Name: Brainwashed
ISBN: 9780465018772

Brainwashed

In recent years, the advent of MRI technology seems to have unlocked the secrets of the human mind, revealing the sources of our deepest desires, intentions, and fears. In this book, the authors argue that the explanatory power of brain scans in particular and neuroscience more generally has been vastly overestimated. Although acknowledging its tremendous potential, they believe that the overzealous application of the burgeoning field of brain science has put innocent people in jail, prevented addicts from healing themselves, and undermined notions of free will and responsibility.

What Hacker News says

tokenadultJun 2015

The comment that linked to the New Statesman article was helpful. Another good source on how much (or how little) to take most neuroscience hype seriously is the book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience by Sally Satel adn Scott O. Lilienfeld.[1] Eventually, someday, as the article kindly submitted here for discussion suggests, there will be some actionable knowledge for daily life derived from neuroscience studies, but meanwhile the hype far exceeds the reality. As the article points out, "Paul Fletcher, professor of health neuroscience at Cambridge University, explains that this is the major obstacle for progress in the field. 'Nobody has a credible idea of how brain processes produce mental processes, or even a vocabulary with which to articulate such an idea, should it suddenly come to them in the bath,' he says. 'Good science is usually about linking levels of description: showing how an observation at one level – say, the genetic – ultimately manifests in a physiological process or behaviour or symptom through a series of intermediary facts each expressed at intervening levels… We just don't have these linkages in brain-mind science; it's like the brain observations are made in one language and the mind observations in another, and there is no clue how to translate between those languages.'"

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-...

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tokenadultFeb 2014

Since several of the comments here revolve around what we know now and could possibly know now about brain differences related to behavior, I'll link to a book, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience,[1] that examines for a popular audience how much science is behind the latest "neuroscience" and how much of it is just hype. Just because brain scans are involved doesn't mean the explanation is any more valid. I think you will find this book interesting and helpful for understanding yourself and understanding the world.

I heard about the NIMH director's letter on research priorities[2] first from behavior-genetics-informed research and clinical psychologists whom I meet in a "journal club" weekly during the school year. The DSM framework involves a lot of log-rolling among various kinds of psychologists and psychiatrists, several of whom depend for their living on being known as "experts" on "disorders" that may not have any real existence. That said, there is an active research program all over the world based on a variety of different paradigms, with very widely followed journals, trying better to understand healthy human behavior and debilitating human behavior that results from brain abnormalities, diseases, psychological stress, and other causes. Straight-up psychology still has a lot to contribute to this study. The psychologists I know best are very aware of critiques of their own discipline[3] through the readings we discuss in the journal club, and more generally aware of the general critique of the current conduct of science,[4] so they redouble their efforts to do their science better, and to check their methodology as they try to tease out the complex web of causes of human behavior.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-...

[2] http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

[3] http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/

[4] https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/john-ioannidis?tab=publica...

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JackFrAug 2013

Can we please stop with "emerging neuroscience" crap. http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-...

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tokenadultJun 2013

Comments here decry pop neuroscience. I will recommend here a new book, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience by Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, who are both thoughtful and appropriately skeptical researchers on neuroscience topics.

http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-...

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tokenadultNov 2013

I took care to read the fine submitted article and then share it among Facebook friends of mine (who include psychologists who study human behavior genetics and neuroscientists) before commenting here. Two things come to mind after reading the comments posted earlier here.

1) Most people who have read about genetic influences on human behavior have not read the masters, but rather their disciples. The masters of behavior genetics research take care to write about the concept of "reaction range," the variety of possible behavior patterns that MIGHT arise from an individual with a given genotype under differing environmental influences. It is apparent that the reaction range for many human behaviors is very broad even if genotype is fixed.[1]

2) Simply adding some brain-scan data to some hypothesis pulled out of a hat will make even the most wild and crazy hypothesis more plausible to lay readers. Neuroscience is hard, and so far there are not a lot of neuroscience conclusions about human behavior that are well replicated and well backed up by theory.[2]

[1] The review article Johnson, W. (2010). Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3), 177-182

http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/...

looks at some famous genetic experiments to show how little is explained by gene frequencies even in thoroughly studied populations defined by artificial selection.

"Together, however, the developmental natures of GCA [general cognitive ability] and height, the likely influences of gene-environment correlations and interactions on their developmental processes, and the potential for genetic background and environmental circumstances to release previously unexpressed genetic variation suggest that very different combinations of genes may produce identical IQs or heights or levels of any other psychological trait. And the same genes may produce very different IQs and heights against different genetic backgrounds and in different environmental circumstances. This would be especially the case if height and GCA and other psychological traits are only single facets of multifaceted traits actually under more systematic genetic regulation, such as overall body size and balance between processing capacity and stimulus reactivity. Genetic influences on individual differences in psychological characteristics are real and important but are unlikely to be straightforward and deterministic. We will understand them best through investigation of their manifestation in biological and social developmental processes."

[2] The book Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience by Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld

http://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-...

explains the gaps in current knowledge about neuroscience of human behavior and why a few brain scans in a few subjects don't tell us much about brain function before other study methods are applied to the problem.

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quantumpotato_Aug 2013

Book Description:

"What can’t neuroscience tell us about ourselves? Since fMRI—functional magnetic resonance imaging—was introduced in the early 1990s, brain scans have been used to help politicians understand and manipulate voters, determine guilt in court cases, and make sense of everything from musical aptitude to romantic love. But although brain scans and other neurotechnologies have provided groundbreaking insights into the workings of the human brain, the increasingly fashionable idea that they are the most important means of answering the enduring mysteries of psychology is misguided—and potentially dangerous.

In Brainwashed, psychiatrist and AEI scholar Sally Satel and psychologist Scott O. Lilienfeld reveal how many of the real-world applications of human neuroscience gloss over its limitations and intricacies, at times obscuring—rather than clarifying—the myriad factors that shape our behavior and identities. Brain scans, Satel and Lilienfeld show, are useful but often ambiguous representations of a highly complex system. Each region of the brain participates in a host of experiences and interacts with other regions, so seeing one area light up on an fMRI in response to a stimulus doesn’t automatically indicate a particular sensation or capture the higher cognitive functions that come from those interactions. The narrow focus on the brain’s physical processes also assumes that our subjective experiences can be explained away by biology alone. As Satel and Lilienfeld explain, this “neurocentric” view of the mind risks undermining our most deeply held ideas about selfhood, free will, and personal responsibility, putting us at risk of making harmful mistakes, whether in the courtroom, interrogation room, or addiction treatment clinic.

A provocative account of our obsession with neuroscience, Brainwashed brilliantly illuminates what contemporary neuroscience and brain imaging can and cannot tell us about ourselves, providing a much-needed reminder about the many factors that make us who we are."

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