Mindful Hack

Non-materialist neuroscience: Mindfulness is catching on?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 20:15:00 +0000

I am told that Goldie Hawn is developing a mindfulness curriculum.:

Equipping children with the social and emotional skills they need to lead smarter, healthier, and happier lives.

One can hope. It beats mindless movies and TV, right?

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Evolutionary psychology on compassion: More stuff you do not need to know

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:55:00 +0000

Robert ("Non-Zero") Wright explains the "evolution" of compassion
here. No wonder no one believes evolutionary psychology.

The reality is that some people never evolve any compassion at all, but compassion comes naturally to others - even if it hurts them. Most people can learn it, often through their own suffering.

If a gene wwere involved, we could predict who would have compassion, but we usually can't.

Get past that, and welcome to the world of useful human psychology. See Clive Hayden's comments here.

My latest MercatorNet story: Brain scans and neurotrash

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:25:00 +0000

It's the ultimate branding strategy. Just slap "neuro" before a word and the goofiest speculation becomes respectable science." Here:

Unfortunately, neurotrash may not always be harmless nonsense in marketing departments about what color of car people choose. Increasingly, in the form of neurolaw, it is catching on in the legal profession, in the same way that lie detector tests did decades ago. What happened there was that some people learned to fake results - people who may well have committed serious crimes. Who knows how many others were damaged by false results when they were innocent?

A serious ethical question also erupts as to why the accused's brain should be scanned anyway. It is not a crime to think about a crime, only to act outside the law. Even if a brain scan showed the accused was thinking about it, that would never prove he did it. Lots of employees hate their boss and wish the boss would just drop dead. If you scanned their brains... well, let's say it's better not to go there. Very few employees actually commit a violent crime against the boss, so the brain scan evidence -- even if reliable, which it probably isn't - is not worth gathering.

Also, we must consider traditional principles of law. Under English common law, if a person cannot be convicted on the external evidence of their intent and actions, that person cannot be convicted. Period. It is too bad if the prosecution team loses, even when morally certain that the accused is guilty. But that is an incentive to improve their procedures in normal ways.

Yes, it matters. Your family doctor should be reading this.

Go here for more.

Neuroscience: Man was conscious 23 years ... but who except him knew?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:40:00 +0000

At the Mail Online, Allan Hall reports (November 23, 2009) on the case of a man who was conscious for 23 years, but no one knew because he was paralyzed.

A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.
Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them - but could make no sound.
'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear.

Read more here.

It sounds like a horror film, and he could maybe get rich on the film rights.

Seriously, I think doctors should be much more careful with the "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) diagnoses than they sometimes are - if consequences follow. Some people - like Rom Houben, above - can be conscious without being mobile. We aren't even sure what consciousness is , after all, so why be definitive about who has it?

Here are some more articles about persistent vegetative state:

Is the patient vegetative or minimally conscious?

Neuroscience: Can locked-in sufferers tweet, using brain signals alone?

Another "human vegetable" turns out to be wired for thought

Sociology: Should you add Satan to your Board of Directors?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:39:00 +0000

Sociology: Should you add Satan to your Board of Directors?

Belief in hell spurs economic growth?

In "Satan, the great motivator: The curious economic effects of religion," Michael Fitzgerald
(Boston Globe, November 15, 2009), advises,

A pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practices. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies - and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell.

Of course, these researchers either have it all wrong or else they are gravely misreported.

Belief in hell is a function of the belief that what we do matters and that the death of the body does not end everything for us. On a mundane level, if what we do matters, we can improve our economic lot by focusing on useful actions rather than useless or harmful ones. Of course, when it comes to matters of eternity, well ... consult whatever responsible religious authorities you think can help you.

We also learn,

Barro and McCleary, for their part, think religion and policy are difficult to mix. McCleary says the lesson of their results isn't that governments should boost religion, but simply that they should recognize it has some value, and avoid regulating it too heavily.

Well, government had - in my view - better avoid regulating religion "too heavily" (?!). Recent Canadian experience suggests that government should get out of the area entirely. "Human rights" commissions here have caused nothing but trouble in recent years when they meddle in matters of eternity, not time. But good citizens are now fighting back and slowly forcing the government back to its proper - and much needed - sphere of influence.

Some of us - even though we are not Americans - sometimes Google the US First Amendment, for comfort:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As one of the Canadian free speech journalists, (of whom there are now many, glad to say), I am grateful for the good citizens worldwide who wish us well in dealing with the current "social engineering of religion" menace* - and we will help you too, when you are attacked.

