Someone had to Draw a Line

In the back room something I heard you say
We didn't want to call it too early
Now it seems a world away
But I miss that day, are we ever gonna feel the same?

Standing in the light till it's over
Out of our minds
Someone had to draw a line
We'll be coming back for you one day

If you love what you do, never underestimate the power of being too busy.

Sometimes, the best in me is brought out by the worst in me.

Attack is always more enticing, more alluring, more enchanting, and more seductive than defense.

Geek Idolatry

Right in the face of my heavy course load, I "decided" to digress and spend the entire early half of Sunday reading on the people who shaped the discourse on evolution, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. It is a tour de force exploration of the lives of brave, highly intelligent and brilliant, but also very crazy men.

Robert Trivers, whose dazzlingly productive years from 1971 to 1974 spawned four major theories that guide almost everything in the understanding of evolutionary social behavior today, suffered from breakdowns prior to his early career, some of which were apparently due to his obsessive reading, night after night, of Wittgenstein. He is still alive now and is living in Jamaica.

Edward O. Wilson stuck to his guns to fight for sociobiology as a field worthy of study. He was heavily criticized particularly by an academic majority that preferred to see human behavior as culturally based. In one public incident, a member of the International Committee Against Racism poured a pitcher of water on Wilson's head and chanted "Wilson, you're all wet" at an AAAS conference in 1978. Wilson later spoke of the incident as a source of pride: "I believe...I was the only scientist in modern times to be physically attacked for an idea."

There are too many people to talk about here. One last mention I'd like to make is of William D. Hamilton, whose ideas on kin selection and altruism, sex ratios, and the Red Queen, among many others, have distinguished him among the greats. Spending the last few years of his life increasingly interested in the controversial argument that the origin of HIV lay in oral polio vaccines trials conducted by Hilary Koprowski in Africa during the 1950s, he ventured on a field trip to the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo in 2000. He did not survive long after returning to London. A secular memorial service (him being atheist) was held, organised by Richard Dawkins. He was buried near Wytham Woods. He, however, had written an essay on My intended burial and why in which he wrote:

"I will leave a sum in my last will for my body to be carried to Brazil and to these forests. It will be laid out in a manner secure against the possums and the vultures just as we make our chickens secure; and this great Coprophanaeus beetle will bury me. They will enter, will bury, will live on my flesh; and in the shape of their children and mine, I will escape death. No worm for me nor sordid fly, I will buzz in the dusk like a huge bumble bee. I will be many, buzz even as a swarm of motorbikes, be borne, body by flying body out into the Brazilian wilderness beneath the stars, lofted under those beautiful and un-fused elytra which we will all hold over our backs. So finally I too will shine like a violet ground beetle under a stone."

Often, it's hard to say what's true and what isn't. We have a sense that it's there, and yet at other times people can see the world so differently that it's hard to believe there's an objective truth at all. Sociobiology has had its rise and fall, with evolutionary psychology as its modern (and popularly accepted) version. It will always be nice if what one proclaims as his philosophy is indeed true. But the curse and joy of the reality is that I don't think we will ever know. Some will see this as a pointless chase. I think the agnostic position is a sad one. Just because it is always out of reach means that we will always have more to discover about our humanity and to the intellectually curious, this always has the power to stir the heart and soul.

I have good reasons to believe in the truth of the work of these men (of which I will not elaborate here), and as it is now I am on a path that requires of me to extrapolate the basic foundations laid out by them into understanding the world we live in and the way we behave. However, truth isn't the issue here, although it is the main exposition of the life and career adopted by men like us. The pursuit of what one believes to be the truth is the real story, and for their valiant efforts these men have seared their names into the pages of the history of knowledge. Of course, one could also say that Hitler was a man who believed in the truth and virtue of his desire to establish the homogeneity of a superior race, and eliminating the lesser ones. But with science as a fair judicial system for the legitimacy of knowledge, we don't have a good reason not to discover the limits of our understanding of reality.

I hope for the courage and wisdom to be able to embark in that pursuit in a way that would do the prior work of these men any semblance of justice.

Dark Triad Traits Tests

Needing a break between my intense grad school readings, I've finally gotten down to doing a couple of narcissism, psychopathy and personality disorder tests. Here's what I got...


