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About The Loom
"Celebrated curiosity monger"
Carl Zimmer writes about science regularly for the New York Times and magazines such as Discover, where he is a contributing editor and columnist.
He is the author of twelve books, the most recent of which is Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. His website is carlzimmer.com and his address is blog at carlzimmer dot com .
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I once wondered aloud if scientists had tattoos of their science. The answer was yes, and this ever-growing collection is the evidence. I've turned them into a book about art and science called Science Ink: Tattoos of Science Obsessed.
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August 7th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Thanks for this; I think you’ve cheered many of us up in the midst of all this nonsense.
But one small correction – I’m a neuropsychologist, not a psychiatrist.
[CZ: Fixed!]
August 7th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
When I saw the Dorothy Bishop exchange last week, I viewed a Greenfield lecture via Youtube. Greenfield is a problem.
But Greenfieldisms are wonderful! Useful on so many occasions. Meme on!
August 7th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Great post, Carl. I am archiving the #greenfieldism tweets here: http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/greenfieldism It will take a bit of time before they all accumulate.
August 7th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Shouldn’t it be “meme-ufacturing”?
I point to the debt crisis, I point to lolcats. That’s all.
August 7th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Worth noting that the Baroness has now blessed us with 2 internet memes – #yakawow was equally entertaining. I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been even more, what with all that rewiring going on…
August 7th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
As an ABA tutor for autistic kids, I find Greenfield’s simplistic ‘explanation’ for autism reductionist and insulting. Oh, and wrong.
August 7th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
“I point to the increase in stupidity and I point to Baronesses. That’s all.”
August 8th, 2011 at 1:51 am
From the Daily Mail (not sure why she didn’t just pick up the phone):
Baroness Greenfield said: ‘I have never claimed new technologies are causing autism. Rather, I’ve said that the increase in lack of empathy, that is documented scientifically, may be leading to behaviours like that and this should be explored.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023535/Battle-dons-internet-link-autism-scientists-claim-PCs-shorten-attention-span.html#ixzz1UPhuHr2n
August 8th, 2011 at 4:27 am
I point to PowerPoint and it points to the dot-com boom. And the real estate boom. And the economic crisis.
August 8th, 2011 at 10:36 am
My late boss – Sir John Maddox, the Editor of Nature – had the unerring gift of cutting through the crap and homing in on the essentials. Many years ago we were standing together at a reception at the Royal Institution when Greenfield was its head. She stepped up to the podium and waffled about something or other in the distance. Maddox leaned over to me and said, in a gloriously blessed-are-the-cheesemakers kind of way — “but what has she done?’
August 8th, 2011 at 11:12 am
[...] to internet use, following more high-profile individuals losing their rag with her, including Carl Zimmer – documenting the rise of the most amusing #greenfieldism [...]
August 8th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
It is fundamental that the existence of two events or two courses of conduct, at or about the same time, is not proof of causation.
However, it is also fundamental to progress in science that events that occur in sequence MAY have a relationship, and, therefore, causation ought be ruled out. As a practical matter, not everything can be ruled out, and so, that process must be prioritized.
In fact, a large number of scientific discoveries are or border upon accident. Human beings have not been very successful at realizing the causation or non-causation of relatively contemporaneous events.
The issue then, is whether, on its face, personal computers or internet usage might adversely impact the mental state of human beings, either by some actual physical trauma or by some corruption of the brain’s programming.
Those who simply laugh at the suggestion are, possibly, also whistling in the dark.
Our knowledge of how “abnormal” patterns of thought and conduct arise is, at best, primitive. We have yet to have even a generation of people who have lived during high use of computer devices, usage that is continually expanding.
Time will tell.
HJBoitel
August 8th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
I point to a fish. A fish. That’s all.
August 8th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
@HJBoitel
You seem to be keen on having your own meme which seems to go . . .
1. Take any old unevidenced assertion such as “Black holes are made of ketchup”
2. State “Those who simply laugh at the suggestion are, possibly, also whistling in the dark.”
3. In Obi Wan style say “Time will tell”
I’m sorry, we should be able to do better than line up all the wild guesses in the world and consider them equally valid for some undefined length of time.
August 8th, 2011 at 10:00 pm
I can’t help but notice the simultaneous rise of both the internet and jabbering boneheads with no expertise in any particular field, save for chicken-littling the internet in order to get some attention for themselves.
Could there be a connection? The evidence seems fairly inarguable.
August 9th, 2011 at 2:01 am
OMG Carl, you are so wrong! Cuz my dad banned the Brady Bunch and I only got to watch it at Great Aunty Barbara’s, and now I have Barrett’s Esophagus and have to have an endoscopy every six months!
Wrong, I say!
