Nick Haslam

Nick Haslam reviews 'Ivan Pavlov: A Russian life in science' by Daniel P. Todes

December 2016, no. 387 • 30 November 2016

Conventional wisdom has it that Ivan Pavlov made dogs salivate to the sound of a bell, discovered the conditioned reflex, and laid the foundations for behaviourism, an austere creed that ruled the mind to be off limits for science. Almost all of this is false. Pavlov’s bell was in fact a sophisticated adjustable buzzer. The ‘conditioned reflex’ is a mistranslation: reflexes are instead ‘co ... (read more)

Nick Haslam reviews 'In a Different Key: The story of Autism' by John Donvan and Caren Zucker

June–July 2016, no. 382 • 24 May 2016

There may or may not be an epidemic of autism, but the idea of 'autism' has been remarkably catching. Once understood as a vanishingly rare condition, identified only in 1943, decades after Sigmund Freud and his followers first explored the psychopathology of childhood, autism has become commonplace. Popular culture celebrates it as an amusing quirk, often embodied in the figure of the boy genius, ... (read more)

Nick Haslam reviews 'Mind Change: How digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brains' by Susan Greenfield

January-February 2015, no. 368 • 01 January 2015

Over at the academy, the lecture is not what it used to be. Colourful slides and short videos accompany the spoken word, and this audio-visual feast can be ordered take-away, lecture recordings instantly downloadable from the university’s ‘learning management system’. Students sit, laptops open, alternating their gaze between the lectern and the web. Many stay home, speeding up the recording ... (read more)

Nick Haslam reviews 'How I Rescued My Brain' by David Roland

October 2014, no. 365 • 01 October 2014

The brain, notes philosopher Paul Churchland, is the engine of reason and the seat of the soul. David Roland’s memoir of stroke and its aftermath presents a vivid picture of engine failure and a soul unseated. His book lays bare the disorienting realities of brain injury and his gradual but faltering steps towards recovery. In time he adjusts to having a somewhat less powerful cognitive engine a ... (read more)

Nick Haslam reviews 'Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry' by Maxwell Bennett

April 2013, no. 350 • 26 March 2013

An unsuspecting reader might guess that this book belongs to the disreputable genre of psychobiography. Beginning with Sigmund Freud’s analysis of Leonardo da Vinci (1910), which explored themes of unconscious homosexuality and maternal attachment, biographers have attempted to make sense of individual lives with the aid of psychological theory, most often of a psychoanalytic stripe. ... (read more)