4 ms·

Controversy: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths-of-paleo-sleeping/410707/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/th

Controversy: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths-of-paleo-sleeping/410707/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

throwaway81523 5y ago
Yeah I remember something similar. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/15/modern-life-is-rubbish-sleep-is-just-the-same-as-ever-say-scientists http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/15/modern-life-i... https://priceonomics.com/the-search-for-the-paleo-sleep-schedule/ https://priceonomics.com/the-search-for-the-paleo-sleep-sche...
tobesure 5y ago
>Siegel’s team has shown that people who live traditional lifestyles in Namibia, Tanzania, and Bolivia don’t fit with any of these common notions about pre-industrial dozing. “People like to complain that modern life is ruining sleep, but they’re just saying: Kids today!” says Siegel. “It’s a perennial complaint but you need data to know if it’s true.” One of the unspoken consequences of the modern PC culture gripping the academic institution is a hesitation to recognize that different ethnicities evolved in radically different environments for thousands of generations. The result is poor quality work like this reference, which presume that indigenous Subsaharan African or South American peoples are an adequate surrogate for pre-industrial human behavior. The reluctance to control for the understated confounding effect effect of genetic lineage is, I believe, a significant contributor to the seemingly contradictory Brownian-like back and forth of many biological sciences. There are consequences for greater society. It is rather unlikely, for example, that a single food pyramid would suffice as a recommended diet for peoples who originate from environments as diverse as African Savannahs or Arctic Tundras. The result would be disproportionate morbidity for some ethnic groups.
hsn915 5y ago
To add support for this: In Japan there's a word that literally means "second sleep". 二度寝 (ni.do.ne) It's a word still in common use today. It simply refers to when you wake up in the morning but still feel tired or groggy so you sleep again.
Jiocus 5y ago
Someone conducts an experiment in contemporary time with a limited subset of population with very specific critera, and their result somehow falsifies written historical account what went down in the past? That's controversial.
YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
Specifically: The volunteers also slept continuously. They would toss and turn like everyone does, but they almost never woke up for a concerted window in the middle of the night. This contradicts a growing idea, popularized by historian Roger Ekirch, that sleeping in eight-hour chunks is a modern affectation. Ekirch combed through centuries of Western literature and documents to show that Europeans used to sleep in two segments, separated by an hour or two of wakefulness. Siegel doesn’t dispute Ekirch’s analysis; he just thinks that the old two-block pattern was preceded by an even older single-block one. “The two-sleep pattern was probably due to humans migrating so far from the equator that they had long dark periods,” he says. “The long nights caused this pathological sleep pattern and the advent of electric lights and heating restored the primal one.”

Controversy: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths-of-paleo-sleeping/410707/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

throwaway81523 5y ago

Yeah I remember something similar. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/15/modern-life-is-rubbish-sleep-is-just-the-same-as-ever-say-scientists http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/15/modern-life-i... https://priceonomics.com/the-search-for-the-paleo-sleep-schedule/ https://priceonomics.com/the-search-for-the-paleo-sleep-sche...

tobesure 5y ago

>Siegel’s team has shown that people who live traditional lifestyles in Namibia, Tanzania, and Bolivia don’t fit with any of these common notions about pre-industrial dozing. “People like to complain that modern life is ruining sleep, but they’re just saying: Kids today!” says Siegel. “It’s a perennial complaint but you need data to know if it’s true.” One of the unspoken consequences of the modern PC culture gripping the academic institution is a hesitation to recognize that different ethnicities evolved in radically different environments for thousands of generations. The result is poor quality work like this reference, which presume that indigenous Subsaharan African or South American peoples are an adequate surrogate for pre-industrial human behavior. The reluctance to control for the understated confounding effect effect of genetic lineage is, I believe, a significant contributor to the seemingly contradictory Brownian-like back and forth of many biological sciences. There are consequences for greater society. It is rather unlikely, for example, that a single food pyramid would suffice as a recommended diet for peoples who originate from environments as diverse as African Savannahs or Arctic Tundras. The result would be disproportionate morbidity for some ethnic groups.

hsn915 5y ago

To add support for this: In Japan there's a word that literally means "second sleep". 二度寝 (ni.do.ne) It's a word still in common use today. It simply refers to when you wake up in the morning but still feel tired or groggy so you sleep again.

Jiocus 5y ago

Someone conducts an experiment in contemporary time with a limited subset of population with very specific critera, and their result somehow falsifies written historical account what went down in the past? That's controversial.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

Specifically: The volunteers also slept continuously. They would toss and turn like everyone does, but they almost never woke up for a concerted window in the middle of the night. This contradicts a growing idea, popularized by historian Roger Ekirch, that sleeping in eight-hour chunks is a modern affectation. Ekirch combed through centuries of Western literature and documents to show that Europeans used to sleep in two segments, separated by an hour or two of wakefulness. Siegel doesn’t dispute Ekirch’s analysis; he just thinks that the old two-block pattern was preceded by an even older single-block one. “The two-sleep pattern was probably due to humans migrating so far from the equator that they had long dark periods,” he says. “The long nights caused this pathological sleep pattern and the advent of electric lights and heating restored the primal one.”