Fringe, evo psych, and fiction
I’m rewatching S1 of Fringe,and I’d forgotten how raw the characters were-Broyles was really a jerk, in particular. Olivia was shaken to her core but still knew exactly what she could do and how valuable she was. And I still love how Joshua Jackson’s go-to acting choice is “stare at Olivia in raw admiration.” Because, let’s be honest: wouldn’t you?
A really good illustration of the weaknesses of trying to explain things with evolutionary psychology:
Textbooks in evolutionary psychology have proposed the hypothesis that the fear of spiders is an adaptation shaped by the mortal threat posed by their bites. In other words, we are descended from hominid wusses who thrived because they kept away from spiders. The idea is prompted by evidence that people may be innately primed to notice and be wary of spiders (as we seem to be of snakes). Yet there is no reason to think that spiders in the Stone Age were a greater threat to man than they are now-which is to say, hardly any threat at all. Scientists who study phobias and dislikes have come up with several features of spiders that may be more relevant than their bites, including their unpredictable, darting movements. Natural selection would have played some role in the development of any such general aversions, which may have their origins in distant species, somewhere far back down the line that leads to us. But that’s another story, one that evolutionary psychologists have less interest in telling, because they like tales about early man. It would be good to know why some people love spiders-there is, inevitably, a Facebook group-while others have a paralyzing phobia, and most of us fall somewhere in between. But, with one large exception, evolutionary psychology has little to say about the differences among people; it’s concerned mainly with human universals, not human variations.
Carol Berg, Guardians of the Keep: It’s been a while since I read the first book in Berg’s (much less slashy than her first) fantasy trilogy. Evil has chased a race of magic-users into another world, where they are also hunted and despised by the non-magical humans. Seri, a human, fell in love with a Healer, but when he was discovered he and their newborn son were brutally killed. Through magic, she sort of got her husband back, in a different body, but he lost his memories fighting off the Big Bad now moving in on the new world. And that’s where we start-Seri returning in disgrace to her childhood home, where her young nephew fears and hates her but also needs her to run things, and her quasi-husband slowly recovering memories of two different lives. Much palace intrigue and magical coercion follows. Honestly, I’m still a bit confused, and Evil Because Evil isn’t a particularly compelling adversary, but the mythology is complex enough that I will finish the next book-in less than years, I hope.
Drew Magary, The Postmortal: A Novel: After the invention of a genetic therapy that can stop aging (though not other causes of death) and its rapid conversion into a cheap, readily available treatment worldwide, things fall apart. The novel follows one American through the collapse, from his beginnings as a lawyer and reluctant, uninvolved father to his evolution into a termination specialist, which means just what you think in an overcrowded world. Russia and China figure as sources of other strategies for dealing with the resulting overpopulation (bad ones), but it’s pretty much America decaying and, as the poem says, “no one actually starves,” though I couldn’t tell why not.
Mike Carey, Thicker than Water: Felix Castor, exorcist-gumshoe, is at it again, this time investigating deadly and near-deadly goings-on at a housing project that turn out to be connected to some deep Castor family history. This one’s all about dredging up past wrongs and figuring out what can be fixed, when so much can’t be. The immediate mystery didn’t do much for me because I am cold-hearted like that, but the larger revelations about the way demons work in this world were very interesting.
Mike Carey, The Naming of the Beasts: Everything Felix Castor has been juggling starts crashing down: his demon-possessed friend Rafi is in the wind, threatening to kill everyone Felix cares about; his reformed demon quasi-friend Juliet is quickly losing the “reformed”; and to save Rafi he’s made a deal with a scientist whose ethics when it comes to the non-living are as appealing as Mengele’s. The book works as a satisfying climax to the series, though I understand there’s another in the works.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
A really good illustration of the weaknesses of trying to explain things with evolutionary psychology:
Textbooks in evolutionary psychology have proposed the hypothesis that the fear of spiders is an adaptation shaped by the mortal threat posed by their bites. In other words, we are descended from hominid wusses who thrived because they kept away from spiders. The idea is prompted by evidence that people may be innately primed to notice and be wary of spiders (as we seem to be of snakes). Yet there is no reason to think that spiders in the Stone Age were a greater threat to man than they are now-which is to say, hardly any threat at all. Scientists who study phobias and dislikes have come up with several features of spiders that may be more relevant than their bites, including their unpredictable, darting movements. Natural selection would have played some role in the development of any such general aversions, which may have their origins in distant species, somewhere far back down the line that leads to us. But that’s another story, one that evolutionary psychologists have less interest in telling, because they like tales about early man. It would be good to know why some people love spiders-there is, inevitably, a Facebook group-while others have a paralyzing phobia, and most of us fall somewhere in between. But, with one large exception, evolutionary psychology has little to say about the differences among people; it’s concerned mainly with human universals, not human variations.
Carol Berg, Guardians of the Keep: It’s been a while since I read the first book in Berg’s (much less slashy than her first) fantasy trilogy. Evil has chased a race of magic-users into another world, where they are also hunted and despised by the non-magical humans. Seri, a human, fell in love with a Healer, but when he was discovered he and their newborn son were brutally killed. Through magic, she sort of got her husband back, in a different body, but he lost his memories fighting off the Big Bad now moving in on the new world. And that’s where we start-Seri returning in disgrace to her childhood home, where her young nephew fears and hates her but also needs her to run things, and her quasi-husband slowly recovering memories of two different lives. Much palace intrigue and magical coercion follows. Honestly, I’m still a bit confused, and Evil Because Evil isn’t a particularly compelling adversary, but the mythology is complex enough that I will finish the next book-in less than years, I hope.
Drew Magary, The Postmortal: A Novel: After the invention of a genetic therapy that can stop aging (though not other causes of death) and its rapid conversion into a cheap, readily available treatment worldwide, things fall apart. The novel follows one American through the collapse, from his beginnings as a lawyer and reluctant, uninvolved father to his evolution into a termination specialist, which means just what you think in an overcrowded world. Russia and China figure as sources of other strategies for dealing with the resulting overpopulation (bad ones), but it’s pretty much America decaying and, as the poem says, “no one actually starves,” though I couldn’t tell why not.
Mike Carey, Thicker than Water: Felix Castor, exorcist-gumshoe, is at it again, this time investigating deadly and near-deadly goings-on at a housing project that turn out to be connected to some deep Castor family history. This one’s all about dredging up past wrongs and figuring out what can be fixed, when so much can’t be. The immediate mystery didn’t do much for me because I am cold-hearted like that, but the larger revelations about the way demons work in this world were very interesting.
Mike Carey, The Naming of the Beasts: Everything Felix Castor has been juggling starts crashing down: his demon-possessed friend Rafi is in the wind, threatening to kill everyone Felix cares about; his reformed demon quasi-friend Juliet is quickly losing the “reformed”; and to save Rafi he’s made a deal with a scientist whose ethics when it comes to the non-living are as appealing as Mengele’s. The book works as a satisfying climax to the series, though I understand there’s another in the works.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.