TEST OF PERSONALITY DISORDER:
(http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv)

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low

TEST OF NARCISSISM:
(http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/narcissistic.htm)

Results of your
Narcissistic Personality Quiz

Your Total: 26

Between 12 and 15 is average.
Celebrities often score closer to 18.
Narcissists score over 20.
Because you scored 18 or higher, you may want to check out thesymptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.

Here's how you rated on the seven component traits of narcissism:

Narcissistic Trait			Strength of Trait
Authority: 5.00
Self-Sufficiency: 4.00
Superiority: 5.00
Exhibitionism: 3.00
Exploitativeness: 3.00
Vanity: 3.00
Entitlement: 3.00

TEST OF PSYCHOPATHY:
(http://kevin-goodman.com/?page_id=1229)

The Online Self Diagnostic Psychopath Test!

Congratulations - you have completed The Online Psychopath Self Assessment Test.   Your personality profile is So-Pr-Gr-Em-En/Ti-Ln-Ls-Ad-Sn-Sc.

i.e., I am...

So=Pro-social (as opposed to Se=Pro-self)

Pr=Principled (as opposed to Am=Amoral)

Gr=Grandiose (as opposed to Mo=Modest)

Em=Empathetic (as opposed to Ap=Apathetic)

Ln=Low need for structure (as opposed to Hn=High need for structure)

Ls=Low Sadism (as opposed to Hs=High Sadism)

Ad=Adaptive (as opposed to Ma=Maladaptive)

Sn=Schizoid negative (as opposed to Sp=Schizoid positive)

Sc=Social (as opposed to As=Anti-social)

Not sure what En, Ti are (website left them out).

Combinations can be measured against these:

Ap, Se, and As = Sociopathic personality
Ap, Se, and Am = Potentially sociopathicAp, Se, and As + Pr = Principled sociopathAp, Se, and As + Hs = Potentially dangerous sociopathAp, Se, and As + Ad = Adaptive sociopathAp and As = Antisocial personality (strengthened with Ma)Gr with any of the above = narcissistic personality [this is the only thing that applies to me]Sp = Schizoid personality

TEST OF MACHIAVELLIANISM:
(http://personality-testing.info/tests/MACH-IV.php)

Your score was 76 of 100. 

This puts you in the category of the high Machs, people who do not believe in the goodness of the world and, because of that it, must be manipulated; Machiavelli would approve of such people. 

A graph of how others who have taken this have scores is below. These scores should not be taken as population norms though, the people who seek out tests of machivellianism on the internet are most likely not representative (LOL). 

Looks like my lack of apathy lets me off the hook for being psychopathic. Narcissism seems to crop up, either as very high in the narcissism test or higher than average in the psychopathy and personality disorder tests. I'm above average on machiavellianism, but my higher empathy hinders the utilisation of my machiavellianism to become sociopathic or psychopathic.

Spurred

"... dishonesty has often been the file against which intellectual tools for truth have been sharpened."

- Robert Trivers, Folly of Fools

This resonates quite deeply with my belief that all the good things come only after bad ones. Structure arises after chaos. Emotions of love arise to combat partner desertion. Feelings of loyalty develop to prevent group disunity. I'd intended to write on this for a year on already but never really got down to it. Reading Trivers's latest book gives me much needed motivation to get stuck back in it.


In another part of his introduction, he writes:

Deception within species is expected in almost all relationships, and deception possesses special powers. It always takes the lead in life, while detection of deception plays catch up. As has been said regarding rumors, the lie is halfway around the world before the truth puts its boots on. When a new deception shows up in nature, it starts rare in a world that often lacks a proper defense. As it increases in frequency, it selects for such defenses in the victim, so that eventually its spread will be halted by the appearance and spread of countermoves, but new defenses can always be bypassed and new tricks invented.