* A big problem has been attacks on the right of Christian churches to teach their members that the gay lifestyle is not acceptable for their members of good faith. Just so you know, the big gay rights group, Egale, is not backing this agenda. The people who launch persecutions tend to be disgruntled individuals. Canada has freedom of religion. People who do not agree with their denomination's position are free to join a denomination that thinks otherwise, and there are several here.

If you are interested in this problem, see Shakedown or Lights Out or Tyranny of Nice.

Neuroscience and popular culture: Reasons not to buy "neuronovels" for people for Christmas

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:10:00 +0000

In the age of neuro-everything, I am hardly surprised to hear about the neuronovel. Jonah Lehrer at Frontal Cortex reports,

The last dozen years or so have seen the emergence of a new strain within the Anglo-American novel. What has been variously referred to as the novel of consciousness or the psychological or confessional novel-the novel, at any rate, about the workings of a mind-has transformed itself into the neurological novel, wherein the mind becomes the brain. ince 1997, readers have encountered, in rough chronological order, Ian McEwan's Enduring Love (de Clérambault's syndrome, complete with an appended case history by a fictional "presiding psychiatrist" and a useful bibliography), Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (Tourette's syndrome), Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (autism), Richard Powers's The Echomaker (facial agnosia, Capgras syndrome), McEwan again with Saturday (Huntington's disease, as diagnosed by the neurosurgeon protagonist), Atmospheric Disturbances (Capgras syndrome again) by a medical school graduate, Rivka Galchen, and John Wray's Lowboy (paranoid schizophrenia). And these are just a selection of recently published titles in "literary fiction." There are also many recent genre novels, mostly thrillers, of amnesia, bipolar disorder, and multiple personality disorder.

Lehrer is appropriately skeptical, though at the end of his piece, he almost bows down to materialism - as he must, I suppose. It is very difficult for anyone with a stake in this present darkness to avoid at least appearing to believe that darkness is light.

My own view: Once we put -ogical or -ology in our explanation of a novel ... watch out! We are already wandering off the main highway of narrative. "Once upon a time" is actually much better.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Neurolaw: Confusing intent with motive is a threat to civil rights

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:37:00 +0000

Re the problem with "neurolaw" (the attempt to scan brains to identify criminal behaviour), I have said this before, but it is worth repeating in the context: Law is, or should be, concerned with "intent", not "motive."

Yes, yes, in detective fiction, everything hinges on motive: Cousin Harry murdered Aunt Sally to get her fortune; plain Jane murdered pretty Kitty because Kitty got the man; squadron leader Beeder murdered that guy because of a long ago wartime betrayal ....

However, real law depends in design inferences, not speculations about motive. Here is the story I sometimes tell to explain that:

Tom and Dick are enjoying beer and wings in a pub.

Suddenly, the conversation becomes loud and animated.

Tom seizes a dinner knife and tries to plunge it into Dick's chest. He is restrained by burly patron Harry and several others.

The whole thing is caught on videocam.

Mid-uproar, someone calls the police, and they charge Tom with attempted manslaughter.

The police need not know his motive, only his intent - which was pretty obvious. That's a design inference.

Later, the investigating officer learns how the quarrel began: Dick had informed Tom that he was seeing Tom's girlfriend, so Tom should just buzz off. Tom didn't like that idea.

Knowing a person's motive certainly helps us understand the story. But intent - the demonstrated attempt at murder in this case - is what matters in law.

Here's the difficulty: Suppose Tom had just got up from the table and left, and spent three months fantasizing in the wee hours about killing Dick - without ever seeing either Dick or the former girlfriend again. He has plenty of motive, but the fact is, he never did anything.

Then Tom is of no interest to the law, as it now stands - though his family doctor should be concerned. Tom needs a more constructive way to deal with rejection. (He also needs a more faithful girlfriend, but all in good time.)

However, in a materialist environment, I would hardly be surprised to hear theories about Tom's violence genes and violence neurons, some based on neuroscience techniques - even if all the violence was inside his own head.

Some may argue for action against Tom "pre-crime". That's where the threat to civil liberties comes in.

Neurolaw seems like materialism applied to law, hence a threat to civil rights, because it can easily confuse motive with intent - overturning centuries of progress in justice.

Neuroscience: "The Young and the Bureau"

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:15:00 +0000

Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose draws my attention to her post on David Brooks's column, "The Young and the Neuro" (New York Times, October 12, 2009), extolling the eager young neuroscientists who - in my view - know just enough to get it all wrong, as follows:

Since I’m not an academic, I’m free to speculate that this work will someday give us new categories, which will replace misleading categories like ‘emotion’ and ‘reason.’ I suspect that the work will take us beyond the obsession with I.Q. and other conscious capacities and give us a firmer understanding of motivation, equilibrium, sensitivity and other unconscious capacities.

The hard sciences are interpenetrating the social sciences. This isn’t dehumanizing. ...

