It's Okay To Be Smart

Our brains, and how they're not as simple as we think - the danger of "folk neuroscience"

We all think the brain is amazing. But are we doing it justice? Neuroscience has given us great insight, but misusing neuroscience can do great harm.

Vaughan Bell has a must-read column at The Guardian detailing how modern neuroscience’s creep into popular culture has turned complex science into headline cliches, added “scientific” fuel to the fire of stereotypes, and obscured how little we really know about the brain.

We need to continue to respect the complexity of this science, instead of distilling it to a tasteless extract.

As neuroscience has gained authority over previous ways of explaining human nature, it is not surprising that people will be compelled to use it if they want to try and make persuasive claims about how people are or should be – regardless of its accuracy. Folk neuroscience has become Freud for Freud-phobes, everyday psychology for the sceptical, although in reality, rarely more helpful than either.

I recommend the whole piece, but especially his list of these popular misconceptions:

The “left-brain” is rational, the “right-brain” is creative
The hemispheres have different specialisations (the left usually has key language areas, for example) but there is no clear rational-creative split and you need both hemispheres to be successful at either. You can no more do right-brain thinking than you can do rear-brain thinking.

Dopamine is a pleasure chemical
Dopamine has many functions in the brain, from supporting concentration to regulating the production of breast milk. Even in its most closely associated functioning it is usually considered to be involved in motivation (wanting) rather than the feeling of pleasure itself.

Low serotonin causes depression
A concept almost entirely promoted by pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s and 90s to sell serotonin-enhancing drugs like Prozac. No consistent evidence for it.

Video games, TV violence, porn or any other social spectre of the moment “rewires the brain”
Everything “rewires the brain” as the brain works by making and remaking connections. This is often used in a contradictory fashion to suggest that the brain is both particularly susceptible to change but once changed, can’t change back.

We have no control over our brain but we can control our mind
The mind and the brain are the same thing described in different ways and they make us who we are. Trying to suggest one causes the other is like saying wetness causes water.