TED Community » Amélie Gourdon

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Psychological Science, so young it seems like there is still much to do. So passionate daily life feeds my ideas; or is it that I am passionate because it is everywhere, at any time?

Comments

• TEDCred score: +63.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Oxytocin, just a positive hormone?

  Nov 2 2011: Hi Anna,
  
  I couldn't agree more, especially regarding the distinction you drawn between presenting NGO work, or art, and presenting scientific research. But I tend to be more annoyed by the scientist, who, as such, has a responsibility and is not fulfilling it.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Oxytocin, just a positive hormone?

  Nov 1 2011: Hi Debra,
  
  Sorry if I sound discouraged by the research on the dark side of oxytocin. I am discouraged by simplistic presentation of the state of research, and consequences of that such as people seeing oxytocin as a simple answer to psychopathy or autism.
  I love my fix of oxytocin, but I am also well aware that my bounding to my daughter makes me angry at people who gives her crap (even though my rational self explains to her that it is also part of life), and my love for my partner makes me sad when he has a problem and I cannot be next to him to comfort him.
  Oxytocin is complicated, and simplistic depiction when research is only starting is not helpful.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Oxytocin, just a positive hormone?

  Nov 1 2011: Sorry for smug comment, but the type of comments that have started appearing now regarding this talk are exactly the product of presenting an incomplete picture of the current research and why it is making me angry (actually nothing smug in me at the moment, just annoyement).
  So when I said I knew that TED is not peer-reviewed publication or conference, implicating that standards can be a bit lower, actually I was wrong. Standards should be higher, because the public of TED is not necessarily a specialist public and therefore does not have all the tools to spot fallacies and biased messages. TED speakers have a stronger duty to give them these tools.

• A reply on Talk: Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin?

  Nov 1 2011: Actually, when im my debate I talked about research showing the dark side of oxytocin, I also had in mind research in forensic psychology. It's not my research and not published yet, so I am not sure I can talk about it. But it basically goes against the idea that oxytocin is that simplistic and that you could just make people sniff it to slove the world problems. Mainly because psychopaths' and sociopaths' level of oxytocine needs not to be increased (sorry if it's a bit vague, but I really feel I cannot say more).
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Oxytocin, just a positive hormone?

  Nov 1 2011: Totally makes sense I agree. Even more if you assume that oxytocin encouraging caring for your kins is an evolutionary feature, serving survival purposes.
  My question was somehow more of a comment but for a moment I thought you coud not just comment anymore. What I am really curious to know is what people think of Paul Zak's talk in light of those results, recent yet old enough not to be ignored by him. I know it's TED, not a peer-review paper or a scientific conference, but I find this selection bias rather deceitful.

• A comment on Conversation: If the world shared a common language, would religion be obsolete?

  Aug 8 2011: Well as Chad pointed out, the English-speaking Christian world gives you a hint. Look at European religious history and how reformed churches rised from Catholicism. Nowadays Church of England followers still have a misrepresentation of catholicism, where Catholics are seen as more conservative in particular.
  Also, and perhaps more importantly than historic and modern examples, recent research in psychology highlights how as human we tend to be compelled to believe in supernatural. See Jesse Bering ("The belief instinct") for this (http://www.jessebering.com/the-belief-instinct.php). As for recknoning that generalized free-thinking would free the world of religion, it's a fallacy that we all tend to embrace: the thought that we're just humans, therefore compelled to believe, is threathening and easier to wash away by thinking it's all about culture / education / free-thinking... whatever is controllable.
• +4

  A reply on Talk: Nalini Nadkarni: Life science in prison

  Jul 8 2010: Well given that them planting seeds helps towards conservation of endangered species, we can consider they're are paying back the planet, and therefore societies. If this is not making your time even more useful for more than yourself, I don't know what it s.