Oh yes it is, and it is intended to be.

Given the way things will go if pseudo-disciplines in neuroscience catch on with government - for example in the criminal justice system - (cf "neurolaw"), were I the headliner, I would be tempted to retitle Brooks's piece, "The Young and the Bureau."

Anyway, West Allen comments on the underlying assumption that the mind does not really exist.

As Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz has said, "The brain puts out the call, the mind decides whether to listen."

Many of the materialists do not believe in free will. (See, for example, the first link below.) This reductionist lens can be insulting to the human spirit. In the legal profession, it can be dangerous

She provides links at the above post to many excellent posts arguing the dangers of neurolaw.

As I always say, if the prosecution team cannot convict on the external evidence, it cannot convict, period. People are citizens with civil rights, not goats or beetles. A government that does not recognize that fact should not exist. If your government does not recognize it, please hold a revolution soon.

If everyone who thought about murder did it, half the bosses on the planet would be found dead on their coffee break - and scads of administrative assistants too.

Incidentally, West Allen is not the only skeptic. As I reported earlier, a writer for New Humanist - not the source that would have immediately jumped out at me - has expressed similar, justifiable skepticism.

Spiritual Brain: Me 'n YouTube: Discussing my "Hot Apple Cider" essay

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Here. The clip is short, and talks about an aspect of The Spiritual Brain - spirituality helps your health.
.
Hot Apple Cider is a collection of Canadian writers' work.

I'll be at Faith Family Books & Gifts on Friday, November 20, along with many other, more distinguished authors and excellent performers, so if you are in the area, come and have a coffee with me.

Neuroscience: Do you really need a refrigerator when you have this?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:14:00 +0000

I found this chilling:

Abstract:
This paper questions criminal law's strong presumption of free will. Part I assesses the ways in which environment, nurture, and society influence human action. Part II briefly surveys studies from the fields of genetics and neuroscience which call into question strong assumptions of free will and suggest explanations for propensities toward criminal activity. Part III discusses other "causes" of criminal activity including addiction, economic deprivation, gender, and culture. In light of Parts I through III, Part IV assesses criminal responsibility and the legitimacy of punishment. Part V considers the the possibility of determining propensity from criminal activity based on assessing causal factors and their effects on certain people. In this context, the concept of dangerous individuals and possible justifications for preventative detention of such individuals in order to protect society is assessed. The concluding section suggests that the law should take a broader view of factors that could have determinant effects on agents' actions.

The part that bugs me is "possible justifications for preventative detention".

That's what always happens when free will is denied.. Somehow or other, the idea gets started that we can detect in advance who will commit a crime. Then you needn't do anything to get arrested and put away. Someone just needs to have a theory about you.

But no one can truly predict the future in any kind of detail.

What about the Fort Hood massacre, you ask? Well, according to a number of reports, that guy had been advertising his grievances for some months. You sure wouldn't need a brain scan or materialist theories about free will to figure out that he wasn't happy in the Army and should have been discharged - which is what he wanted. You'd only need to listen to what he actually said.

Neuroskepticism - a breath of fresh air from New Humanist - and maybe more legal safety too?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:28:00 +0000

Neuroscience is, unfortunately, increasingly taken over by what I often describe as neurobullshipping. You know, neuroeconomics,, neurolaw ... It basically amounts to determining which regions of the brains of carefully chosen subjects light up when certain propositions are introduced.

Relief at last!

Here, at New Humanist, Raymond Tallis rallies the neuroskeptics ("Neurotrash", Volume 124, Issue 6, November/December 2009). 'Bout time someone did, I'd say. What's really good is that it comes from an unexpected quarter, at least for me.

He writes,

Hardly a day passes without yet another breathless declaration in the popular press about the relevance of neuroscientific findings to everyday life. The articles are usually accompanied by a picture of a brain scan in pixel-busting Technicolor and are frequently connected to references to new disciplines with the prefix “neuro-”. Neuro-jurisprudence, neuro-economics, neuro-aesthetics, neuro-theology are encroaching on what was previously the preserve of the humanities. Even philosophers – who should know better, being trained one hopes, in scepticism – have entered the field with the discipline of “Exp-phi” or experimental philosophy. Starry-eyed sages have embraced “neuro-ethics”, in which ethical principles are examined by using brain scans to determine people’s moral intuitions when they are asked to deliberate on the classic dilemmas. Benjamin Libet’s experiments on decisions to act and the work on mirror neurons (observed directly in monkeys but only inferred, and still contested, in humans) have been ludicrously over-interpreted to demonstrate respectively that our brains call the shots (and we do not have free will) and to point to a neural basis for empathy.

Yes, pop neuroscience is beginning to sound more like "evolutionary" psychology all the time.

