You can tell a person's personality from the words they use. Neurotics have a penchant for negative words; agreeable types for words pertaining to socialising; and so on. We know this from recordings of people's speech and from brief writing tasks. Now Tal Yarkoni has extended this line of research to the blogosphere by analysing the content of 694 blogs - containing an average of 115,000 words w
13 Vote(s)
July 12, 2010
June 15, 2010
DSM-5 in the Digital Age—Part 1
Many have challenged the claim of the APA/DSM-5 Task Force that the current process is the most "open process in the history of the manual." Few have actually provided an argument or evidence of why this might, or might not, be so. What has changed dramatically in the DSM process since DSM-IV in 1994, and even DSM-IV-TR in 2000, is the rise of Internet culture and the "blogosphere." What does thi
13 Vote(s)
13 Vote(s)
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May 26, 2010
Whales, Dolphins, and Human Rights
The perspective that whales, dolphins, and other such marine mammals should be afforded "human rights" has surfaced again.I thought I'd revisit a post I wrote about this several months ago, from the archives, when this first hit the news after the AAAS conference in San Diego. So here's a modified, updated version of the original post.The blogosphere is all a-twitter with talk of the recent comme
11 Vote(s)
11 Vote(s)
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February 28, 2010
Are Dolphins People Too?
The blogosphere is all a-twitter with talk of the recent commentary in Science that dolphins should be considered people. Well, sort of people. Non-human people.On the heels of the incident at SeaWorld in Florida in which a trainer was killed by one of the killer whales, this is especially an important issue to consider.Frequent commenter [...]... Grimm, D. (2010) Is a Dolphin a Person?.
20 Vote(s)
20 Vote(s)
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January 29, 2010
Research Blogging Awards
Research Blogging is a great site that amalgamates posts on peer-reviewed science from around the blogosphere. If you're a regular visitor, you may have noticed the little Research Blogging icon at the foot of a lot of posts. Well now you know why it's there :)Anyway, the reason for this post is that they're calling for nominations for the Research Blogging Awards 2010.Just saying, all right? In
5 Vote(s)
5 Vote(s)
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June 25, 2009
Online Ethics And The Bloggers’ Code Revealed
Whatever their reason for posting their thoughts online, bloggers have a shared ethical code, according to a recent study. Key issues in the blogosphere are telling the truth, accountability, minimizing harm and attribution, although the extent to which bloggers follow their own ethical ideals can depend on the context and intended audience.
15 Vote(s)
15 Vote(s)
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May 18, 2009
Scientia Pro Publica #4 at Primate Diaries
The fourth edition of Scientia Pro Publica blog carnival is up at Primate Diaries. This one's dedicated to the memory of Stephan Jay Gould, who died seven years ago this month. I was chuffed to see that Eric (he of Primate Diaries) had chosen one of my earlier posts.Eric's picked out dozens of great science writing from the blogosphere (I especially like Neuroskeptic on Free Will). Head on over t
10 Vote(s)
10 Vote(s)
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