Mogil of McGill

Since May I've had a clipping from the Otago Daily Times sitting amongst my various papers that I haven't done anything further with. One of those things that intrigue but you just never quite get round to making use.

Well, the time has come: the paper is starting to discolour (not helped by being on a table one which the sun shines strongly for part of the day) and if I don't do it now it won't get done at all.

The piece concerns some research done by one Prof Jeffrey Mogil of McGill University and relates to the pain threshold differences between men and women. Now the first reaction to such a statement will be to say that women endure pain more readily than men - think 'giving birth' as one of the prime examples.

No, says Prof Mogil of McGill. Overall, men endure pain more than women, even apart from the fact of the pain of labour in pregnancy. A random street survey in which people are asked who endures pain more will come up saying that women do, but Mogil says this is incorrect.

Another interesting aspect of Mogil's findings is that women are 'the vast majority of chronic pain patients.' 'When controlled pain studies are done, not every study finds a difference between the sexes' in terms of pain thresholds. 'But every time a difference is found [my italics], it finds women are more senstive to pain, and less tolerant of it.'

Well it's nice to come across a study that doesn't tell what we already know, but turns accepted wisdom on its head.

You can read a more detailed report of Mogil of McGill's research work on the Boston.com page.

Somewhat connected with what's gone before, in relation to the differences between men and women, there's little doubt that young men suffer more from acne than young women. Just one of those facts of life (in fact, related to the facts of life!). MD Clear is given the all clear in terms of being a helpful method of reducing the problems relating to acne. I don't know what the MD stands for, though I suspect that it's meant to signify that Medical Doctors approve of this product. Let's hope they do!

The neat photo is by Shira Gal, from Flickr.com

Being right/wrong

This seemed interesting:

"The more scientists understand about cognitive functioning, the more it becomes clear that our capacity to make mistakes is utterly inextricable from what makes the human brain so swift, adaptable, and intelligent. Rather than treating errors like the bedbugs of the intellect — an appalling and embarrassing nuisance we try to pretend out of existence — we need to recognize that human fallibility is part and parcel of human brilliance.
Neuroscientists increasingly think that inductive reasoning undergirds virtually all of human cognition. Humans use inductive reasoning to learn language, organize the world into meaningful categories, and grasp the relationship between cause and effect. Thanks to inductive reasoning, we are able to form nearly instantaneous beliefs and take action accordingly. However, Schulz writes, 'The distinctive thing about inductive reasoning is that it generates conclusions that aren't necessarily true. They are, instead, probabilistically true — which means they are possibly false.'
Schulz recommends that we respond to the mistakes (or putative mistakes) of those around us with empathy and generosity and demand that our business and political leaders acknowledge and redress their errors rather than ignoring or denying them. 'Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity, or evil intent, we can liberate ourselves from the impossible burden of trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition that we could be in error, without deeming ourselves idiotic or unworthy.'"

It comes from Hugh Pickens, and was part of an excerpt in last week's Boston Globe from Kathryn Schulz' book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. The whole article is worth reading....all five pages of it.

Bits about Boston

After starting life as something of a flop, Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, won a Pulitzer Prize. How often does that happen, I wonder: something that's different (and it's certainly different to some of Wilder's other plays) fails to make the grade initially, yet ultimately outsmarts all its critics and indifferent audiences, and becomes a classic.

It's estimated that Our Town is playing somewhere in the world every night of the year, including Boston - the place where it was first a flop. (So if you're an actor looking for work in the Boston job search site, it's probably not a good idea to apply for a performance of this particular play. Just kidding!)

I've got the script of the play here at home, included in a book with a couple of other Wilder plays (The Matchmaker is one) but I've only ever seen the play performed once - back in the early sixties, when it was done here in Dunedin. (Obviously Dunedin is another place where it's not regarded highly enough to be performed regularly). It's a play, as I recall, that manages to be both universal and local, of its time and timeless.

Talking of scripts, I find it somewhat curious that what one director and his actors will do with a script can be entirely different to what another director and his cast will do with it. Yet broach such an idea to the musical world and they'll throw up their hands in horror. The composer's intentions must be honoured to the last staccato dot.

Yet a piece of music is really no different to a play script. Both are scripts, in fact, and orchestra A will actually play the thing differently to orchestra B, though the difference may not be entirely discernable to most people's ears. Interpreting the composer's intentions is a major work of art in itself, and while most decent musicians will do their best, they will produce something different to other musicians, and will even produce a different performance of the piece themselves from night to night.

Take myself as an example of both a composer and a musician 'interpreting' my own work. I never play any of my pieces the same way twice. In fact, I probably can't. So to be horrified that this musician or that isn't fulfilling the composer's intentions is, I think, on a par with insisting that an opera must be performed in the original language when sung before an audience who, for the most part, doesn't understand the language.

Yes, there's a certain beauty in the original sounds and the way they fit the music, but there's a certain dulling of the experience for people who don't understand what's being sung. I heard a radio broadcast of The Daughter of the Regiment on the weekend. Though the composer, Donizetti, was Italian, this piece was written in Paris, and has a French libretto.

The audience at the Met - that most snobbish of opera houses - listened politely to the rantings and ravings of the spoken dialogue with barely a titter. The cast (which included Kiri te Kanawa in a small non-singing role) did their utmost to give life to the French dialogue, but it was all wasted on the audience, who only laughed when there was some visual comedy. (Which was lost on us listeners!)

How much more successful would the piece have been if it had been sung and spoken in English, especially since French isn't the most attractive language to sing anyway. The photo to the left, (by Silver Jade Deutch) by the way, is from a production by the Boston Lyric Opera - and was performed in English. Good old Boston - you get some things right!