Hi everyone,
I come from a background in evolutionary anthropology. Started off with paleoanthropology, and then moved on to primatology and behavioural ecology because I wanted something a little more relevant to human nature. Dabbled a little bit here and there in healthcare, before wanting to return to anthropology. Now I’m starting to get interested in Cognitive Science, and I’m aiming to go back and do some research in neuroscience, politics, and linguistics.
Looking forward to joining the conversation!
Hello SDA, welcome aboard. We get into all kinds of discussions relating to all of your fields…
and a whole lot more. 
Welcome. Sounds like you could have a lot to contribute.
You sound like you could definitely contribute, in very interesting ways, to the dialogues here. I hope you do. There are others who are from Canada who frequent this forum. As long as you’re not Ted Cruz, I won’t hold it against you.
Haha, no, TimB. I’m quite the opposite of a Dominionist.
Thanks for the welcome, guys. Truthfully, I think these boards could help contribute a lot to my own thoughts and ideas, as well.
I come from a background in evolutionary anthropology. Started off with paleoanthropology, and then moved on to primatology and behavioural ecology because I wanted something a little more relevant to human nature. Dabbled a little bit here and there in healthcare, before wanting to return to anthropology. Now I’m starting to get interested in Cognitive Science, and I’m aiming to go back and do some research in neuroscience, politics, and linguistics.Hello SDA; I' m looking forward or reading more of your posts as Paleoanthropology is one of my favorite subjects. If I had another life to live I'd be a physical anthropologist, but alas! As to neuroscience, read any of Pinker's books? Good stuff indeed! Cap't Jack
I have the Blank Slate sitting on my bookshelf, but I haven't read it yet. I'm only really getting into neuroscience and linguistics now. I tend to go through some books really slow, because I read them, then research the information to check for inconsistencies, and then create massive (and I really mean massive) mindmaps to better conceptualize and absorb the major concepts of the field. I'm in the process of finishing up Thinking Fast and Slow, which I also recommend. If you're interested in a book that will really mess with your mind, try the Political Mind by George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist out of Berkley. His work is on metaphor, which I used to think was basically confined to literature, but it's pretty deep component of cognition. Check out the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is basically the thought process behind NewSpeak in 1984. By contracting the words of the English language, they attempted to remove concepts like "revolution", "liberty", "democracy" in order to control how people think. Met Truth be told, I did more primatology. I loved fossils, though. I first stumbled across physical anthropology in my second year of undergrad. Loved paleo, but primatology was what helped me answer questions about myself. Paleo basically gives you a rundown of evolutionary anatomy and invaluable context, but primatology helps give you a better concept of evolutionary psychology. Primates, and animals in general, are great controls for behavioural studies. Humans have the most complex minds, but so much thought is dependent on deeper structures that evolved earlier. These days, I'm really more interested in social hierarchies, which I'd like to find a direct link between politics, how structures of power or maintained, the neural processes, and human evolution.I come from a background in evolutionary anthropology. Started off with paleoanthropology, and then moved on to primatology and behavioural ecology because I wanted something a little more relevant to human nature. Dabbled a little bit here and there in healthcare, before wanting to return to anthropology. Now I’m starting to get interested in Cognitive Science, and I’m aiming to go back and do some research in neuroscience, politics, and linguistics.Hello SDA; I' m looking forward or reading more of your posts as Paleoanthropology is one of my favorite subjects. If I had another life to live I'd be a physical anthropologist, but alas! As to neuroscience, read any of Pinker's books? Good stuff indeed! Cap't Jack
I have the Blank Slate sitting on my bookshelf, but I haven’t read it yet. I’m only really getting into neuroscience and linguistics now. I tend to go through some books really slow, because I read them, then research the information to check for inconsistencies, and then create massive (and I really mean massive) mindmaps to better conceptualize and absorb the major concepts of the field. I’m in the process of finishing up Thinking Fast and Slow, which I also recommend. If you’re interested in a book that will really mess with your mind, try the Political Mind by George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist out of Berkley. His work is on metaphor, which I used to think was basically confined to literature, but it’s pretty deep component of cognition. Check out the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is basically the thought process behind NewSpeak in 1984. By contracting the words of the English language, they attempted to remove concepts like “revolution", “liberty", “democracy" in order to control how people think. Met Truth be told, I did more primatology. I loved fossils, though. I first stumbled