Barnes-Holmes, Humboldt
Aug. 2nd, 2005 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeToday we had a colloquium on "Implicit Attitudes: What Are They, and How Do We Measure Them?" by Dermot Barnes-Holmes from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The test they've developed is rather like that famous racial bias test that measures response times, but has an underlying theoretical basis, namely Relational Frame Theory. I read the main book on that a few years ago but could use a refresher.
Meanwhile, for fun in the evenings I'm reading Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World by Gerard Helferich. He notes that Humboldt not only was a major influence on Darwin and other contemporaries but laid the basis for the modern versions of such sciences as climatology and oceanography and supposedly has more places named for him than any other historical figure* (like a county in northern California, and the main ocean current off the West Coast). He used to be really famous but is mostly forgotten today. For whatever reason, I find reading biographies of scientists to be both relaxing and inspiring. It's a fun genre.
*I skipped ahead to the appendix listing these, and I can't see how Helferich can make this claim; just off the top of my head, Washington and Lincoln have oodles more places named for them.
Meanwhile, for fun in the evenings I'm reading Humboldt's Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World by Gerard Helferich. He notes that Humboldt not only was a major influence on Darwin and other contemporaries but laid the basis for the modern versions of such sciences as climatology and oceanography and supposedly has more places named for him than any other historical figure* (like a county in northern California, and the main ocean current off the West Coast). He used to be really famous but is mostly forgotten today. For whatever reason, I find reading biographies of scientists to be both relaxing and inspiring. It's a fun genre.
*I skipped ahead to the appendix listing these, and I can't see how Helferich can make this claim; just off the top of my head, Washington and Lincoln have oodles more places named for them.