August 9th, 2011 at 2:26 am
[...] mangled logic triggered a profound change inside the skull of science writer Carl Zimmer (“[it] finally rewired my brain into a seizure”), inspiring the tweet: “I point [...]
August 9th, 2011 at 3:40 am
[...] can see where this is going. Carl Zimmer has collected a number of lovely responses on his blog. (You can also follow that link for a brief explanation of why Greenfield’s [...]
August 9th, 2011 at 3:53 am
I point to the increase in diabetes and I point to scary clowns. That’s all.
August 9th, 2011 at 4:32 am
I greatly enjoyed Susan Greenfield’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures (‘Journey to the Centre of the Brain’) when I was a kid. It’s rather sad to watch her saying so many stupid things.
August 9th, 2011 at 9:30 am
[...] Zimmer coins a term and it catches fire on Twitter. Some [...]
August 9th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
For a variety of reasons, my brain has preferred avoiding the Facebook and Twitter memes, but has not been able to avoid the Kindle meme. Among the things I’ve recently read on the gizmo are Susan Blackmore’s short intro to Consciousness and then her fascinating book, The Meme Machine. In response to the bargain price of $3.99 announced here, I next read Brain Cuttings. My brain said, more brain stuff, please, so I ran a search for brain on the Kindle Store and quickly came upon V. S. Ramachandran’s book The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human. I had seen video’s of Ramachandran lectures and had been much impressed by them, so I grabbed the book. In the acknowledgments, he mentioned authors whose books had been invaluable to him in his writing of this one and he said:
If he’s not implying a cause-and-effect relationship between the supposed decline and the modern phenomena he lists, then I suppose I must be missing the point. A search of the book suggests to me that he did not elaborate on the question therein.
August 9th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Check out James’ spoof of this meme. Amusing indeed.
julesandjames.blogspot.com/2011/08/research-linking-autism-to-susan.html
August 9th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I point to the S&P downgrade and I point to Pomeranians. That’s all.
August 9th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
I point to Post Hoc, and I point to Propter Hoc. That is all.
Or maybe it isn’t – I point to Pre Hoc, and I point to Propter Hoc also.
August 10th, 2011 at 12:33 am
[...] Martin Robbins, who also provides a more reasoned refutation. Carl Zimmer also created a meme #Greenfieldism: I point to the increase in esophageal cancer and I point to The Brady Bunch. That’s all. [...]
August 10th, 2011 at 3:32 am
[...] Silly Site o’ the Day Posted on August 10, 2011 by ujang rahman Via BoingBoing, another meme is born, this one from an upper-class twit’s rantings about the internet. [...]
August 11th, 2011 at 4:04 am
[...] Bishop. It all soon led to a high-profile spat between the two. Many science writers, including Carl Zimmer and Martin Robbins also agree. Martin writes here in the Guardian a few days ago … if she is [...]
August 11th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
[...] Luddite alarmism at its worst from the evidence-free queen of “the internetz are CHANGING our brains!!1!” Baronness Greenfield herself. “I point to the increase in autism and I point to internet use. That’s all.” Carl Zimmer has started a Twitter meme on this. An example: “I point to Alzheimer’s and I point to cheese doodles. That’s all.” [...]
August 14th, 2011 at 10:02 am
i point to reading science blogs and i point to my not having a girlfriend, thats all. #Greenfieldism…oh, wait, there there might actually be a corrolation there
August 15th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
[...] a quote that started a trend of identifying “Greenfieldisms” on the net - observations of concurrent trends that are coincidental, but have little else in [...]
August 25th, 2011 at 6:01 am
[...] of the idea of a conscious robot. Baroness Susan Greenfield of the University of Oxford (and of Greenfieldisms fame) notes that roboticists fail to account for the myriad ways in which the wet parts of our [...]
August 28th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
[...] Y así nace un nuevo meme: greenfieldisms [...]
October 21st, 2011 at 5:05 pm
It may be that Greefield has drawn some unwarranted conclusions concerning the impact of the internet upon the neurological susceptibility of some human beings. However, Carl Zimmer’s article and most of the comments are surprisingly superficial and defensive
We simply do not know what, if any, impact the internet and the use of internet intelligent devices will have upon human beings. The time has been too short (and usage is expanding not only in numbers of people but also in hours per person and in nature of the interaction). We do not even know whether anyone has devised a useful test to measure what the impact of such usage may be.
The comments suggest to me the possibility that the internet has dulled the brain of those who feel threatened by the suggestion that use of the internet may be dangerous to one’s mental health.
Progress generally brings with it the potential to cause a significant degree of harm. Most things come with a price.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
First I’ve heard of Greenfield, and all I can say is “wow”. How did she manage to obtain any sort of degree if she doesn’t even understand the difference between correlation and coincidence?
Please, someone do the charitable thing and mail her a book of logical fallacies.