are each filled with a male college student plugging in their iron, pulling out more solder from its sweet coil, studying their circuit diagrams (neater than mine) and not seeing the hands of the only female student shake because I am sitting on them. Problem solved. But how to get through the next three hours handless?

Pure science does not need hands. That's what he told me. Professor White did, my academic knight in shining armor. After that first semester, no, the first exam freshman year. Pure science is not about hands or things, he said, but thought experiments. Einstein-theoreticians predict the world before hands discover it. Your hands, your body is not what is important. He did not know-- the years at the barre, the exquisite pleasure of watching, no feeling, no both, your leg curving, the calf muscles clenching into the pointed toe. But ballet was not a profession; college was for professions and there was no ballet major here. Just now, this required physics course. He did not know-- Your grade on this final is so high, if I curved to you, everyone else in the class would fail, he said. I write the exams expecting everyone to fail. But you, you are brilliant, no your mind is brilliant. I don't know how you knew that much without coming to class regularly-- I knew: 3 days and nights alone with the text book, alone feeling the pot of coffee imbibed sawing its way through my temple, alone reading the theories until fluent in the symbols and equations, alone with the constants, unreal numbers that do not change (genius. what other truth does not change?), the laughing voices of the drunk girls in the hall searing my heart till I cry on the calculator, why this need to be perfect?