Saturday, November 09, 2019
Dumbest science headline of the week
First, when I say dumbest I'm excluding the entire categories of "climate change" and "social" "science". Those areas are genocidal, which is a separate axis. Most of the research in those areas is also dumb, but there's no point in separating dumb genocide from smart genocide, dumb torture from smart torture.
Among the items that can be treated as dumb vs smart, this one takes the cake:
Headline: Can our thoughts alter our brains?
Answer: The PURPOSE of thought is to alter the brain.
Every thought either creates new associative pathways or reinforces old pathways. This has been broadly known for many decades. We're just starting to explore the actual mechanisms.
At the first instant, those new or altered associations are just signals, but every signal causes axons to seek new connections which alters the brain in VISIBLE ways.
The cited research finds that those VISIBLE paths are VISIBLE on MRI scans, which shouldn't be surprising.
The research itself isn't dumb. Only the headline is dumb. A smarter version would be
HOW does thought alter our brains?
Labels: Asked and answered
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