Consciousness: A physicist on the recent New Scientist flap re non-materialist neuroscience

British physicist David Tyler blogs on the recent flap created by a smear job against non-materialist neuroscientists in New Scientist (non-materialists think that your mind is not merrely an illusion of your brain):

The prevailing paradigm in neuroscience is materialism. Everything about the brain is interpreted in terms of physics and chemistry: our sense of free agency, our consciousness, our hopes and our ability to appreciate beauty. Yet this paradigm has only limited results to show for all the effort expended and "scientists have yet to crack the great mystery of how consciousness could emerge from firing neurons". The UN conference set out an agenda for going beyond reductionism. Jeffrey Schwartz warned the delegates that what they were doing would be met with heated opposition, because materialism is deemed by many to be of the essence of science:

"YOU cannot overestimate, how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about. . . how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it. . . I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality."

Sure enough, the event has raised alarm! The New Scientist reported it with the headline: "Creationists declare war over the brain". It has become commonplace for the science media to portray every departure from philosophical naturalism as "creationism" as though that were the ultimate crime for a scientists and no more needs be said. There is evidence that some of the conference speakers have links with the ID Movement, and apparently that is enough to shower derision on them. Since scientists are supposed to be able to grapple with complex issues and think rationally and objectively (rather than emotionally), I do not understand why there is so little outcry against the intolerant attitudes of so many science journalists and writers.

I do understand why there is so little outcry. Believing that materialism is "the truth," many journalists assume that their role is to promote materialism, even at the expense of evidence. Non-materialist views are okay for fooling people into helping the poor, paying their taxes, or avoiding crime, but they are not a source of true information, in their view, jsut sentimental bluff.

So now that non-materialist approaches are gaining a foothold in neuroscience - based on evidence and practical considerations - the New Scientist writer was forced to see the development as "creationism" - oh yes, and also as the work of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.

In reality, the institutional sponsors" of the mind-body conference at the UN on which she was reporting are unrelated to the Discovery Institute and are unlikely enthusiasts for its overall views. Their concern is medicine in the 21st century, and the failure of materialist explanations to provide useful answers in a vast range of situations.

But that just isn't something that a New Scientist writer would see.

Changing the magazine's masthead name to "Fast Backward to the Twentieth Century" might make sense at this point.

Tyler muses further,

No interviews with the scientists that were at the symposium are reported. This was noted by Angus Menuge in a letter (unpublished) to New Scientist: "I find it very troubling, that while Amanda Gefter took the trouble of interviewing sources who advocate scientific materialism, she did not interview any critics of that position, instead relying on third-hand reports. This does not seem to reflect journalistic best practice."

No, it doesn't reflect journalistic best practice, but it does reflect the practice of people who think that their readers do not really want to be told what happened at the conference and why, but do want to be told a story that makes them feel comfortable. (links to conference coverage below)

For example, what about Esther Sternberg, Christina Puchalski, Bruce Greyson, Sam Parnia, and Andrew Newberg, who had lots of useful things to say at the conference?

I guess if you "connect the dots" to include them, you don't find a conspiracy that involves creationism or the Discovery Institute. And that is the principal difficulty with connect-the-dots thinking.

See also:

New Scientist publishes non-materialist neuroscientist's letter

Selected moments from "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem Symposium - morning panel

Selected moments from "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem Symposium - afternoon panel

My response to the New Scientist bid to be the National Enquirer of pop science mags. (But, why?)

New Scientist - a philosophy prof responds

New Scientist publishes non-materialist neuroscientists' letter

This is New Scientist's edit of the letter:

Non-materialist mind

by Mario Beauregard and Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Montreal, Canada, and Los Angeles, California, US

New Scientist, 29 November 2008, page 23.

Amanda Gefter's article on the "cultural war" over the brain significantly misrepresents non-materialist neuroscience (25 October, p 46) and does a disservice to your readers.

Most participants in the 11 September symposium "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness" at the United Nations were medical doctors or neuroscientists who work with them. We do not question materialist models of the mind-brain complex merely for ideological or political reasons. We want to move beyond them because we have not found them adequate explanations of mind-brain interactions, nor do they point to useful treatment plans.

Your writer's attempt to smear scientists who are looking for new directions, while perhaps entertaining, is a poor substitute for thoughtful coverage of a growing area.