Responding to Tallis's article's title, "Neurotrash", I wrote to friends to say, more or less,

What we need is a really big neuro-trash can.

The result of all this nonsense is that neuroscience gets discredited when it is, used appropriately, an immense help in medicine.

Remember, it was neuroscience that established that stroke victims were losing use of limbs through learned helplessness, not irreversible brain damage. Jeffrey Schwartz, Vince Paquette, Mario Beauregard and others have also demonstrated that non-drug, non-invasive treatments of mental disorders actually work - especially important for those disorders that cannot be effectively treated by drugs or surgery. (I am sure there are others whose work I do not know.)

Here's what I know for sure: I remember the rows on rows of beds in the chronic care hospital I used to volunteer at in the 1960s. Compare that to the much more favourable prospects brought about by the Decade of the Brain (1990s)! But it wasn't easy. One neuroscientist all but lost his career introducing the "learned helplessness" concept (why stroke patients, in many cases, lost the use of limbs through simple non-use). Only neuroscience could really have uncovered that.

That’s the real story, and Tallis talks about it. We should stick to it.

It’s also why I always say neuroscience should stay close to medicine and far from silliness - like which area of the brain lights up if a woman decides to buy the flaming yellow pants with movie star decals instead of the quiet brown pair*.

Seriously, however, in the justice system, neuroscience, inappropriately used, could be quite dangerous. Cf neurolaw.

If we can’t convict an alleged perpetrator of a crime on the external evidence, we should not be trying to scan his brain.

Who cares what that guy thinks anyway?

It’s not a crime around here to think, only to act in a way that is outside the law. If the prosecution can't prove he did it, then ... they can't make their case, and that's just too bad for them.

And, as I like to say, if you don't like English Common Law (= whose basic principle is that the accused is innocent unless proven guilty), please live in some jurisdiction where no one has ever heard of it. We like it here.

In the meantime, enough with this neurolaw stuff.

(*The Unforgivably Bad Taste region, maybe? Wonder where it is? Not many women could make that work.)

Materialism and popular culture: The human brain as a machine?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:15:00 +0000

The Immanent Frame, an interesting blog, offers "Spiritual Machines: an interview with John Lardas Modern" (October 5, 2009) by Nathan Schneider:

John Lardas Modern, an assistant professor of religious studies at Franklin & Marshall College, draws on the Beat poets, phrenologists, prison reformers, and Moby-Dick to show why taking technology seriously forces us to think differently about the boundaries of religion. He spoke recently with Nathan Schneider about the ambiguity of agency in the age of technology and the porous border between the material and the spiritual.

I'm completely unconvinced myself, because I think we are far more like oceans than machines. And remember, as an oceanographer told me last May, 97% of the ocean is unexplored.

There is also an interesting article by Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer on unchurched believers:

Hout and Fischer discuss their statistical findings concerning the growing number of "unchurched" or "unaffiliated" believers in the United States.

For more commentary on the growth of the "no religion" population, see "Religious 'Nones' and the future of American Religion," our overview of relevant opinions and analyses collected from around the Web.

This is an important question, and I am glad Hout and Fischer are raising it. Religious Nones are not usually materialist atheists; they are simply people who do not identify with a religious denomination. Materialist atheism is rare in North America, apart from some university faculties, which are having a hard time making their case.

Identification with a religious denomination means less than one might think. I once bought a book about moving to a rural area in Canada, in which I was - reasonably - informed that one was expected to identify with a religious denomination in those parts, but was in no way expected to believe or attend church.

The author assumed that I would be reassured on hearing this. Uh, no.

I was alarmed. The church might well be full of hypocrites, liars, schemers, and poseurs.

Oh well, whoever said it would be easy? Onward!

Spiritual Brain: Polish translation rights bought

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:08:00 +0000

I am pleased to report that The Spiritual Brain is going into Polish translation.

Maybe this is hopeful. For a long while we couldn’t sell TSB abroad because some commentators said the book was “too religious”.

I have no idea why.

The book isn’t especially religious unless … you mean if any book threatens materialists … ?

But wouldn't people want to know why materialism probably isn't true? Well, I guess Poles do, and good for them.

Curiosity and the dead cat

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:56:00 +0000

In Does curiosity kill more than the cat?, prof Stanley Fish wonders

Last Thursday, the new Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities James A. Leach gave an address at the University of Virginia with the catchy title, “Is There an Inalienable Right to Curiosity?”

Taking his cue from Thomas Jefferson’s “trinity of inalienable rights: ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’” Leach reasoned that even though Jefferson never wrote about curiosity, “a right to be curious would have been a natural reflection of his own personality.”

Interesting, considering that academic freedom is under huge assault these days.

