According to the so-called imprinted brain theory, the paradoxes can be explained in terms of the expression of genes, and not simply their inheritance. Imprinted genes are those which are only expressed when they are inherited from one parent rather than the other. The classic example is IGF2, a growth factor gene only normally expressed when inherited from the father, but silent when inherited from the mother. According to the most widely-accepted theory, genes like IGF2 are silenced by mammalian mothers because only the mother has to pay the costs associated with gestating and giving birth to a large offspring. The father, on the other hand, gets all the benefit of larger offspring, but pays none of the costs. Therefore his copy is activated. The symbolism of a tug-of-war represents the mother's genetic self-interest in countering the growth-enhancing demands of the father's genes expressed in the foetus—the mother, after all, has to gestate and give birth to the baby at enormous cost to herself.

Introduction

According to a recent New York Times Science Times article ("In a Novel Theory of Mental Disorders, Parents’ Genes Are in Competition" by Benedict Carey, November 10, 2008) Christopher Badcock and Bernard Crespi have presented a new theory that purports to resolve some long-standing contradictions in explaining mental illness.

Edge wrote to Badcock, an early member of the Edge community, to ask him for a summary of his new theory for our readers.

"At first sight," he wrote back in an email, "it would seem that no single theory could explain these seemingly contradictory facts—and certainly not an evolutionary or genetic one—but an attempt is underway to do exactly that which has just passed its first major test. In 2006 Bernard Crespi (Killam Research Professor in the Department of Biosciences, Simon Fraser University) and I published a paper in The Journal of Evolutionary Biology setting out the theory in relation to autism. Earlier this year Behavioral and Brain Sciences published a second paper along with 23 expert commentaries and the authors' replies which extends the idea to psychoses like schizophrenia. More recently still, Nature has published our essay on the theory ("Battle of Sexes May Set The Brain", 28 August 2008)."

Read on.

— John Brockman

CHRISTOPHER BADCOCK is a Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics and the author of PsychoDarwinism and Evolutionary Psychology: A Clinical Introduction.

Christopher Badcock's Edge Bio Page

The problem of consciousness is understanding how this world is there for us. It shows up in our senses. It shows up in our thoughts. Our feelings and interests and concerns are directed to and embrace this world around us. We think, we feel, the world shows up for us. To me that's the problem of consciousness. That is a real problem that needs to be studied, and it's a special problem.

A useful analogy is life. What is life? We can point to all sorts of chemical processes, metabolic processes, reproductive processes that are present where there is life. But we ask, where is the life? You don't say life is a thing inside the organism. The life is this process that the organism is participating in, a process that involves an environmental niche and dynamic selectivity. If you want to find the life, look to the dynamic of the animal's engagement with its world. The life is there. The life is not inside the animal. The life is the way the animal is in the world.

ALVA NOË is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He works principally on the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, with special interest in the theory of perception, and is also interested in the philosophy of art, the history of analytic philosophy, Phenomenology, and Wittgenstein.

Alva Noë's Edge Bio Page

[16:01 minutes]

THE REALITY CLUB: Arnold Trehub

There's new technology emerging from behavioral economics and we are just starting to make use of that. I thought the input of psychology into economics was finished but clearly it's not! 

PUTTING PSYCHOLOGY INTO BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS (Class 6)
Richard Thaler, Sendhil Mullainathan, Daniel Kahneman

Richard Thaler	Sendil Mullanthan	Daniel Kahneman

RICHARD THALER: ehavioral economics and good psychology, there's a lot of art. There is science and there are well-crafted experiments, but thinking about what the right experiment to run, was art and, there are 80 gazillion experiments, which ones are relevant to getting people to plant the right seed. That's a problem that Sendhil and I have been talking about for, well, since he was born. You're now seeing the results of 15 years of conversations. And there wasn't a scientific way of answering that question.

SENDHIL MULLAINAITHAN: A lot of what makes behavioral economics interesting is psychology, it is about what happens inside the mind. These phenomena are taking things that are happening inside the mind and interfacing them with things happening in the world, the environment, and getting feedback or getting interesting responses from that.

We happen to call the word economics. But it's not economics. You could be talking about crime, you could be talking about many things, in the social domain, the entire spectrum of human behavior. Anyone who is interested in the broader world should be interested in something we currently call "behavioral economics".

DANIEL KAHNEMAN: What we're saying is that there is a technology emerging from behavioral economics. It's not only an abstract thing. You can do things with it. We are just at the beginning. I thought that the input of psychology into behavioral economics was done. But hearing Sendhil was very encouraging because there was a lot of new psychology there. That conversation is continuing and it looks to me as if that conversation is going to go forward. It's pretty intuitive, based on research, good theory, and important. 

Sean Parker, Anne Treisman,  Paul Romer, Danny Hillis, Jeff Bezos, Salar Kamangar, George Dyson, France LeClerc,

A SHORT COURSE IN BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
Edge Master Class 2008
Richard Thaler, Sendhil Mullainathan, Daniel Kahneman
Sonoma, CA, July 25-27, 2008

AN EDGE SPECIAL PROJECT