News Archive

NEWS FROM THE DIRECTOR

At each seminar I stand up and say something about Integrated Human Studies because it’s a new field and we want people to understand how we are different from other interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. Human wellbeing is at the core of our ideology, and we believe that to achieve it we must thoroughly understand what it means to be a human being. Integrating understandings from many fields of study is, we believe, necessary to inform the decisions human beings will have to make to ensure our species’ (and other species’) survival through this century and beyond. I’m happy to tell you that we have a new resource to aid your understanding of Integrated Human Studies, and a new way for you to continue to discuss the issues that arise at our seminars. See the announcement in this newsletter of our Wiki on Integrated Human Studies (“Join our online community”). We also now have an entry in Wikipedia. Thanks to Steve and Karen for these Wiki-happenings, which will allow me to say less at each seminar, and let our speakers have more time.

Associate Professor Neville Bruce
Director, Centre for Integrated Human Studies

NEXT SEMINAR, September 3

The next seminar promises spirited discussion (!). It’s an irresistible pun when the topic is “the human spirit” and the presenters will speak “for” and “against” religion. Joining UWA chaplain Michael Wood and Professor Mike Anderson is actor and author (Someone Else’s Country) Peter Docker, who has had a rare insight – for a wadjula – into Indigenous spirituality. The seminar will be held at 5.30 pm in Seminar room 1.81 in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia (two buildings south of Shenton House on the Matilda Bay side of the campus). The seminars are free and light refreshments are available.

Seminar 3, 3 September 08 : The human spirit

Are religion and spirituality the same things/opposite sides of the same coin? Or can you have one without the other? Is religion a means of social control – “the opiate of the masses” – or an essential part of human wellbeing? Are materialism and spirituality mutually incompatible? Is there a psychological basis for religious or spiritual experiences in individuals? Many people suggest we need to reconnect with the wisdom of Indigenous people, but how is this possible in practical terms?
Chair : Prof Dennis Haskell
Presenters : Michael Wood – How religion can contribute to human wellbeing
Prof Mike Anderson – The psychology of religious belief
Peter Docker – what/how we can learn from Aboriginal spirituality

NOTES FROM THE LAST SEMINAR, HEALTH

Dr Debra Judge , an evolutionary ecologist, began by making the point that human beings are not special organisms, and their longevity sits within a range of long-lived animals. Some researchers look at “supercentenarians” to find out why they live to such great ages, but for an evolutionary biologist it is more useful to understand the traits of long-lived animals. All mammals put energy into growth, maintenance and reproduction, but living a long time means more energy must be devoted to growth and maintenance, at the expense of reproduction. The question asked by an evolutionist is what benefit this confers on the individual. The traits longlived
animals share are: they have few, large offspring; they invest in every developmental stage of the offspring; they have a longer adult life span; they have relatively larger brains; they live in cooperative social groups. An academic exercise in predicting the lifespan of human beings by comparing with other primates predicts a range of 74 – 92 years. It may be easier to get lifespan up to this age but more difficult to extend it beyond. Life expectancy – the average number of years before death of individuals in a population – is a different measure. Debra showed various graphs and statistics to illustrate the point that the greatest impact on life expectancy occurs in the first five years of life. Therefore the greatest improvement in life expectancy can be achieved by improving (reducing) mortality and morbidity in babies and children. A feedback loop develops whereby the fertility of the population is lowered to reflect better survival of infants, and those infants are successfully reared to continue the cycle. Debra surmises that this kind of feedback loop also occurs in social circumstances. Debra’s
PowerPoint notes are here .

Associate Professor Ted Wilkes of Curtin University commented that Debra’s talk had
implications for policy development for Indigenous health. He went on to paint a bleak picture of Australian Aboriginal health – with health meaning not just physical wellbeing but also the social and emotional wellbeing of the whole community, a definition taken from the 1998 Aboriginal Health Strategy. Life expectancy of Aboriginal men is 59 years, some 17 years lower than that of non-Indigenous men. Ted raised issues of quality of life: quoting Daisy Bates, he said we can “smooth the dying pillow”, but it is more important to look after people when they are alive. But for many Indigenous Australians, life is difficult. Racism and trauma cloud their days and contribute to disease and despair. Ted used statistics from the ABS to illustrate issues of alcoholism and drug abuse, incarceration rates, suicide, diabetes, household income and home
ownership, and pointed out that lower life expectancy meant that young Aboriginal males had only one or two older men to mentor them, compared with ten older men for every young non-Indigenous man. This created its own feedback loop.
Ted said that the recent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Complementary Action Plan 2003 – 2009, created as part of the National Drug Strategy, identified a number of Key Result Areas that needed to be addressed to improve Indigenous health. Sadly, he finished by mentioning the ongoing problem of children with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. You can read many of the statistics Ted referred to here .

Professor Phil Weinstein of Public and Environmental Health at the University of Queensland asked the question, “Are we shitting in our own nest?” Phil described his research in the field of ecosystem services – the services provided by an ecosystem that contribute to the survival of its populations, things such as water, food, fuel, food and so on. Using the example of fresh water, he described how human beings evolved to require fluoride in optimal doses to develop healthy teeth. In industrialised societies we have to “manufacture” fresh water for storage and distribution. Chlorine added to water reacts with organic matter to produce trihalomethane. In Perth, a natural experiment presented itself, with people in northern areas being exposed to low
levels of THM, central areas having medium levels, and southern areas having high levels of exposure. Prof Weinstein’s research team showed that exposure to high levels of THM in drinking water increased the risk of birth defects. This was an example of population pressures on ecosystem services resulting in an undesirable outcome. So, the answer to the question he first posed is undeniably yes. By 2025, two thirds of the world’s population will face water shortages and radical policy changes will be needed to deal with the issues that arise. Phil proposed that multidisciplinary research would be essential to inform those policy decisions. Phil’s PowerPoint notes are available here .

Questions and comments included :
Is technology really going to be able to deliver advances in longevity? Regarding juvenile health and social disparities, to be effective in the medical/ecological area,
you also have to be effective in the social policy/economic area.
Service delivery in Indigenous health is often characterised by ignorance and racism. Racism has direct effects on health.
Communities that have collapsed have suffered from poor decision-making.
The importance of culture and ritual in decision-making must be acknowledged.

JOIN OUR ONLINE COMMUNITY
We promised you an online discussion board and we’re pleased to announce it’s available now at https://integratedhumanstudies.wikispaces.com/
Follow the instructions on the site to join and contribute – though you don’t need to join to navigate the site and see the discussions. Do feel free to start new discussions, ask questions, and make comments. We have been impressed by the insightful questions and comments at our seminars and look forward to seeing some conversations develop online.

HAVE YOU JUST JOINED OUR MAIL LIST?
If you have missed previous newsletters containing summaries of the seminar presentations, you can see them on our web site on the News and Events page.

ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR INTEGRATED HUMAN STUDIES
You can find out more about the Centre and about IHS at our web site . If you are interested in enrolling in postgraduate courses in IHS, please contact the Director, A/Prof Neville Bruce on +61 08 6488 3292 or email [email protected] .

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
Please feel free to give us your comments, thoughts or suggestions for future seminar topics by emailing Karen on [email protected].

Media references

Karen Connolly
Integrated Human Studies
School of Anatomy and Human Biology
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009
+61 08 6488 3647 email: [email protected]
In the office on Mondays and Thursdays - for urgent enquiries please phone Neville Bruce on +61 08 6488 3292