Brainwashed?

Bumping this post because author Scott Lilienfeld will be discussing this book at the Decatur (Georgia) Book Festival on Saturday, 8/31/13, at 3 pm in the Marriott Conference Center Ballroom. Barb

Neuroscience is all wrong as long as it denies the soul as the place of human thought and this a reflection of Gods thinking ability. They try to say we are a brain machine and parts can be seen to be the origin of thoughts. Including breakdown. The Christian or creationist must deny we are a parts department for thoughts. We are not a machine on our thinking however complex they allow us. They are striking at the divine nature of man and turning us into animals and then or evolved minds into a more elaborate immune system. A system with no soul. The clue to hunam thought is how we think. All people think the same. The breakdown in thinking, by any name, therefore can only be a breakdown in a machine part that exists alongside our soul. Therefore it must be that all problems with thinking come from interference with the memory. I think interference with the triggering mechanism for memory. So the "idiot" savant is after all the aberration to explains the true equation of human thinking. Extreme over achievement in memory the result of under achievement in memory and so its use for thinking. A triggering problem Also it explains why its men more then women because mens motivations to acheive will trigger the savants memory. Robert Byers

OT: More Light Is Cast on Epigenetics and Design - June 10, 2013 Excerpt: In another article at Live Science, Tia Ghose suggests that epigenetics makes the current theory of evolution inadequate: "some researchers think the modern consensus on evolutionary theory may need to be extended to encompass epigenetics." But since epigenetics is "incredibly complicated," evolutionary theory will need an overhaul, not just a patch. Laurel Fogarty from Stanford commented on several of the new discoveries: "Findings like these show clearly that we need to broaden our understanding of how natural selection, genes and non-genetic inheritance interact if we want to fully understand evolution," Fogarty wrote. The statement implies that evolution is not fully understood, nor can it be unless this "incredibly complicated" epigenetic information, which,, dwarf(s) the information content of DNA, is understood. What then of (the) 154 years of bluffing that evolution is well-understood science? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/more_light_is_c073041.html bornagain77

Raymond Tallis refers to this type hype about what we supposedly can tell from brain scans as "Neuromania". His book "Aping Mankind" is a marvelous read. We are not simply apes who can think. In Tallis' view and in mine we should not even be classified in the Primate family. We just have a superficial morphologic resemblance. turell

From the Amazon.com link: 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. fMRi was discussed here before. One lawyer attempted to use it in court but was told by the judge that juries are to determine who is lying in a court case, not a machine (http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/06/another-attempt-to-use-fmri-lie-detector-in-us-court-fails-in-brooklyn-more-on-the-way/). It's certainly not the same as using forensic science to solve a crime. Barb