Truth—or, at least, truth detection—has been pushed back steadily over time by the propagation of deception. It always amazes me to hear some economists say that the costs of deceptive excesses in our economy (including white-collar crime) will naturally be checked by market forces. Why should the human species be immune to the general rule that where natural selection for deception is strong, deception can be selected that extracts a substantial net cost (in survival and reproduction) every generation? Certainly there is no collective force against this deception, only the relatively slow generation and evolution of counterstrategies. These lines were written in 2006, two years before the financial collapse that resulted from such practices and beliefs. I know nothing about economics and—from evolutionary logic—could not have predicted a thing about the collapse of 2008, but I have disagreed for thirty years with an alleged science called economics that has resolutely failed to ground itself in underlying knowledge, at a cost to all of us.

While I might at times be slightly more sympathetic to the value of economics as a prescriptive tool, I think Trivers couldn't have put it better. There is no underlying theoretical basis for its science either than the outdated assumption that man is rational (assumed to be equally, and on the basis of prices), and I absolutely do not believe that market forces actually help resolve economic crises. The turn to market forces to solve economic problems is an absolute cop-out.

If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress?

I once prayed to god for a bike, but quickly found out he didnt work that way. So I stole a bike and prayed for his forgiveness.

You can't be late until you show up.

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.

Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake.

If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.

You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.

Evolutionists have proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.

You never learn anything by doing it right.

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. 

Dead or Alive

Axiomatic Sex Differences

Here are some of the better axioms I came across in the last year or so that capture the differences between the sexes quite sweetly.


Men like what they see, and women like what they hear.
That's why men lie, and women wear make up.


Men insult each other to get along, but they don't mean it.
Women compliment each other to get along, and they don't mean it either.


A girl dreams about a bad boy who is gentle only for her.
A boy wants a good girl who is naughty only for him.


(This one comes from a friend)
Women fake orgasms/sexual interest to get relationships.
Men fake relationships to get orgasms/sex.


Here are two of the best:

A woman's loyalty is tested when her man has nothing.
A man's loyalty is tested when he has everything.


Why is it that a woman who sleeps around a lot is a slut, but a man who has lots of sex is great?
Because a lock that can be opened by many keys is a lousy lock, while a key that can open many locks is the master key.

Let it BE: My Dad, Singapore Politics and Identity

After the first by-election Worker's Party rally, my dad came home with these flags.

My dad is ardently supportive of the top opposing game in town now, the Worker's Party. One might be tempted to associate him with the hordes of unintelligible, foul-mouthed, immature online surfers who trawl political internet sites like Temasek Review and leave distasteful trails of cowardly anonymous and unconstructive criticism directed at the PAP in their wake. Conversely, my dad actively attends rallies to offer genuine support, sends encouraging emails to Sylvia Lim (whom he has some degree of personal contact with), does not bother with posting comments on political internet sites (but does amuse himself from time to time with visits to such sites), puts his mouth where his money is by actually not endorsing government (i.e. PAP)-linked products (even if this inconveniences my household), and holds profound and heartfelt reasons for being highly disapproving of the incumbent party.

I had a chat with him today, one of the many chats I believe I should have had but did not because I was a rebellious son most of my life, so I have a lot of ground to make up for. He was chiding me for my absence for a family dinner on Saturday because I missed out on meeting some very old neighbours. They're people I would never recognize because the generation I belong to today tends to be more disconnected from relatives and old family friends compared to generations past. I asked if they were the Peranakan family that stayed next to him at the old private house in Everitt Road with the chiku tree when he was young, and he said no, they were from another neighbouring household, and were Hainanese.

Over an afternoon lull of coffee under the lazy breeze of an overhead fan, I pondered for a moment and asked him, "back then, did people see other people as Singaporeans or as people with differing origins?" In other words, I was asking him about a classic psychological concept, the self-construal, whereby people are defined by how they perceive themselves (often in relation to others). In this case, I wanted to know what comes to mind first when my dad or other Singaporeans back then thought of other people - as Singaporeans or as originating from elsewhere (e.g. Peranakan, Hainanese, etc). What was the automatically defining trait of Singaporeans?

