Hits of the week past
Category: Brains and minds
The week's best -- with new features!
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Neuron Culture
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
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I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.) Right now I'm writing my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which explores the hypothesis that the genetic roots some of our worst problems and traits — depresison, hyperaggression, violence, antisocial behavior — can also give rise to resilience, cooperation, empathy, and contentment. The book expands on my December 2009 Atlantic article exploring these ideas.
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.
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Orchids & Dandelions (behav genetics):
Neuron Culture's top five from December
Category: Art
The month's goodies included orchids and dandelions; more of those; Shakespeare; toddlers in many permutations; and, naturally, a bit of stress.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Radio hour - More orchidity, this time on New Hampshire Public Radio
Category: Brains and minds
I'll be on New Hampshire Public Radio's Word Of Mouth" noon-hour show tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec 22, talking with host Virginia Prescott about "Orchid Children," my recent Atlantic article about the genetic underpinnings of steady and mercurial ltemperaments. My segment will run about 10 minutes beginning at or just after noon.
Posted by David Dobbs at 1:26 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Orchids & dandelions on the radio, ctd
Category: Brains and minds
Last Friday I was on "To the Best of Our Knowledge," the excellent talk show put out by Wisconsin Public Radio, talking with Anne Strainchamps about my Atlantic article. Strainchamps is a good interviewer and we got some interesting calls. Those who missed it can listen to the hour-long segment here.
Posted by David Dobbs at 4:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Does the "orchid-dandelion" metaphor work for you? My duel with David Shenk
Category: Books
David Shenk thinks my orchid-dandelion metaphor for temperamental plasticity is fatally flowed. I disagree. We duel. You decide.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:27 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Are "orchid kids" the same as "gifted children"?
Category: Brains and minds
The concern dominating the Motherlode commenter thread responses, and in a few other places as well, is whether the "Orchid Children" of my title are what many people call "gifted" children (defined roughly as very smart kids who have behavioral issues requiring some special handling). The short answer to this question -- that is, whether by "orchid children" I mean smart-but-difficult -- is No.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:12 PM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Coming sort of soon to a bookstore near you: "The Orchid and the Dandelion"
Category: Books
I can finally broadcast the news with which I've been bursting for two weeks now: Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt, publisher of many a fine book over the decades, will be publishing "The Orchid and the Dandelion" (working title), in which I'll explore further the emerging "orchid-dandelion hypothesis" I wrote about in my recent Atlantic story.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:33 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Orchids and dandelions on the Brian Lehrer Show
Category: Orchids & Dandelions (behav genetics)
I'll be on WNYC's Brian Lehrer show this morning, 11:06 to 11:25, discussing my Atlantic story about the "orchid gene" hypothesis, which recasts some of our most important vulnerability genes -- depression, ADHD, hyperaggression and the like -- as genes that can also underlie heightened function both as individuals and a species.
Posted by David Dobbs at 1:00 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I'm not vulnerable, just especially plastic. Risk genes, environment, and evolution, in the Atlantic
Category: Brains and minds
This is a transformative, even startling view of human frailty and strength. For more than a decade, proponents of the vulnerability hypothesis have argued that certain gene variants underlie some of humankind's most grievous problems: despair, alienation, cruelties both petty and epic. The orchid hypothesis accepts that proposition. But it adds, tantalizingly, that these same troublesome genes play a critical role in our species' astounding success.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:15 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