Indeed, the breezy explanation by Andy Clark that Gefter quotes: "There's nothing odd about minds changing brains if mental states are brain states: that's just brains changing brains", reveals a fundamental lack of knowledge of mind-brain interactions. In such interactions, the mind state often changes the brain state as a result of new information or a new choice of attention. Information and focus are not material entities.

Mario Beauregard

For the record, here is the letter that was sent to them:

Amanda Gefter’s Perspectives piece (New Scientist, October 22, 2008), “Creationists declare war over the brain,” is a disservice to your readers that significantly misrepresents non-materialist neuroscience. Only a few points are noted here:

First, human consciousness is acknowledged by everyone familiar with the field to be a hard problem in current science. Not surprisingly, new directions are welcomed at this point. You can be confident that the Nour Foundation, UN-DESA, and the Université de Montréal, which co-sponsored the recent symposium “Beyond the Mind-Body Problem: New Paradigms in the Science of Consciousness” at the UN (September 11, 2008) were not attempting to advance the agenda of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, as Gefter’s article implies.

Most panel participants were medical doctors or neuroscientists who work with medical doctors. We do not question materialist models of the mind-brain complex for merely ideological or political reasons. We want to move beyond them because we have not found that they provide adequate explanations of mind-brain interactions, nor do they point to useful treatment plans. Your writer’s attempt to smear scientists who are looking for new directions, while perhaps entertaining, is a poor substitute for thoughtful coverage of a growing area.

Indeed, Gefter’s breezy explanation, “There's nothing odd about minds changing brains if mental states are brain states: that’s just brains changing brains” reveals a fundamental lack of knowledge of mind-brain interactions. In such interactions, the mind state often changes the brain state as a result of new information or a new choice of attention. Information and focus are not material entities.

A popular science magazine should be eager to explore the critical implications of new findings in mind-brain interactions for medicine, rather than rehash materialist dogma and US “culture wars” politics.

A couple of points of information: Neither of us is a creationist or a Cartesian dualist. Mario Beauregard has no ties to the Discovery Institute, and the von Neumann interpretation of quantum physics (Henry Stapp’s preferred approach) is a standard one.

Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Mario Beauregard

(Just setting the record straight here. )

See also:

Selected moments from "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem Symposium - morning panel

Selected moments from "Beyond the Mind-Body Problem Symposium - afternoon panel

My response to the New Scientist bid to be the National Enquirer of pop science mags. (But, why?)

New Scientist - a philosophy prof responds

New Scientist conspiracy files: A philosophy prof responds

Recently, New Scientist magazine featured an article on non-materialist neuroscience, portraying the symposium at the UN (September 11, 2008) , sponsored by the Nour Foundation, UN-DESA, and the Université de Montréal as fronted by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.

That was a surprise to me, as it would be to anyone who knows the history. Of course, Discovery wants a ticket to good seats, but so do a host of other people.

Anyway, here is Concordia University philosophy prof Angus Menuge's letter. He sent it to New Scientist, and they may or may not publish it (he is supposed to be one of the Discovery conspirators).

I am told that another letter, protesting the nonsense, from Mario Beauregard and Jeffrey Schwartz will be published in the November 29, 2008, edition of the magazine.

I wonder if it will be edited so as to remove key points ... ?

If that happens, I will publish the letter, in its entirety, here at The Mindful Hack. Anyway, here is Menuge's letter:

Amanda Gefter's article, "Creationists declare war over the brain" (22 October, 2008) misrepresents the current situation in the philosophy of mind. The article suggests that opposition to materialism arises chiefly from "creationism" and organizations such as the Discovery Institute which defend Intelligent Design. But in fact, it is widely accepted by philosophers of a wide range of religious convictions that materialism faces serious difficulties. For example, many philosophers who are secular in outlook have noticed the incompatibility of standard materialistic accounts with the nature of consciousness:

"The most striking feature is how much of mainstream [materialistic] philosophy of mind is obviously false..[I]n the philosophy of mind, obvious facts about the mental, such as that we all really do have subjective conscious mental states.are routinely denied by many.of the advanced thinkers in the subject." -- John Searle, The Rediscovery of Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 3.

"No explanation given wholly on physical terms can ever account for the emergence of conscious experience."--David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 93.

"It is not that we know what would explain consciousness but are having trouble finding the evidence to select one explanation over the others; rather, we have no idea what an explanation of consciousness would even look like."--Colin McGinn, The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 61.

