artpixie:

red velvet girls (by .elsie*cake.)

danceabletragedy:

Be who you are by Jessica Massie

pdl2h:

Design You Trust - Design and Beyond! - Birdnest Bed, furniture and playground all in one

fuckyeahmolecularbiology:

Dear sensationalist journalists,

There is no such thing as “a niceness gene.” I repeat. There is no such thing as a niceness gene.

For the past week or so, news stories have been cropping up all over about specific genetic receptors to two hormones, oxytocin and vasopressin, that make us “sociable, more caring, and generally nicer.” After reading the former sentence fragment in the opening statement of this particular article, and before I started pulling my hair out in response to its broad, sweeping claims not supported by a single shred of observable evidence, I decided to read a little further.

The lead researcher, Michael Poulin, is quick to say that it isn’t exactly a “niceness gene” he’s researched, but particular gene receptors that serve as a sort of booster system to help explain why some people are more socially generous than others.

Before I begin to get into why describing gene receptors as ‘niceness genes’ when the original paper, published in the journal Psychological Science, specifically states that its purpose is to “understand how receptor genes for oxytocin and vasopressin interact with threat to predict prosocial behavior”, is woefully inaccurate, I would like to introduce you to the endocrine system.

Oh, and the autocrine, paracrine, and juxtacrine systems. And did I mention the nervous system?

These are all the complex systems in our bodies that regulate mood. Interestingly enough, in psychology there is a pretty basic distinction between mood and personality traits; moods are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event then emotions, such as fear or surprise. However, moods are impermanent, whereas personality traits are considered to be semi-permanent and largely determined by a person’s brain chemistry. The endocrine system, to be fair, does play a fairly large role in determining mood.

But unless we’re considering niceness to be a mood - defined in psychology as an impermanent state (good God, I hope not!) - then it looks like we’re trying to see how the endocrine system affects a personality trait. Not a particularly good start, is it?

My main problems with this article (and, to an extent, the premise of the experiment in general, although not being a psychologist I won’t pretend to understand what does and does not constitute well-done research in psychology, as I imagine it to be difficult given the spectrum variability in humanity) are these:

1. Brain chemistry is intensely complicated. We don’t entirely understand how it works; many of the big questions in biology, philosophy, biochemistry, neuroscience, and probably many other related disciplines revolve around defining, interpreting, and finding the causality of consciousness in human beings. Just sticking the word ‘genetic’ in front of something doesn’t make it predetermined and true - for example, ‘genetic receptor’. Although most hormones do have receptors, which are proteins, and which, yes, are made from folded polypeptides transcribed from genes, that is not the whole story. These receptors will have multiple signalling sites for a variety of different types of molecules themselves, and the cells they reside in will have even more; hormone receptors, gated ion channels, ATP-coupled pumps, voltage-gated channels, G-protein coupled receptors, ATP receptors, etc… Not to even mention simple diffusion and osmosis. Saying that two particular hormones binding to two particular receptors makes people “nice” - or even “acts as a booster to make people more generous” - is a sweeping claim, and one largely influenced by brain chemistry that we don’t understand very well. Assuming that complicated neurological pathways - such as those that generate “niceness” - are solely triggered by two small hormones and do not rely on anything else in the massive web of signalling pathways and systems in our bodies is almost laughable.
2. Secondly, nothing in the study even referenced the fact that glands excrete hormones in response to neural signals. People with common mental disorders - such as depression - could have significantly thrown off the results of the study, because their brain chemistry might be different enough to have a different reaction to the binding of the hormones to the specific receptors that were researched.
3. Even if we accept the oversimplified theory, as postulated in the paper, the paper is not even about a niceness gene!!! It’s about people’s response to threat - threat they perceive in the world around them - and how that affects their social behaviour. This would only make any valid findings “niceness genes” if we accepted the premise that we’re only nice because we feel threatened.

Richard Dawkins would just like to say shame on you.

Journalists, please stop publishing sensationalist stories - or, if you must, please read the entirety of the scientific study in question, not just the abstract.

Sincerely,

A molecular biologist.

suicideblonde:

Masha Tyelna photographed by Tim Walker for i-D Magazine, November 2007

darksilenceinsuburbia:

Lori Earley. Mrs. V. ,2008. Oil on Board.

http://www.loriearley.com/