Seduction by neuroscience: Resisting the allure

At Professor Adam Kolber's Neuroethics & Law Blog, I learned of a new article now in press at the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Access "The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations" here at the Web site of lead author Deena Skolnick Weisberg. Kolber summarizes the article:

In short, Skolnick's study suggests that people are much more willing to buy bad scientific explanations of phenomenon if they contain some sort of neuroscience reference - such as a comment that the phenomenon is associated with activity in a certain part of the brain - even if that reference is irrelevant to the logic of the argument being made.  Her work provides a little confirmatory data for some long-held suspicions about the power of neuro-talk to overwhelm good critical thinking.

Neuro-talk is popular these days. You can read about neuro-this and neuro-that. Much extrapolation is being done from the findings of neuroscience; often the extrapolation is not warranted or

accurate. We are aware of the temptation to make leaps and of the allure of the science. Here at BonP, accuracy as we apply neuroscience to conflict resolution will be of highest priority. When we first began writing articles together, Jeff and I discussed the importance, when talking about the mind and the brain, of not straying into the field of conjecture — unless any guess we make is clearly tagged as just that: a guess.

Jonah Lehrer of The Frontal Cortex also commented on the article about the seductive allure of neurosience. Lehrer concludes:

I think this finding could be used to discard a significant percentage of fMRI studies, which sometimes rely on a few distracting anatomical references (the insula! the amygdala! the mPFC!) to mask their banal results. Irrelevant jargon, especially of the reductionist variety, is intellectually intimidating. I should know, since this effect often happens to me.

I think the effect happens to many, if not most, of us. Here at this blog we will apply rigor with vigor.

Note (added March 24, 2008, 2:08 PM Mountain): Today Roger Dooley at Neuromarketing posted about "The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations." Read his post Neuromarketing Blog: My Secret Revealed into which he has injected some humor. Dooley is always worth reading.