"We don't know. how a brain (or anything else that is physical) could manage to be a locus of conscious experience. This last is, surely, among the ultimate metaphysical mysteries; don't bet on anyone ever solving it." --Jerry Fodor, In Critical Condition: Polemical Essays on Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 83.

Secondly, I find it very troubling, that while Amanda Gefter took the trouble of interviewing sources who advocate scientific materialism, she did not interview any critics of that position, instead relying on third-hand reports. This does not seem to reflect journalistic best practice.

Third, the choice of language in the article is emotive and betrays a fairly clear bias. In this article, The New Scientist presents itself as identifying science with the philosophical assumption of materialism, and can thus describe critics of materialism as "anti-science." If science is about pursuing the best explanation of the observable evidence, it should not prejudge its findings in favor of materialism. There are important philosophical and scientific criticisms of materialist philosophy, and it does this publication's readers no service to create the impression that all of them derive from fanatical, irrational sources.

Dr. Angus Menuge
Professor of Philosophy
Concordia University Wisconsin
12800 N. Lake Shore Drive
Mequon, WI 53097
USA

(Note: Some links have been inserted, for reader convenience.)

I am still reading, and still enjoying Menuge's book, Agents Under Fire, about neuroscience and rationality, and strongly recommend it.

New Scientist hit piece an "unusually atrocious" article?

Merlijn De Smit, a linguist (17th century Finnish) notes in his blog, "Not Even Modern", that he found the hit piece in New Scientist against the non-materialist neuroscientists "unusually atrocious."

May I assume that he is not an enthusiastic reader of the British pop science press? Referring to two of the hit piece targets, J.P. Moreland and Henry Stapp, he notes,

I have a nasty feeling that at least some of the thinkers mentioned in the article as Creationist enemies have a viewpoint on some of the issues I mentioned above quite a bit more subtle than reflected in the writer's myopic focus on neuroscience. I haven't read J.P. Moreland, but glancing from the contents of his book, I would hazard a guess his place is within fairly mainstream philosophy of mind, rather than within some ID fifth column of neuroscience. And of Henry Stapp I know that he is working on a Whiteheadian process-philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics, which has again everything to do with philosophical and metascientific frameworks and absolutely zilch with ID or Creationism.

In general, Merlijn, Gefter's article should have begun "Once upon a time, far, far away ..." That said, everyone mentioned in the article has a viewpoint "quite a bit more subtle" than you would ever guess from reading New Scientist. While we are here, you might like some of the more serious ID books. I recommend you try Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution for a biochemist's statement of the evidence against natural selection as the key engine of evolution.

De Smit concludes,

Popular science journalists ... should try their hand at reporting science. Not pseudo-science. Not politics or the intellectually barren perspective of left-liberal culture warriors. Not distort genuine, and interesting controversies through the lens of anti-religious hysteria.

And he is quite right. A thoughtful article could have been written about non-materialist neuroscience. For example, here's one by David Biello in Scientific American.

Also, here's an excerpt from Henry Stapp's talk at a recent non-materialist neuroscience conference at the UN. And here's J.P. Moreland.

New Scientist: From the "Just connect the dots, and ... " files

EPS Blog, the blog of the Evangelical Philosophical Society (and its journal, Philosophia Christi), has offered some comments (October 23, 2008), on the hit piece in New Scientist against the non-materialist neuroscientists (to which I responded here). They note, for example,

Angus Menuge, Concordia University's (Wisconsin) Professor of Philosophy and Computer Science and Chair of Philosophy, is cited by Gefter for receiving funds from the Discovery Institute for his Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science book and for testifying "in favour of teaching ID in state-funded high-schools."

But as Menuge notes in an e-mail to us, "I did not testify 'in favour of teaching ID in state-funded high-schools,' as the media would have discovered if they had actually reported the testimony given in Kansas instead of recycling a standardized science/religion story-line; we simply maintained that students should learn about the evidence for and against the neo-Darwinian view and insisted that Intelligent Design was not yet sufficiently developed as a theory to be taught in classrooms."

Moreover, Menuge notes, "Amanda Gefter also has her chronology wrong: though I did receive support from the Discovery Institute to research Agents Under Fire, this was not part of a program to develop 'non-materialist neuroscience' (an area in which I have since become very interested) but my attempt to show in detail that scientific materialism is untenable because materialism undermines the rationality of science."

Facts are such clunky things ... Read the rest here.

Is THIS your best shot? A response to New Scientist's recent hit piece on non-materialist neuroscientists

A few days ago, a friend alerted me to an interesting development: In its Perspectives section, New Scientist - the National Enquirer of popular science magazines - had published a hit piece on the non-materialist neuroscientists, including Mario Beauregard, my lead author on The Spiritual Brain. ("Creationists declare war over the brain" Amanda Gefter, 22 October 2008)

Non-materialists, essentially, think that your mind really exists; it is not simply an illusion created by the buzz of neurons in your brain. In fact, your mind is one of the key factors that shape your brain. On the medical side, non-materialist neuroscientists use this fact to alleviate illnesses such as obsessive compulsive disorder and phobias. They have good evidence for their case, and that is addressed here in an introduction to a recent symposium at the UN in New York. This post, however, will focus on the hit piece.

For me, the New Scientist piece was a gift. I sometimes teach non-fiction news writing. And it struck me as an excellent teaching opportunity ("the structure and function of the irresponsible hit piece, unpacked"). Of course, I mean to discourage my students from investing time or energy in such enterprises.

This piece is especially useful for two reasons: As Beauregard's co-author, I happen to know about non-materialist neuroscience already. So I need no research project to uncover the misrepresentations. Second, this piece is a very conventional example of the "hit" genre. That means I don't need to keep stopping and saying, "But, students, please note that this particular feature is rare."

Best of all, if I unpack this story now for interested Mindful Hack readers, I can save time in June (my busiest month) by just dusting it off for Write! Canada. So, let's have a look.

Sections

1 Scare their pants off before they even start reading: The art of the panic headline

2 Reveal that a popular villain is behind it all (cue "evil" music)

3 Haul out the goblins that scared them before

4 Context reduces fear. So get rid of context

5 Finally, an idea! Wow, a real idea! But wait ...

6 Scare their pants back on again and send them out to raise hell about stuff they know nothing about

Next: 1 Scare their pants off before they even start reading: The art of the panic headline

1 Scare their pants off before they even start reading: The art of the panic headline

First, note the headline of Gefter's hit piece: Creationists declare war over the brain

The headline was chosen for its inflammatory value, not its information value. So far as I know, only one of the people mentioned in the piece (Angus Menuge) is a creationist, and the fact that he is one is irrelevant to the story.

[Update 2008 11 01: Angus Menuge has written to say that he is NOT a creationist*.]

Creationism attempts to square the accounts of the creation of the Earth and life found in scriptures and traditions with accounts based in current science. However, typical creationist concerns like the age of the Earth and the origin of life are not a focus of neuroscience. Nothing much would follow for neuroscience from the triumph of one hypothesis over another in these areas because neuroscience studies the human brain in real time in the present day. Nothing discovered about the past can override observations in the present.

The words "creationists" and "declare war" do serve a purpose, but the purpose is not to provide information. The purpose is to scare New Scientist readers and discourage careful thought among them.

The piece opens with a quotation by neuropsychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, author of The Mind and the Brain at a recent panel discussion:

YOU cannot overestimate," thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, "how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality.

It's an effective opening because, to the New Scientist fan - usually a loyal foot soldier for materialism, Schwartz's words must sound like frightening heresy. Readers will be eager to read down to the part where someone reassures them that it's all lies and Schwartz is a suspicious or despicable figure.

Reality check: I can’t begin to keep up with all the news stories whose basic message is that the materialist paradigm is breaking down. Mario Beauregard and I devoted a good part of The Spiritual Brain to examining just a few of these areas (before moving on to a discussion of more viable approaches).

To cite two examples: It has become increasingly obvious that computers cannot think like people, and ramping up their computing speed is not really going to help. Second, chimpanzees do not think like people either, despite many efforts to demonstrate that they do. Thus, the puzzle of human consciousness is still called "the hard problem of consciousness."

Remarkably, the "hard" problem of human consciousness is not just another example of researchers angling for more grant money by inflating the importance of the question they are studying. In fact, in this case, the researchers are considerably underestimating the problem. If granting agencies knew how difficult the consciousness problem is, they might choose to allocate the money elsewhere.