across physical anthropology in my second year of undergrad. Loved paleo, but primatology was what helped me answer questions about myself. Paleo basically gives you a rundown of evolutionary anatomy and invaluable context, but primatology helps give you a better concept of evolutionary psychology. Primates, and animals in general, are great controls for behavioural studies. Humans have the most complex minds, but so much thought is dependent on deeper structures that evolved earlier. These days, I’m really more interested in social hierarchies, which I’d like to find a direct link between politics, how structures of power or maintained, the neural processes, and human evolution.Thanks for the book tip and I'll look into it in the near future. I do like books that "mess with your mind"! As to Pinker you might try How the mind Works if you haven't already added it to your reading list. And I believe newspeak is alive and kicking right now, just watch a Trump rally. Also, like you I love fossils and always have. We used to find many good examples in the sandstone and limestone deposits where I was raised (Kentucky). Primatology sounds like a fascinating field and I can see how it nicely dovetails into Paleoanthropology. I've been studying the origins of religious belief lately and just picked up a new book on the subject, Anderson's Why We Believe in Gods:A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith . Dawkins wrote the forward. And lots of information on social hierarchies out there. Try sociopathic behavior and it's causes! Cap't Jack
Oops, sorry, haha. I was in the middle of a sentence regarding NewSpeak, and the thought must have trailed off when something shiny caught my attention. Lakoff talks about metonymy, and how words basically affect your cognition (which is what Sapir-Whorf basically is). Dogwhistle politics works in the same way, and he links how these terms will fire the conceptual infrastructure that lies beneath conscious thought. If you watch fMRIs, you can actually see these things firing. Dr. Drew Westen is more neuroscience heavy, if you're ever interested in this stuff. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll look into it as well. That Anderson book sounds pretty interesting as well. I've read about studies where areas of the parietal lobe were fired and the result was that subjects felt that they had perceived a deeply religious experiences. Speaking of Dawkins, if you like primatology, a good primer on it is his Ancestor's Tale. He goes backwards, from the present, to the origin of life, so the first part is obviously primate-heavy. I'll end this, and say that I'll see you on the boards elsewhere, so that we don't end up keeping this all on the intro thread. :PI have the Blank Slate sitting on my bookshelf, but I haven’t read it yet. I’m only really getting into neuroscience and linguistics now. I tend to go through some books really slow, because I read them, then research the information to check for inconsistencies, and then create massive (and I really mean massive) mindmaps to better conceptualize and absorb the major concepts of the field. I’m in the process of finishing up Thinking Fast and Slow, which I also recommend. If you’re interested in a book that will really mess with your mind, try the Political Mind by George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist out of Berkley. His work is on metaphor, which I used to think was basically confined to literature, but it’s pretty deep component of cognition. Check out the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is basically the thought process behind NewSpeak in 1984. By contracting the words of the English language, they attempted to remove concepts like “revolution", “liberty", “democracy" in order to control how people think. Met Truth be told, I did more primatology. I loved fossils, though. I first stumbled across physical anthropology in my second year of undergrad. Loved paleo, but primatology was what helped me answer questions about myself. Paleo basically gives you a rundown of evolutionary anatomy and invaluable context, but primatology helps give you a better concept of evolutionary psychology. Primates, and animals in general, are great controls for behavioural studies. Humans have the most complex minds, but so much thought is dependent on deeper structures that evolved earlier. These days, I’m really more interested in social hierarchies, which I’d like to find a direct link between politics, how structures of power or maintained, the neural processes, and human evolution.Thanks for the book tip and I'll look into it in the near future. I do like books that "mess with your mind"! As to Pinker you might try How the mind Works if you haven't already added it to your reading list. And I believe newspeak is alive and kicking right now, just watch a Trump rally. Also, like you I love fossils and always have. We used to find many good examples in the sandstone and limestone deposits where I was raised (Kentucky). Primatology sounds like a fascinating field and I can see how it nicely dovetails into Paleoanthropology. I've been studying the origins of religious belief lately and just picked up a new book on the subject, Anderson's Why We Believe in Gods:A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith . Dawkins wrote the forward. And lots of information on social hierarchies out there. Try sociopathic behavior and it's causes! Cap't Jack
SDA, I haven’t seen you elsewhere on the boards, lately. I miss you.