From the Internet to the iPod, technology is bringing rapid advances in memory. What society needs now are new ways to forget.

The advantages of amnesia

This spring, we invited readers to respond to the following question: What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century? How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?

Our panel of judges comprised Adam Bly, editor-in-chief and founder of Seed, Chris Mooney, Seed's Washington correspondent, PZ Myers, Seed columnist and author of the popular blog Pharyngula, and the editors of Seed.

Here, we are pleased to announce the First and Second Prize Winners.

Seed: The Second Annual Seed Science Writing Contest

There are two ways to look at anything. That’s what I learned from reading Steven Pinker.

Metaphor turns out to be our crucial talent.

...

Being a scientist is hard. You’re supposed to keep your personality out of the way, justifying every topic of interest by some larger theoretical goal. Pinker tries. “I like to think I have a better reason to introduce you to my little friends,” he pleads, referring to verbs and his infatuation with them. But as Pinker’s little friends consume the book, it becomes clear that he’s a geek.

Steven Pinker, The Double Thinker

Social structure is link structure is intelligence.

In a growing recognition of the genius of birds, scientists are now studying various birds to explore everything from spatial memory to the grammatical structure of human language. This research is helping to reveal the secrets of the human brain. But it is also overturning the conventional evolutionary story of intelligence, in which all paths lead to the creation of the human cortex. The tree of life, scientists are discovering, has numerous branches of brilliance.

Intricate social structures mean that many birds are subject to the same social challenges as primates. It is these challenges, the research suggests, that make them so smart.

Eggheads

Many people will say it is morally acceptable to pull a switch that diverts a train, killing just one person instead of the five on the other track. But if asked to save the same five lives by throwing a person in the train’s path, people will say the action is wrong. This may be evidence for an ancient subconscious morality that deters causing direct physical harm to someone else. An equally strong moral sanction has not yet evolved for harming someone indirectly.

For more, read The Happiness Hypothesis, which earned a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly:

The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, lamented St. Paul, and this engrossing scientific interpretation of traditional lore backs him up with hard data. Citing Plato, Buddha and modern brain science, psychologist Haidt notes the mind is like an "elephant" of automatic desires and impulses atop which conscious intention is an ineffectual "rider." Haidt sifts Eastern and Western religious and philosophical traditions for other nuggets of wisdom to substantiate—and sometimes critique—with the findings of neurology and cognitive psychology. The Buddhist-Stoic injunction to cast off worldly attachments in pursuit of happiness, for example, is backed up by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's studies into pleasure. And Nietzsche's contention that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger is considered against research into post-traumatic growth. An exponent of the "positive psychology" movement, Haidt also offers practical advice on finding happiness and meaning. Riches don't matter much, he observes, but close relationships, quiet surroundings and short commutes help a lot, while meditation, cognitive psychotherapy and Prozac are equally valid remedies for constitutional unhappiness. Haidt sometimes seems reductionist, but his is an erudite, fluently written, stimulating reassessment of age-old issues.

Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes?

On July 7–8, 2007, the William A. Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts sponsored a series of high-concept talks about neuroscience for this prestigious gathering. Featuring some of the top scientists in the field, a conference track titled "Your Brain and Yourself" drew large audiences, and for these intelligent but mostly nonscientific attendees, the researchers stepped back from their usual data-driven styles to discuss neuroscience's larger challenges.

Much of the current boom in neuroscience, which conference organizer Eric Haseltine referred to as the field's new "golden age," has been driven by the development of new technologies for peering inside working brains. What we're seeing is at once fascinating, mysterious, and in some cases, more than a little bit frightening. Besides opening the door to potentially revolutionary diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, the new technology could cause a wholesale re-evaluation of some of our most fundamental social beliefs.

Perspectives on Our Golden Age of Neuroscience

From a letter in response to "Our Biotech Future", by Freeman Dyson:

The basic premise is that every step in evolutionary change is stochastic and adaptive. No new structure that appears in this way persists unless it is immediately adaptive, even if just one more step might produce something very superior. Thus green leaves dominate because they happen to have come along before black ones, and also because chance uncovered no route from green to black that was adaptive at every new step.

Reply to Dyson

Science fiction writer Rudy Rucker, author of the book, Mathematicians In Love, claims that any natural process can be regarded as a computation, and that computers are not "digital."

Rudy Rucker on Computation

This is "the most downloaded technical paper that the journal PLoS Medicine has ever published."

There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.

See also follow-up coverage in WSJ. No subscription required.

The hotter the field of research the more likely its published findings should be viewed skeptically.

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

New Oliver Sacks in The New Yorker.

In March of 1985, Clive Wearing, an eminent English musician and musicologist in his mid-forties, was struck by a brain infection—a herpes encephalitis—affecting especially the parts of his brain concerned with memory. He was left with a memory span of only seconds—the most devastating case of amnesia ever recorded.

A Neurologist’s Notebook: The Abyss