I have said in private correspondence as follows:

It is good to be curious about the exact cause of Alzheimer syndrome or whether that fellow hanging around in the parking lot has lawful business around here.

It is not good to be curious about whether my neighbour is a closet racist or having an affair with the letter carrier.

I’d say curiosity is an inescapable and necessary human quality that must be steered in an appropriate direction.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

PS: Re cats: I know a bit. Curiosity does kill cats sometimes. But kidney disease is their biggest problem. Cats are obligate carnivores. So they generally last as long as their kidneys - or so a vet once told me - and in my experience it is certainly true.

Neurolaw: Could capital punishment kill it?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:29:00 +0000

I sure hope so. Recently, I have said that I don't believe in capital punishment; anyway, Canada does not have it any more.

Note: I am not in any way soft on crime or inclined to make excuses for serious perps. I've dealt with enough perps in my own life that I have zero interest in cutting them any slack.

That said: a key problem is the drama that usually unfolds around capital punishment.

A perp declaiming speeches at the foot of the scaffold sounds way more interesting than one who is merely disappearing into the pen system for yay years. = food, clothes, and board for life, freedom from vengeance of relatives of the deceased. Plus - to the best of my knowledge - we don't flog or torture here in Canada.

So he is there and not here. Hammering out licence plates somewhere in a guarded facility in exchange for smoke chits. Which is what most of us want. We don't want him in the parking lot across the street.

A lawyer friend, Timothy Capps, who addresses death penalty cases, comments, specifically re neuroscience evidence in death penalty cases,

... if portable, relatively inexpensive neuroimaging devices filtered down to police agencies, they would definitely be used in the investigative process. Polygraphs have always been less about detecting lies than extracting confessions. They are the hardware version of the "evidence ploy," and are used to convince a person that he is hopelessly guilty. The National Academy of Science has declared polygraphs are humbug. It doesn't matter. They are used effectively every day to convince suspects that they had better confess and get the best deal they can get. A machine that produced a bright image of a brain with a red blot would be even more compelling to a suspect.

In the courtroom, neuroimaging will be tried by some mitigators in death penalty cases where many jurisdictions provide unlimited funding to the defense and lawyers are among the best and most highly motivated. Even here, the practical difficulties discussed in our little newsletter guarantee it will not see wide acceptance. While the courts might be willing to go along with the latest in science, it just won't work as mitigation. Future dangerousness is a huge factor in giving the death penalty, and having a broken brain is about as dangerous as it gets. More useful to the prosecution, who will not have the same access to the defendant.

Trust me on this one. Neurolaw is a lot more exciting to academics than it is to the real lawyers who would be the ones to use it. Illinois is a death penalty state with death penalty defense experts on the state payroll and unlimited funds for the defense. If I don't see it being used here, its future isn't very bright. This isn't even considering the problems with Frye and Daubert determinations about the scientific validity of the evidence.

Well, I don't think neurolaw should be used. The science base is just not clear enough. It reminds me of eugenics, a bogus science of the early twentieth century.

He also predicts,

Fewer states will have the death penalty as time goes on here. Too expensive, too messy. Ohio just halted executions after they could not get a needle in a guy despite sticking him in the arms, hands and feet for the better part of an hour. (Kind of completes the symbolism begun by the cruciform gurney.) The guy was even trying to help. They eventually took him back to his cell and that was that!

Wow. He may have needed treatment for injection wounds to various body parts. I hope he got it.

I replied to Capps:

I do keep boring people with this talking point: We Canadians are not nearly as soft as some right-wing American pundits make out.

We just don’t want all the horsing and fooling (and expense) around preventing an execution. So we don’t execute people.

Suddenly, no one cares what happens to the perp.

Look, if a guy is dangerous, he’s dangerous. Why spend a lot of money preventing his execution if he can disappear into the pen system – and half the time even he doesn’t care as much as you might think.

Eventually, he gets too old to be dangerous, and we let him out.

Why not? If some old feller tried whacking me with his cane on the street, I would grab the cane, ask for witnesses, and complain to the police.

He would likely get put away again, this time for senile dementia.

Note; One of my late uncles once did a private study of the people who hid out in the hills on our vast open prairie. Some, it turned out, were wanted for murder in various US states. Given the grim northern winters, they might have preferred life in a prison with central heating and regular meals.

It was the noose they feared. But that didn't help anyone solve any murder.

Neuroscience and popular materialism: What makes the human brain unique?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:42:00 +0000

Here's a great reason for rejecting pop neuroscience, titled "We are neuroscientists and we come in peace":

Hmmm. Just try coming to war here and see what happens.

