Links ...

1. Michael Bérubé in American Scientist: The Play is the Thing: A review of Bryan Boyd's On the Origin of Stories -- Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. You may or may not be interested in the book, but you ought to read it for this take-down of evo-psych:

   Let me explain a thing or two about humanists like me. There are legions of us who reach for our guns when we hear the word genome. That’s because we’re all too familiar with the history of eugenics, and we flinch whenever someone attempts an “evolutionary” explanation of Why Society Is the Way It Is; we suspect them, with good reason, of trying to justify some outrageous social injustice on the grounds that it’s only natural. Likewise, there are legions of us who clap our hands over our ears when we hear the term evolutionary psychology. That’s because we’re all too familiar with the follies of sociobiology, and we’ve suffered through lectures claiming that our species is hardwired for middle-aged guys dumping their wives for young secretaries and students (I sat through that lecture myself) or that men run the world because women have wide hips for childbearing, whereas men can rotate three-dimensional shapes in their heads (okay, that one is a mash-up of two different lectures).

2. Sujatha at Blogpourri: Book Review: Karadi Tales' Will You Read With Me? Series

3. Sue Sellenbarger in WSJ: Placing A Value On A College Degree.

4. Vikas Bajaj in NYTimes: In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation .