Shannon+Brownlee’s+piece+for+...+Critique

Shannon Brownlee’s piece for US News and World Reports “Can’t Do Without Love” relates a wide variety of biological topics to people’s everyday lives. Brownlee appeals to her readers, curious individuals that lack professional scientific understanding, by exploiting the readers’ assumed respect for her expertise to use a lax standard of evidence. Frequently throughout the piece, she cites scientific fact to prove complex points regarding the evolutionary origins of love and emotion. In doing so, she attempts to link the tangible, factual nature of biology to deep, seemingly intractable emotions. She ultimately hypothesizes that human biochemistry demonstrates that kindness and love evolved naturally. Such a link requires certain assumptions on the reader’s part. The reader must assume that Brownlee has a certain expertise in biology to validate her important scientific claims. Furthermore, the reader must also assume that Brownlee’s standards for the definition of emotional terms agree with their own. These two assumptions underscore a deeper issue at hand for Brownlee’s piece, the divide between experts and laymen. Laymen must trust experts with information and assume their veracity and accuracy in order to learn anything unless they wish to become experts. This trust entails a lax standard of evidence for the readers’ convenience, not for that of the author’s. However, the author should provide means by which the readers can become experts to further their knowledge and read the article with greater depth and understanding. The divide between laymen and experts necessitates a relative lack of depth and evidence to support facts, but Brownlee’s failure to indicate the basis of her adduced facts and to thoroughly suggest how one could learn in greater depth results in the uncertainty of the article’s reliability, especially due to the presence of contrary evidence.
 * 1) 1 Shannon Brownlee’s piece for ... Critique

Brownlee identifies the biological origins of the abstract notion of love. Essentially, Brownlee claims that love's scientific origin makes it intangible. To state her thesis, Brownlee quotes Sue Carter writing, "The study of love tells us that we have a biology that allows us to be good to each other." She divides her thesis defense into two parts; a “Mother Mother” part and a “Lure of the Forbidden” part. Brownlee begins her defense by connecting love with evolution. Tracing the origin of love to maternal instincts, she argues that mothers needed an abstract notion of love to have reason to sacrifice enough for their children's survival. Several small units of thought in paragraphs 5-9 accumulate into this gigantic unit of thought. She initally writes a small unit of thought that links oxytocin to maternal instincts. She follows this in paragraph 8 by comparing observed effects of oxytocin in humans to observed effects of oxytocin in prarie voles. In paragraph nine, she addresses the importance of danger as an aphrodisaic in males of many species as opposed to females of the species. She attributes this to maternal instinct. Brownlee then goes on to form another major unit of thought from paragraphs 10-16, based on the "Lure of the Forbidden". She notes how perception of something as illicit acts as an aphrodisiac. She describes this phenomenon chemically with endorphin release. She then compares human behavior to talapoin monkey behavior to suggest that human social mores originated from the animal kingdom. Crediting Stephen Porges, she then develops the idea that the vagus nerve causes "visceral sensations"(297) such as love. Her article accumulates several small units of thought into the main idea that biological reactions and evolution represent love. Brownlee successfully presents scientific research without describing the specific details of the experiments that derived the known biological facts. For instance, she thoroughly discusses and provides several examples of scientific findings and experts. To demonstrate how nurturing evolved, she asserts how mammals of many types ranging from seals to voles often engage in similar nurturing activities (295). Building upon the behavioral similarities of mammals, she discusses the similar biochemistry. She claims that oxytocin, a neurotransmitter released when a mother gives birth, represents maternal nurturing since it chemically enables women to breast feed their young. She later notes the behavior of the prairie vole. Oxytocin in the female vole’s brain attracts her to the male vole since the female vole does not appear infatuated without the oxytocin. She also addresses the evolution of the Vagus nerve to grow more connections as emotions become more complicated. Each of these scientific statements tie into the qualitative statements regarding human behaviors’ origins. For instance, Brownlee’s supposed behavior of talapoins shows the males to respond to opiates differently than the females. While the males become aggressive, the females become passive and engage in grooming. Such behavior does not differ greatly from gender related behavior in humans often. Porges’ addressed research on the Vagus nerve connections does suggest that love evolved from purely concerning sex to more complex and elaborate emotions. Brownlee demonstrates the salience of her adduced scientific facts by applying them to reality in layman’s understanding.

Despite such application, Brownlee does not detail specifically from where she got her information. The absence of such information has numerous negative ramifications for her piece. First of all, it widens the gap between laymen readers and expert writers. The readers must trust Brownlee exclusively for her scientific accuracy and sincerity. Since Brownlee must focus on expedience and effectively communicating scientific principles, she easily earns the readers’ trust and rightfully so. However, other issues emerge because she fails to provide an avenue for the reader to learn more information. This results in the negative consequences. The gap between the reader and author widens because the reader cannot understand the author’s perspective fully. If the reader desires to learn more about the relevance and overall validity of Brownlee’s claims, he must do more research. Brownlee should also lead the reader to more information simply because it reinforces the validity of her perspective. The reader could find other sources that discredit Brownlee. Brownlee’s lack of detail initially helps explain topics to readers unfamiliar with biology, but jeopardizes the article’s overall validity since she does not provide readers with an avenue to read in greater depth.