Just when it seemed things could get no worse, Hank Greely of Stanford Law School pointed to several areas of potential friction between neuroscience research and widely held religious beliefs (findings that point to consciousness, or a form of it, in nonhuman animals, for example, might undermine the notion that humans occupy a unique position in the world) and asked whether neuroscientists might get dragged into the type of culture war waged by evolutionary biologists and creationists. ... “What Makes The Human Brain Unique”?

What makes the human brain unique?:

Has anyone considered Einstein's 1905 papers? Show me the chimp who did anything similar.

Instead of this horrifying chimp attack.

For your own good, smarten up, all.

If this is a culture war, I plead innocent for starting it. It was started by entrenched tax burdens.

Neuroscience: Are more pop culture mags "getting" the problem with atheist materialism?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Time Magazine addresses the problem that neuroscientists who think the mind is real often discuss (John Cloud, October 13, 2009):

How people react to a medication depends in large part on how they think about it.

Exactly why the placebo and nocebo responses arise is a puzzle, but a fascinating article in Wired magazine noted earlier this year that the positive placebo response to drugs has increased during clinical trials over the past few years. The article speculated that drug advertising - which exploded after 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration began allowing direct-to-consumer ads - has led us to expect more from drugs. Those expectations, in turn, have made us feel better just for popping a pill. (Placebo responses can also occur simply when you book appointments with doctors[*] or psychotherapists[**].)

No surprise, really. If your problem is,

- *Why should I pay $159.95 plus tax for a medication? Dunno. Maybe some consumer research would pay off.

But if the question is

- **"Why am I still living with The Mad Idiot?", well, why are you? In most jurisdictions there would be a peaceful way to end the relationship. If not, please hold a revolution soon.

Anyway, sitting in a psychotherapist's office helps you, because it establishes that you take your own welfare seriously. In an intelligently designed universe, that is the first step on the road to recovery.

Neuroscience and pop culture: More trouble for education

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:27:00 +0000

Imaging studies of people evaluating anomalies, or working out unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area called the anterior cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation is recorded, the greater the motivation or ability to seek and correct errors in the real world, a recent study suggests. “The idea that we may be able to increase that motivation,” said Dr. Inzlicht, a co-author, “is very much worth investigating.”

Researchers familiar with the new work say it would be premature to incorporate film shorts by David Lynch, say, or compositions by John Cage into school curriculums. For one thing, no one knows whether exposure to the absurd can help people with explicit learning, like memorizing French. For another, studies have found that people in the grip of the uncanny tend to see patterns where none exist — becoming more prone to conspiracy theories, for example. The urge for order satisfies itself, it seems, regardless of the quality of the evidence.

Still, the new research supports what many experimental artists, habitual travelers and other novel seekers have always insisted: at least some of the time, disorientation begets creative thinking.

Rest here. Trouble? Of course. Basically, students need a calm, quiet environment in order to grasp any important concept, like the mathematical proof of why you cannot square a circle or the use of metaphor in literature. The absurd might be a fun circus ride, sure, but .... Oh, and while we are here, they should have had a good night's sleep and a good breakfast too.

Memory lane: Forty years ago, a local school got all modernist and decided to abolish classroom walls. A key outcome was that troubled students, instead of being confined to raising cain in one classroom, were running through the whole school, disrupting them all.

Luckily, I had put my own kids in the Catholic school, which had never heard of any such thing. The kids were none the worse for that, either.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Neurolaw: Mind readers bustle into the court room

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:44:00 +0000

I am sure glad someone is writing about this, though glad it isn't my own job.

The problem is that judges and jurors will mistakenly assume that technologies that are demonstrably valid medical diagnostic tools yield equally valid conclusions when they are used to map the neural correlates of deception and other forms of cognition.

I think what this person is trying to say is this (though he can't just come right out and say it): Neuroscience can tell you if an elderly person's brain problems are the likely cause of serious cognitive deficits. That's very useful; one can make better decisions for that person's care, decisions that respect his dignity too.

If neuroscience claims to tell us whether Jimmy "the jimslamm" is lying, well, yes of course he is.

If his lips are moving and intelligible sounds are coming out of his mouth, he is lying. I've dealt with lots of people like him so I can tell you for free and save you trouble.

But what is he lying about this time? I don't like this new neurolaw craze for a number of reasons. I think Jimmy should just take his chances with a skilled Crown*. A fair fight.

