

Neuroscience: Under Attack - sew
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html?hpw

======
jerrya
Interesting article, and a terrible headline in the Times about it. It's not
_Neuroscience: Under Attack_ , it's _Pop Neuroscience: Under Attack_ , and
it's under attack by scientists.

It's also part of a fad of how science works or is absorbed in culture.

Here's the Times in 1973, reviewing Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, in
which the antagonist, Dwayne Hoover's actions are caused by the bad chemicals
in his system.

 _Is Kurt Vonnegut Kidding Us?_

[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut-
bre...](http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut-
breakfast.html)

In 1973 it was chemistry. In 2013 it's neuroscience.

~~~
Alex3917
"It's not Neuroscience: Under Attack, it's Pop Neuroscience: Under Attack, and
it's under attack by scientists."

Neuroscience itself is generally pretty shoddy, so I don't think the
distinction between neuroscience and pop neuroscience is necessarily all that
important. E.g. this article explaining that over 50% of neuroscience journal
articles are completely invalid because they use statistics incorrectly:

<http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v14/n9/full/nn.2886.html>

And that's only one type of error out of dozens.

~~~
rd108
To be fair, that's generally only a criticism of fMRI experiments. Far from
all the neuroscience research being done.

~~~
lomendil
fMRI: Modern day phrenology

------
tokenadult
As another comment notes, the strength of science is that if something is
true, it will still be true even if a report about the fact is initially
exaggerated or initially ignored. Over the long haul, people who commit
themselves to finding out about replicated results that are consistent with
the previous established principles of science will gradually gain a better
understanding of reality. Someday, we have hope of understanding our brains
and how we think better than we understand that now. The discussion here on HN
often helps clarify issues that are not well reported in the popular press.
There are several working neuroscientists who regularly post here, and I enjoy
the stories they post and the comments they make and learn from them.

From the article: "A team of British scientists recently analyzed nearly 3,000
neuroscientific articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2010
and found that the media regularly distorts and embellishes the findings of
scientific studies."

We certainly observe submissions to HN regularly that are based on press
coverage of scientific findings that has gone through the "Science News Cycle"

<http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174>

such that a preliminary research finding gets hyped up in a press release, and
then the press release is sensationalized by a blogger or by a lazy journalist
who doesn't check other sources. This is one good reason not to submit to HN
at all any "story" that comes straight from a press release aggregation
service, as other participants on HN have been suggesting for years.
ScienceDaily is just a press release recycling service, nothing more. Users
here on HN think there are better sites to submit from.

Comments about ScienceDaily:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206>

"Blogspam.

"Original article (to which ScienceDaily has added precisely nothing):

[http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-
dn...](http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dna-changes-
following-population-explosion-may-hold-common-disease-clues)

"Underlying paper in Science (paywalled):

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1219240)

"Brief writeup from Nature discussing this paper and a couple of others on
similar topics:

[http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-
genetic-...](http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic-
variants-1.10655)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603>

"Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from
ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from
nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly
worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening
pictures, etc.

" . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty
much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit
that instead of ScienceDaily."

Comments about both ScienceDaily and PhysOrg, another press release
aggregator:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3689185>

"Why hasn't sciencedaily.com or physorg been banned from HN yet?"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875529>

"Original source:

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole-
asymmetry...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole-
asymmetry.html)

"What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures.
(2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added
lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own
site(s).

"Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867361>

"Those sources don't have RSS feeds, and ScienceDaily and PhysOrg have a bad
habit of not linking to such things."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4083766>

"Added value in PhysOrg article: zero.

"Please, everyone, stop submitting links from PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. I have
never ever ever seen anything on those sites that isn't either (1) bullshit or
(2) a recycled press release with zero (or often negative) added value.
(Sometimes it's both at once.) It only takes ten seconds' googling to find the
original source."

------
manux
> A team of British scientists recently analyzed nearly 3,000 neuroscientific
> articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2010 and found that
> the media regularly distorts and embellishes the findings of scientific
> studies.

I have a feeling this would be true of most scientific fields.

~~~
Evbn
And NYT misreported a good chunk of the topics of those 3000 offensive
articles.