When one researches in depth on the evolutionary anthropology that Brownlee discusses, one finds a diverse range of views that often appear to contradict Brownlee’s assertions. For example, Brownlee writes “Vasopressin inspires similar ardor[to oxytocin in the female] in the male, who prefers his mate's company above all others, guarding his family against intruders with a jealous husband's zeal”(296). She implies that vasopressin functions as a male equivalent for oxytocin and this duality contributes to male/female gender dynamics. Furthermore, most of paragraph eight discusses oxytocin with only a sentence or two on vasopressin. However, Leonie Welberg in “Vasopressin: not just for males” writes “Although much research to date has shown a crucial role for OXT[oxytocin] in maternal behaviour, this study indicates that AVP[arginine vasopressin] has an even more pronounced effect on its fine-tuned regulation.” This suggests that vasopressin could have extreme importance in the evolutionary development of love. Noted biologist Richard Dawkins suggests that a “shifting moral zeitgeist” comprises love largely and the body chemistry potentially evolves with the shifting moral zeitgeist. [1] This suggests that one cannot directly compare voles to humans all of the time and that the presence of uncertainty should be noted. Although Brownlee notes that “Human beings—unlike rodents—are not entirely slaves to their hormones”(296), she neglects to discuss how and why. This could potentially lead a reader to assume that a man should enjoy dangerous sex always and if a woman does not feel maternal, she must lack oxytocin. It could also lead the reader to assume that animals should be enslaved by their hormones. One should note however, that the biggest issue comes simply from scientists holding a large number of perspectives and not so much questioning Brownlee’s accuracy. For instance, Helen Fisher has conducted numerous experiments that defend Brownlee’s claims and facts, but provide a completely different perspective that Brownlee does not mention. [2] By neglecting the role of fMRI and other brain scanning technologies that Fisher discusses, she accidentally denies the reader substantial perspective on the research, leaving them to question from where Brownlee’s data came.

Brownlee wrote an article to explain scientific principles in everyday language. Specifically, she explored biological anthropology and the development of love. To do this, she used many facts about biochemistry and particularly neuroscience. From this, she inferred much about human behavior and explained it in simple terms. She accomplished her overall job and wrote a good article. However, scientists infer facts in different ways and the multitude of research encompasses a wide range of perspectives. By neglecting to demonstrate a wide variety of perspectives visibly present and by not describing the nature of experimental methods that yield her evidence, Brownlee does not write as effectively as she could and widens the divide between expert and layman.

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Revision
Intro

Body

Conclusion

Answer the questions below, being as specific as possible. > > Does the paper's opening > > Does the writer develop a reader-centered prose that effectively addresses its target audience and, in the same breath, focuses on the subject -- not on the writer's reflections or getting reader's to take action? > > Does the writer accurately summarize the writer's work in one paragraph? > > Does the writer briefly review the key points in the author's work that the writer proposes to evaluate? > Does the writer **assess the presentation** in the body of the paper? Does the writer > Does the writer **respond to the presentation** in the body of the paper? Does the writer > > Does the paper's conclusion
 * Read the introduction (i.e., the first paragraph) and pause. Write down what you expect will be the topic, purpose, and audience of the paper.
 * Now finish reading the paper. Were your expectations for the paper's topic, purpose, and audience fulfilled? If not, what do you think the topic, purpose, and audience are in the body of the essay? If the body of the essay does not fulfill the purpose as defined by the introduction, is the problem more with the introduction (because it does not reflect a new and better direction in the draft) or with the body (because it wanders)?
 * Is the tone appropriate for the purpose and audience? Does the writer use language appropriate to the needs of a nonacademic audience? Identify instances where the writer
 * succeeds in writing for a nonacademic audience.
 * need to consider revising in order to meet the needs of a nonacademic audience.
 * Focus upon the introduction.
 * introduce both the passage under analysis and the author?
 * provide background material to help your readers understand the relevance or appeal of the passage?
 * state the author's main argument?
 * state the author's purpose for writing?
 * state the point(s) that you intend to make about the author's main argument?
 * state the thesis?
 * Focus upon the body of the paper.
 * introduce and/summarize a key point in more detail than the writer provided in the earlier general summary.
 * evaluate the validity of the author's presentation, as distinct from your points of agreement of disagreement?
 * comment on the author's success in achieving his or her purpose by reviewing several specific point
 * identify which views with which you agree and disagree
 * discuss your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the author -- tying these reasons to assumptions -- both the author's and your own.
 * draw upon outside sources, where necessary, to support your ideas
 * Focus upon the conclusion.
 * state your conclusions about the overall validity of the piece -- your assessment of the author's success at achieving his or her aims and your reactions to the author's views?
 * remind the reader of the weaknesses and strengths of the passage?
 * Focus on the paper's content. What sort of evidence is used to develop or support the position take in this paper? Are there adequate details, examples, or reasons to support each of the ideas? Do readers need more information at any point to understand the meaning or appreciate the point of view?
 * Summarize the paper, devoting one sentence to each paragraph.
 * Next, numbers the paragraphs. Do the paragraphs follow a logical order? Describe how the argument does or does not flow from the first to the second, from the second to the third, and so on. Are there any logical gaps between the paragraphs?
 * Are the author's paragraph's unified, coherent, and developed? If so, note them. Also, indicate any that confuse you, and explain why.
 * What did you like best about the paper?
 * What two features of the paper most need improvement?