Disney “Baby Einstein” DVD to be refunded for harming children’s learning abilities
Two years ago, in August 2007, AHP reported the finding that “infants don’t learn language well from instructional videos.” This has since led to legal claims against Walt Disney Corporation and its Baby Einstein DVD product.
Now Disney is offering to refund all purchases made in US, going back five years. This provides an opportunity to look back at our original coverage, which examined the issue from the perspective of parents’ hopes to help their children become as gifted as possible. This also included a detailed bibliography of histories of giftedness. What has happened since?
Most notably, in terms of linking this story to the typical interests of AHP readers, Kathleen Ann Scott (2007) completed a dissertation comparing print and video as educational media for teaching the development of historical thinking. Although her efforts were not directed at infants, the resulting study can be conceived as setting some limits on how much the scepticism regarding the value of instructional videos can be generalized. She concludes: “readers manifested more and deeper historical understandings in their responses than did their counterparts in the movie group.” And she suggests this is as a result of the greater investment of attentional effort in reading as compared to watch television, which seems consistent with the criticisms of the instructional DVDs.
Campus – A new Channel 4 Comedy
Our very own and brilliant Andy Nyman is set to star in a new one-off Channel 4 comedy.
“Campus is set in a fictitious red-brick university and explores the lives and souls of a handful of people that work there – some as academics, some simply involved in the general running of the place. With a semi-improvised feel, it will feature an ensemble cast, and is made by the team behind Green Wing and Smack the Pony, including producer Victoria Pile.”
Andy stars as Jonty De Wolf, the monstrous Vice Chancellor of the university.
Campus airs on Channel 4 at 10pm, November 6th.
I implore you to watch, he’s very good.
Cx
COLLISION: Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson (DVD)
Collision is only currently available in the US here
A warm room makes people feel socially closer
Last year, the psychologists Lawrence Williams and John Bargh gave participants a cup of coffee to hold and showed that the temperature of the coffee affected the way those participants rated a stranger’s character. A hot coffee led them to rate him as more good natured and generous, whilst holding an iced coffee had the opposite effect. The finding was touted as an example of embodied cognition – the idea that the way we think about the world is grounded in, and affected by, physical metaphors. Now Hans Ijzerman and Gun Semin have built on this work, showing not only that the ambient temperature of a room affects how socially close people feel to another, but also the type of language they use and the way they see relations between shapes.
Fifty-two participants were shown an animated film featuring chess pieces. Crucially, half the participants were seated in a cool room (15 to 18 degrees Celsius) whereas the others sat in a warm room (22 to 24 degrees Celsius). Afterwards participants in the warm room used more concrete, physical language to describe the film and reported feeling socially closer to the experimenter than did the participants in a cold room.
Full Story at Research Digest
Scientists Develop Nasal Spray That Improves Memory
Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night’s sleep follows. In a research report featured as the cover story of the October 2009 print issue ofThe FASEB Journal, these scientists show that a molecule from the body’s immune system (interleukin-6) when administered through the nose helps the brain retain emotional and procedural memories during REM sleep.
DB on TV
Oh hi. Just a quick postlet to alert your eyes to the fact that my face and arse will be soiling your televisuals tonight on BBC4 at 9pm. I did what’s known in the industry as an ‘interview’ (kind of like a chat) for a documentary about the depiction of ghosties on TV. There’s me, Mark Gatiss, Steve Volk (Ghostwatch) – I think we’re all on there. I haven’t seen it, and can’t remember if I said anything remotely interesting, but am looking forward to it.
Please now continue with your beautiful lives.
dx
LED light bulb that lasts 25 years
These new Pharox bulbs are the first example of a usable LED bulb for the home. Its advantages are numerous – it works in freezing temperatures and stays cool when switched on, works with dimmer switches, costs less than £1 a year to run, contains no mercury and lasts up to 25 years.
The downside is the price – around £30 each. I’m sure with popularity that will drop considerably, but up against standard low energy bulbs it’s a saving over the 25 year lifespan.
This may however prove a problem for lighting retailers who would effectively be putting themselves out of a job. Combined with the fact the technology will almost certaily progress in around 10 years time are consumers likely to buy them?
Nepal Hit By Severe Goat Shortage
The authorities in Nepal have ordered officials to find more goats for ritual slaughter ahead of the country’s biggest religious festival of the year.
Officials say that there is a severe shortage of goats to offer as sacrifice in the capital Kathmandu.
The reason for the shortage is unclear, but experts say it is mostly due to demand outstripping supply.
They say that it may be because China has this year exported fewer goats to Nepal, resulting in far higher prices.
The Nepal Food Corporation has now ordered officials to travel to the countryside and buy goats to be brought to Kathmandu ahead of the festival of Dashain on 19 September.
Goats are traditionally slaughtered during the 15-day event to appease Durga, an important Hindu goddess.
A radio campaign has been launched to persuade farmers to sell their animals as part of a campaign to meet the high demand for goat meat and to control price rises.
BBC (thanks, Tammy)
Teach both evolution and creationism say 54% of Britons
British Council poll finds UK adults overtake Americans in wanting science teaching in schools to include intelligent design.
ore than half of British adults think that intelligent design and creationism should be taught alongside evolution in schoolscience lessons – a proportion higher than in the US.
An Ipsos Mori survey questioned 11,768 adults from 10 countries on how the theory of evolution should be taught in school science lessons.
About 54% of the 973 polled Britons agreed with the view: “Evolutionary theories should be taught in science lessons in schools together with other possible perspectives, such as intelligent design and creationism.”
In the US, of 991 adults responding to the survey, which was organised by the British Council, 51% agreed that evolution should be on the curriculum alongside other theories, like intelligent design.
Across the 10 countries, 43% agreed with this statement.
It was found that Britons were almost three times more likely than Egyptians to want creationism and intelligent design to be included in the teaching of evolution.
Creationism holds that the origins of humanity and the Earth are recent and divine, as related in the book of Genesis. Strict creationists believe Adam and Eve are the mother and father of humanity and that God created the Earth in six days. Advocates of intelligent design argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex they must have been designed by a higher intelligence.
The UK government has been quick to denounce creationism and intelligent design as unrecognised scientific theory that did not meet the requirements of the national curriculum, but it has said that young people can “discuss creationism as part of their religious education classes”.
Neither the primary nor secondary school science curriculums mention creationism or intelligent design.
Prominent scientists and teaching unions have expressed shock at the poll’s findings.
Lewis Wolpert, emeritus professor of biology at University College London (UCL), who is vice-president of the British Humanist Association, said: “I am appalled. It shows how ignorant the public is. Intelligent design and creationism have no connection with science and are purely religious concepts. There is no evidence for them at all. They must be kept out of science lessons.”
Steve Jones, professor of genetics at UCL, said: “This shows the danger of religions being allowed to buy schools, hijack lessons and pretend that they have anything useful to say about science – which, by definition, they do not. The figure seems much too high, although no doubt there is a substantial minority that does think this.”
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