JustASC

David Brooks reports on the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society’s conference in Lower Manhattan last weekend:

Reem Yahya and a team from the University of Haifa studied Arabs and Jews while showing them images of hands and feet in painful situations. The two cultures perceived pain differently. The Arabs perceived higher levels of pain over all while the Jews were more sensitive to pain suffered by members of a group other than their own.

Which I suppose would explain a lot. But I’m reminded of a joke told by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin:

A Jewish woman goes into labor, and her husband takes her to the hospital. Throughout the night, he hears moans coming from the birthing room. He’s a nervous wreck, pacing back and forth hour after hour, sweat pouring down his face.

Finally, the doctor rushes out. “Congratulations! You have a girl.”

“Thank God — a girl,” the man says. “She’ll never have to go through what I just did.”