*In Canada, counsel for the prosecution

The Future of Neuroimaged Lie Detection and the Law

Joelle Anne Moreno
Florida International University College of Law

Akron Law Review, Vol. 42, pp. 717-734, 2009
Florida International University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 09-06

Abstract:
Neuroscience will certainly change law. In fact, neuroscience research has the potential to influence a vast range of legal decisions. To the extent that neuroscientists increasingly make claims that neuroimaging reveals cognition, even the most unimaginative prognosticator might predict: (1) the preliminary investigative use of neuroimages to enhance witness interviews and police interrogations (including but not limited to lie-detection), (2) jury selection based on neuroimages that appear to reveal jurors' unconscious stereotypes or biases, and (3) arguments about intent or sentencing based on neuroimage-enhanced explanations of behavior and predictions of dangerousness. In anticipation of a brave new world of neuroscience 'enhanced' law, this Article suggests that if we want to predict or control future social and legal responses to cognitive neuroscience research, we must carefully and explicitly consider two basic preexisting realities: (1) our shared assumptions about the validity of the medical field of neuroscience and the accuracy of diagnostic neuroimaging technologies; and (2) our increasingly frequent exposure (even within the mainstream media) to uncritical reports of cognitive neuroscience research that purports to correlate brain activity with cognition, deception,or social behavior. The risk, is that if we ignore these realities, judges, jurors, and the general public will likely view all or most neuroscience-based evidence as legitimate 'hard' science because researchers rely on technologically sophisticated neuroimaging tools of demonstrated accuracy. The problem is that judges and jurors will mistakenly assume that technologies that are demonstrably valid medical diagnostic tools yield equally valid conclusions when they are used to map the neural correlates of deception and other forms of cognition.
Accepted Paper Series

Mind and society: Why you can trust the people, when they have a chance

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:58:00 +0000

A correspondent commends to me "Pray the Devil Back to Hell", an award-winning documentary about how Liberian women put a stop to a long and brutal war.

If so, they are deeply commended from my safe apartment in Toronto.

No country can prosper without good citizens. It is an old notion, called - in Latin - civitas , and in English "citizenship."

Liberia was founded by people who had lived in slavery in the United States, and we must all wish them well in this matter.

The lesson I take from these women's experience is, don't wait for the government to do things we can do ourselves.

That includes - in my experience, admittedly much less painful than these Liberians' - dealing with incidents of racism or anti-Semitism or just plain uncivil behaviour on one's own. Why ask for a big, expensive, and possibly useless or Constitnution-denying government process?

Yes, it creates government jobs. But why not just make clear that we think that the person who talks and acts that way is a useless, tasteless boob who probably couldn't get a job picking up after dogs?

Wouldn't that be far more useful and cheaper?

Neuroscience: Stuff I didn't need to hear about what people care about, but pass along anyway

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:35:00 +0000

This from a recent study of religion, using neuroscience techniques:

While religious and nonreligious thinking differentially engage broad regions of the frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobes, the difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent. Our study compares religious thinking with ordinary cognition and, as such, constitutes a step toward developing a neuropsychology of religion. However, these findings may also further our understanding of how the brain accepts statements of all kinds to be valid descriptions of the world.

The study compares religious believers and non-believers, which I think is a bogus comparison. Everybody believes something. One must be quite the dull stick not to believe anything. Non-believers in traditional religions are often great fans of the environment, the government, their trade union, their home team, a political party, atheist book clubs, a rock band, their local Hell's Angels club house, or whatever.

It would be a big step forward if researchers recognized that religious beliefs are not different in principle from other beliefs. The fact that contrary nonsense is even entertained is an impediment to science.

Yes, religion is very important, at least to some people. But then so is membership in a Chrysler trade union or the Hell's Angels or the Flyers' fan club to others.

Thus, I am hardly surprised to learn that "the difference between belief and disbelief appears to be content-independent."

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Neuroscience: The importance of focused attention

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:21:00 +0000

In the Huffington Post, Rick Smith (October 9, 2009) notes

In a 2005 article for the United Kingdom's Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, physicist Henry Stapp and psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz showed that sustained concentrated attention on any particular mental experience-a thought, an insight, an image, even a fear-not only kept the brain circuitry involved open and alive but also eventually produced physical changes in the brain's structure. In effect, by increasing attention, you are creating brain architecture specifically suited to the challenges before you. Little wonder, then, that performance should grow dramatically.

Schwartz is the lead author of The Mind and the Brain, which sets forth this thesis in more detail. Basically, our minds become what we focus attention on, and this can be good or bad for us, depending on what that is.

Meanwhile, this Dark Age blog post (October 11 2009) mentions both Mario Beauregard, the third author of the 2005 paper and yours truly as well.

Atheism and pop culture: Religious commitment as mild dementia?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:39:00 +0000

I had computer problems last week, hence no blogging.

