RS50 - Neurobabble
Release date: December 18, 2011
The media is increasingly bombarding us with reports of advances in neuroscience which claim all sorts of amazing feats, like allowing us to read our thoughts and intentions. It sounds like neurobabble. Most of these reports though are either based on bad science, reach false conclusion, or are based on conceptual misunderstanding of how our psychology works. To be fair, much of this is manufactured by the popular media but, unfortunately, some of it comes from the neuroscience community itself. So, what information can we really get from fMRIs? As with the misunderstanding of what genes are (like whether there is a God or a conservative gene), are there really parts of the brain dedicated to categories of thoughts like some of these reports claim? And, perhaps more importantly, what are the ethical implications of this neurobabble, should we arrest people who we can tell, based on this research, will be committing a crime?
Julia's pick: "Rationality and the Reflective Mind"
Massimo's pick: "hypothes.is"
References:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_spectator/2011/09/does_evil_exist_neuroscientists_say_no_.single.html
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1600761
http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/neurobabble-obscures-the-deeper-189981.aspx
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_spectator/2011/09/does_evil_exist_neuroscientists_say_no_.single.html
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
The slate piece on evil is a interesting article, but in my mind somewhat missing the point. Sure, we all understand what the word "evil" means, and it remains a useful adjective for describing certain behaviours, but as a noun, describing some "numinous nonmaterial malevolent force", or even as an adjective to describe people driven by such a force, it is manifestly unhelpful.
Regarding your comments on the illusion of "Free Will", is the real question not the following:
Given our genes and past experiences (including all environmental, epigenetic influences etc.), could any of the decisions we have ever made, have been made differently?
To me, the answer to the above is clearly, "no".
Does this mean that perpetrators of "evil" acts should not be punished and isolated from society - no, because that punishment becomes part of the environmental influence informing potentially "evil" decisions by them and others.
The jurisprudential implications as far as I'm concerned, are that we should throw away any vengeful motivations for punishment and instead concentrate on social isolation (for the protection of society) and rehabilitation, if at all possible.
I'm just listening to this podcast, and I noted a little confusion by Julia that you didn't clarify in the podcast (but you have in blog postings): It is the very definition of "moral responsibility" that we're talking about. It is not some mystical concept, it's actually an engineering problem: can you predict the outcome of your actions, and can you select from various actions? That's what makes you a moral agent.
PhineasG: I used to work at NIH on software for processing fMRI images, and we used to use examples like these when the researchers would use our software and statistical processing in a "novel" way to draw Amazing New conclusions.