My dad immediately said Singaporeans, definitely. Even though his father was technically an immigrant from Fuzhou, he said that the kind of sentiments today compared to back then are clearly different. Foreigners and immigrants who came in, like my grandfather did in the 1930s, never received incentives for coming to Singapore - they were escaping a hard life elsewhere and were seeking opportunity and had to work equally hard as compared to locals (although there probably wasn't such a clear idea of what a local Singaporean back then was). My dad feels that these days, foreigners are more than welcome to come in, and with such entitlements they will not feel such a strong need to learn local customs and integrate. My dad said that my grandfather had to rough it out really hard and therefore earned his right to be a Singaporean. And perhaps, because of the tumultuous political climate back then against neighbouring countries, there was a greater sense of unity among such differently originating people because they had to work together against external elements and build up the economy. Additionally, households were closer back then - neighbouring families would visit often, look out for each other and their children would play and grow up together. One often could leave the doors open without fear of burglary.

So, my dad thinks that policy-oriented efforts today by the incumbent government to foster integration is bollocks because he doesn't believe it would work. Further, my dad actually doesn't believe the government really cares about integration; foreigners will always be welcome for not-so rosy purposes.

 

To accompany my dad and share in his enthusiasm (I support the WP now but I'm not particularly hardcore - support, to me, isn't all about allegiance) I decided to join him at the third WP rally at the huge Hougang field. I did not regret sweating it out and braving the stuffiness along with thousands of other highly (and rightly) discontented Hougang residents. Throngs of people were gathered to support the party that has stood by them for two decades, and if it isn't so much a preference for the WP in the form of votes for Png Eng Huat, it was to show that there was no way they were going to accept PAP's Desmond Choo running the show in Hougang, especially since the PAP has been punishing Hougang residents by denying them all sorts of residential improvements for twenty years, simply for being a WP stronghold.

There are two sides to everything. One could say that this episode (preceded by the watershed General Elections last year) is divisive and destabilising, and feeds hate and disunity. On the other hand, it is important to acknowledge too that this means many Singaporeans (certainly not all) are shedding their apathy, standing up for something, and perhaps forging an identity that has been otherwise artificially decided for them by the government for over five decades. These are teething pains, but from the spirit I witnessed, I think it means we are growing as a nation just a little bit more.

Just a disclaimer though; I think unintelligible, irresponsible, anonymous, unconstructive online criticism is the most pathetic product I've seen coming out of this entire political saga. It is really disgusting to read comments consisting of nothing but cheapshots and mindless agreeing with many other people who just want something to hate. Maybe another post for another day.

As if this couldn't be any more cute...

At Chinhong's suggestion,

Everybody's Favourite Little Team These Days

Is Newcastle United quite possibly, being the team that nobody seems to dislike, everybody's favourite side team now? That is, if you aren't already a Newcastle United fan, you'd find them irresistably hard not to admire?

Everywhere in football world where the BPL is concerned, Newcastle's praises are being sung far and wide, particularly after their smooth 3-0 victory over Stoke City. After that disastrous campaign where they got relegated, nobody expected them to bounce back so quickly, if they were ever expected to bounce back at all. And after a spate of what looked like very bad decisions (offloading Enrique, Carroll, Nolan and Barton), Pardew's shrewdness seriously turned the tide and Newcastle are on course for a top-4 finish and a chance at European championship next season.

Every other "top" team in the BPL now has its demons it is villified for. Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, to some extent Tottenham Hotspur, and certainly the much maligned Liverpool, all have their critics. Newcastle United, on the other hand, appear to be the team that the BPL is proud to have in the top-4. It's an amazing feeling, and possibly one that non-fans might never really know. But we really got stuck in and it's one heck of a fairy tale ride.

It's funny how the fortunes of one football club can emotionally affect thousands of people around the world.

http://www.nufcblog.org/2012/04/newcastles-genuine-top-4-assault/

Refuting the Atheist Professor vs the Christian Student

Written almost a year ago, I'm not sure why I hadn't come across this earlier, but I'm glad it's been written.

The story about the atheist professor getting pwned by the Christian student (and maybe that student is frickin' Einstein) has lived on way past its sell-by date, and I'm hoping this article should drive a decisive nail into its coffin.

I really like how the author ends off.

http://religionvirus.blogspot.com/2011/07/refuting-atheist-professor-vs-christian.html

Quite possibly the only scenario where men are more capable than women at multi-tasking.

Doctorate Studies

Today marks a checkpoint in life where I've made a critical decision - to accept the SMU PhD offer.