------
johansch
Because of the Assange affair, us Swedes have had the opportunity to first-
hand fact-check statements made by famous leftist/feminist activists (the
likes of Naomi Wolf and Michael Moore). The whole process appears to have left
a lot of people disillusioned. A lot of books and other kind of media made by
these people have been sold here the past decade.

Here is a series of blog posts fact checking Naomi Wolf:

<http://samtycke.nu/eng/category/naomi-wolf/>

After reading this I can't trust this person.

------
kmfrk
This absolutely horrible framing of the issue aside, here is an example of
what the Times heretofore have written on the subject of "neuroscience":

1\. [http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2011/10/01/the-new-york-
times...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2011/10/01/the-new-york-times-blows-
it-big-time-on-brain-imaging/)

2\.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/cogsci/comments/kyxgi/the_new_york_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/cogsci/comments/kyxgi/the_new_york_times_neuroscientifically_wees/)

Are we going to argue that medical science is under attack, because homeopathy
is criticized?

------
btipling
What's wonderful about science is that the facts don't change just because
someone doesn't understand them or misrepresents them. It's just the cold hard
truth of our universe. Regardless of what anyone says or wants, the world is
as it is. So I realize it's tempting to get angry at sloppy science reporting.
I don't like to be half informed and I don't appreciate the smugness of
decorating bad information with an air of unearned authority. It's on us to
teach our children to think critically and point out bad science reporting
when it happens. Yet I take comfort in the realization that good science will
prevail, because it's just measuring the way things are.

~~~
charonn0
We haven't taught critical thinking in (US) schools for at least 30 years.
It's all about standardized test scores now; fill-in-the-bubble rather than
fill-in-the-blank.

~~~
Evbn
I learned critical thinking 20 years ago, and I did some of my critical
thinking tests in multiple choice format.

~~~
charonn0
What part of choosing answers created and selected by someone else do you
consider to be critical thinking?

------
betelnut
The 'attack' is a useful counterweight to the recent tendency to "Just Add
Neuro- to Everything" (as someone suggested during the "Five Word TED Talks"
Twitter trend)

------
arsains
Very flawed article. Confuses the media's erroneous conclusions about findings
and application of neuroscience with its validity as a subject of scientific
study.

------
knowtheory
The author's point is well taken, but misses the greater problem.

Neuroscience has unveiled to us findings which fundamentally contradict what
non-scientists hold to be common wisdom. The greater damage that pop-
scientists perpetrate is to cherry-pick neuroscientific research to simply
reenforce lazy outdated assumptions that the public holds.

Hence, all of the uninformed nature/nurture debates.

~~~
betelnut
I think it cuts both ways - sometimes pop science writers cherrypick data that
reaffirms existing biases. In other cases, they'll cherrypick tenuous data to
contradict these biases. Both are effective headline strategies.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
"Neuroscience" as a word is abused too much.

Half the time that I watch a YouTube video, I see a "Lumosity.com" advert that
tells me it "just feels like games" but it's "serious brain training" and
"based on neuroscience".

Based on neuroscience my ass. It's a glorified DS Brain Training (Brain Age in
US) but you have to pay for it.

~~~
Evbn
It is based on neuroscience, just like exercise routines are based on
bioscience. It may be low tech, but that doesn't make it wrong. "lifting with
your knees, not back" is utterly simple, but it is back by sound
biokinematics.

------
dgit
[TFA quoting some scientist:] "it was based on the belief that some humans are
genetically inferior"

I thought some members of a species being genetically inferior to others was
the principal tenet of evolution. Are humans somehow exempt from this?

~~~
Evbn
Inferiority is meaningless in genetics. Evolution randomly selects with a
random statistical pattern that prefers individuals who are most able to
survive and reproduce _in their particular niche_ , a notion that has minimal
relevance to human society, and does not correlate strongly with "superiority"
as defined by human social groups. Example: evolution would reward a poor
prolific con artist rapist far more than a strong rich asexual genius.

------
rayiner
Given how terrible the media is in reporting about any subject, this article
might as well have been titled "Everything: Under Attack."

