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I always find these articles frustrating. They usually seem to boil down to "we found some area of the brain linked to what the subject is doing showing more/l
by alex_c 17y ago
I always find these articles frustrating. They usually seem to boil down to "we found some area of the brain linked to what the subject is doing showing more/less activity when the subject does whatever it is they're doing". Whether the scientists themselves have a deeper understanding of what that means or not (and I'm not convinced that they always do), I certainly don't. Follow with some handwaving argument about cavemen hunting mammoths, and end with the truism "We act the way we do because we're wired that way".
It's a thoroughly unsatisfying read.
Maybe it's because it reminds me of trying to explain why a program works the way it does by tracking which parts of the computer use more electricity when you run it - you don't have a debugger, let alone the source code. What can you possibly learn?
- nazgulnarsil 17y agoagreed 100%. this sort of crap is why evolutionary psychology has the bad rap it does.
- alex_c 17y agoIt reminded me of this comic, I just had to go and find it: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/020709.jpg http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/...
- olavk 17y agoYeah, the headline says "Why...", but the article doesn't actually explain why. There is some guesswork about the reason, but that seem to be independent of the experiment - you don't need brain scans to be able to make wild guesses about the evolution of a certain behavior. Brain scannings can't explain behavior, just as heightened heart rate is not an "explanation" for love or anger.
- nostrademons 17y agoThe scientists involved all seem very honest about this potentially meaning lots of different things, and further research being necessary to find out. Unfortunately, "We found something, but we don't know what" doesn't make for good news, so journalists often make up conclusions that aren't really supported by anything.