This has come on the end of months of applications, letter writing, solicitations for referrals, correspondences, and anticipation and disappointment. In the end, quite disappointingly, I was down to two options out of a possible nine - SMU's financially supported PhD programme, or Oakland University's MS programme where funding is not guaranteed.

I must clarify that the disappointment is solely to do with the lack of acceptance letters from elsewhere; I think working with the particular professors I have in mind at SMU will make my doctoral studies at SMU very fruitful. But it will never take away the fact that I was hoping to at least be able to pick one from a few offers.

But anyway this is still a momentous time because I've finally come to a decision and I'll now be able to just look ahead and focus.

I had to regretfully decline the OU offer because my parents can't afford to pay to put me through another few years of incredibly expensive education, and I wouldn't want to burden them anymore anyway even if they were willing. The decision to reject is still regretful because through correspondences with my potential mentor (who is a stalwart in the EP field), it looks like OU will be up and coming; Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins graced events that he organised. I will be missing out on working with them when even meeting them would be a divine honour at this point.

But that's that; it's never worth the time and emotions looking back and rueing missed chances. With a spot in SMU, I've got my ideas set and potential researchers I'd want to work with, and I'm going to publish my ass off.

Looks like I'll be around these parts for a little longer! Stay tuned for more papers.

Me-search

I think social sciences research is especially and uniquely interesting for being a lens that peers into the soul of the practitioner like no other type of research can. People who are passionate in researching topics in the social sciences - psychology, politics, sociology, etc - are often that passionate because their research is "me-search"; a substantial part of their work goes towards understanding something about themselves.

Consider the researcher who delves into the psychology of sadness - he has a longing to comprehend how such a profound emotion can have such a grip on his life. The feminist researcher writing sociological papers on female empowerment must somehow feel like her capabilities are undermined by how society regards her biological sex. Then there is the four-time divorced relationship expert, who is so knowledgeable of the dynamics of relationships simply because he is hungry for that ideal relationship he has never been able to attain and can't stop pondering deeply about it. And we may also turn to our friend, the mental health researcher, who is prompted to enter the field because a very close childhood friend of hers suffers from depression.

Many prominent, expert researchers in the social sciences are quite likely good at their specific research interest because within that research interest lies something that will puzzle them for life. That desire to overcome their very own life puzzle can provide the fuel for a life-long obsession with a particular topic or issue.

Essentially, all of such self-directed research, or me-search, stems from a deep-seated need to understand issues that plague the restless researcher so that, from understanding, he can control the problem and ultimately justify either his desires and actions, or his inability to overcome the forces that hold him back.

So, budding social scientists, what personal demon of yours is going to both torment and consume you, and at the same time make you produce great bodies of literature?

Psychology of Attraction Podcast

Dr. Rob Burriss, who runs OracleLab and the Psychology of Attractiveness Podcast (PAP), has featured my paper in the March 2012 PAP.

Taken from his website,

Apr 1, 2012

Why a gameshow host’s chiselled jawline can make his contestants smarter, the exact number of daily portions of fruit and veg that are required to boost beauty, and why counting money makes men choosier.

Download the MP3

New research shows that The Voice's format is right for the wrong reasons: by concealing the contestants from the judges, the judges aren't influenced by appearances, but also, by preventing the contestants from seeing the judges, performances aren't given an unfair boost.

The articles covered in the show:

Whitehead, R. D., Re, D., Xiao, D., Ozakinci, G., & Perrett, D. I. (2012). You are what you eat: within-subject increases in fruit and vegetable consumption confer beneficial skin-color changes. PLoS ONE, 7(3). Read summary

Yong, J. C., & Li, N. P. (in press). Cash in hand, want better looking mate: Significant resource cues raise men’s mating standards. Personality and Individual Differences. Read summary

Flowe, H. D., Swords, E., & Rockey, J. C. (in press). Women's behavioural engagement with a masculine male heightens during the fertile window: evidence for the cycle shift hypothesis. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary

Academic Publishing Debut

My first published paper is finally available here:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912000876

Yong, J. C. & Li, N. P. (2012) Cash in hand, want better looking mate: Significant resource cues raise men’s mating standards. Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 55-58.

More to come for sure!

Really funny how things transpire. Can't wrap my head around it.