In "God vs. Science Isn't the Issue", William McGurn (Wall Street Journal, October 12, 2009) notes,

In contrast to the majority of scientists whose wondrous discoveries seem to inspire humility, today's advocates of scientism can be every bit as dogmatic as the William Jennings Bryans of yesteryear. We saw an example a week ago, when the New York Times reported that many scientists view "outspoken religious commitment as a sign of mild dementia."
.
The reporter was Gardiner Harris, and the object of his snark was Francis Collins—the new director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins is perhaps best noted for his leadership on the Human Genome Project, an effort to map the genetic makeup of man. But he is also well known for his unapologetic talk about his Christian faith and how he came to it.

Mr. Harris's aside about dementia, of course, is less a proposition open to debate than the kind of putdown you tell at a private cocktail party where you know everyone in the room shares your orthodoxies. In this room, there are those who hold that God cannot be reconciled with what science has discovered about the human body, the origin of the species, and the beginnings of the universe. The more honest ones do not flinch before the implications of their materialist principles on our understanding of human dignity and human rights and human freedom—as well as on religion.

A couple of thoughts:

- Whoever said God vs. science was an issue? The whole idea was invented and is kept alive by materialist atheists, whose comments about "dementia" tell you something worth knowing.

- I have noticed that working scientists tend to be humble in the face of the facts, which is a good place to begin any type of true knowledge. The practitioners of scientism, by contrast, behave like cult members.* Recently, I was listening to one of them hold forth as an after-dinner speaker, proclaiming that on many science stories there is only one side. Well, that's all right then; we can all just mindlessly shout in unison. Oh wait. Cue the pop science press on any subject to do with neuroscience. It is genuinely hard to imagine a neuroscience story so stupid they wouldn't run with it.

- Francis Collins is, in my view, one confused puppy about some issues about which Christians generally have not been confused. So if even Collins is being attacked - when he agrees with the materialists that there can be human lives that don't matter, that humans can do whatever they want with - what does it tell you?: A materialist elite will attack theists even when they are trying to make nice by throwing away key reasons for being a theist.

- Lastly, William Jennings Bryan was not a dogmatist. He had been secretary of state for the US in World War I, and he knew that Darwinism played a role in the notion, prevalent among Germans of the day, that they were born to rule, due to "evolution". He did not want similar ideas taught in publicly funded schools in Tennessee. However, the textbook used there featured eugenics quite openly. As a once textbook editor myself, I can assure you that statements made in the text Scopes taught from (Hunter's Civic Biology) would just never appear in any textbook in Canada today. Lawsuits, and probably hearings as well, would follow.

Bryan's approach was unwise, in my view, because it would be better to just edit that garbage out of the textbooks than make a law or try a teacher over it. But Bryan has been unfairly caricatured, as above, as a foolish fellow, when he was in fact concerned about a legitimate problem. One that - it should be admitted - few others were even trying to address.

Most important, al this tells you what governance by a materialist elite is like (= reasons for not voting for them and not cutting them any slack).

*Not to be confused with religious people generally, who often have the good sense to be confused, divided, or uncertain until they have had an opportunity to weigh the matter in the light of a long tradition - millennia, maybe - of difficult problems.

Neuroscience: More "brain in a vat" talk

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:53:00 +0000

In this Newsweek blog article, author Rita Carter informs us,

Oh, totally. I think we are our brains. When we change the brain, we change the person. The more you look at brains . . . it becomes unavoidable that essentially everything you are is determined by the way that organ is working. And people who, for example, have a serious accident where a bit of their brain is knocked out, there is no doubt that a bit of them goes with it. Of course, [on the other hand] it does allow one to change and to learn. And yet there is still a very instinctive sense that we are more than our brains—and I can kind of sympathize with that because it’s common to us all, but I do think that if you really look at neuroscience you are forced to admit that all we are is this particular pattern of electrical activity in an organ, really.

Uh, no. Even a materialist atheist will normally concede that we have bodies too.

Speaking for myself, essentially everything I am is not "determined by the way that organ is working". I have a number of other organs to think of, and many of their malfunctions are not "this particular pattern of electrical activity in an organ."

Indeed, there are times I wish I could be the brain in a vat this author describes, just to shut off the bodily feedback I can't do anything about. But it has never happened and never will.

Religion: Does religious literacy matter?

oleary@sympatico.ca (Denyse) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:40:00 +0000

Montreal's McGill University Faculty of Education hosted a conference October 2, 2009, on "Why is religious literacy important?":

Participants in this symposium will have an opportunity to hear from internationally recognized experts on the topic of Religious Literacy and learn about choices made by school systems in different parts of the world.

Well, why is any literacy important?

Do I want people to graduate from high school without knowing why the bar mitzvah is important to Jews, that Muslims fast during Ramadan, that Jesus was crucified, or that materialist atheists do not believe in life beyond death? Not knowing this kind of thing closes a door on understanding events, controversies, and symbols in the world around them.