Moving right along, we read,

Earlier Beauregard, a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal, Canada, and co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the "battle" between "maverick" scientists like himself and those who "believe the mind is what the brain does" is a "cultural war".

Oh yes? Well, he did use the chopped series of words quoted here, but the original statement sounds very different.

For now, the New Scientist piece itself handily demonstrates Beauregard's point. Not that typical readers would be likely to notice. They will be offended by the very suggestion of a cultural war. A "war" would imply that there are two sides to the question, an assumption they will not wish to grant.

In any event, readers will assume - because they are not told otherwise - that Beauregard is himself an eager combatant. A modest amount of research would turn up a very different story. Non-materialist neuroscientists prefer to work in peace but are sometimes harassed by senior colleagues who view them and their findings as a threat. For example, regarding Beauregard's own work, as we relate in The Spiritual Brain,

... , with the grant received from the Metanexus Institute and John Templeton Foundation, we were expected to conduct a third study, a PET (positron emission tomography) study, on the nuns, in this case at the Brain Imaging Center of the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI, the famous institute created by Wilder Penfi eld in the 1920s). The goal of the study was to measure serotonin (5-HT) synthesis capacity during the same conditions (baseline, control condition, mystical condition). The project was blocked by the PET Working Committee. We were given to understand that some committee members reacted violently to our submission. They thought that mystical states could not be studied scientifically (and they probably did not want the MNI to be associated with what they consider pseudoscience). We ended up using the money for another project in which we examine brain activity (with fMRI and QEEG) in NDErs who have been spiritually transformed by their NDEs. (p. 339, n. 32)

But that's nothing compared to the uproar that broke out when the Dalai Lama was scheduled to give the opening lecture at a 2005 neuroscience convention. Comments like this,

Neuroscience more than other disciplines is the science at the interface between modern philosophy and science. No opportunity should be given to anybody to use neuroscience for supporting transcendent views of the world. — Neuroscientist Zvani Rossetti, opposing the Dalai Lama’s lecture (p. 255)

were often heard. So yes, that was a cultural war, and no, the Dalai Lama did not start it. He remained gracious throughout.

So our writer has now convinced our New Scientist readers that "creationists" have started a "war" over the brain. At this point, she needs to convince them that the evil plot is headed up by intelligent design think tank [cue evil music] the Seattle-based Discovery Institute.

*[Re Angus Menuge and creationism: I had been relying on a generally reliable source for the information about his view, a source I will not use again. Here is Menuge's own comment: "Angus Menuge is a Christian apologist and a defender of Intelligent Design, and is a creationist in the sense that he believes God created the universe, but he has not sought to defend a specific reading of Genesis." So, to the best of my knowledge, no one whom hit piece author Amanda Gefter identifies as a creationist is in fact one.) ]

Next: 2 Reveal that a popular villain is behind it all (cue "evil" music)

2 Reveal that a popular villain is behind it all (cue "evil" music)

At this point, Gefter, Philadelphia-based opinion editor at New Scientist, devotes a fair amount of space to the Seattle-based intelligent design think tank, Discovery Institute - an ever popular villain among her readers. They would believe anything of Discovery Institute (DI). So Gefter implies that DI is a key force behind non-materialist neuroscience:

In August, the Discovery Institute ran its 2008 Insider's Briefing on Intelligent Design*, at which Schwartz and Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University in New York, were invited to speak. When two of the five main speakers at an ID meeting are neuroscientists, something is up. Could the next battleground in the ID movement's war on science be the brain?

Conspiracy thinking is a weak substitute for information. Discovery Institute is sympathetic to non-materialist neuroscience** (no surprise there), but it is not in any sense a key player. Non-materialist neuroscience probably owes much more to the Templeton Foundation, about whose science efforts Gefter is quite ambivalent, to say nothing of the Nour Foundation, which co-sponsored the recent symposium. But that would not fit the picture she is trying to paint.

Incidentally, will Templeton sour on non-materialist neuroscience, if Discovery gets more involved? Templeton and Discovery are not on friendly terms. Maybe, but Templeton may refuse to cede a fruitful area to a hated upstart. You don't get to be big that way, and Templeton is big.

*Note 1: A blind link was removed from the original at this point.

**Note 2: For the record, I spoke at Discovery's 2007 "Insider's Briefing," introducing The Spiritual Brain, which was released in hard cover that month by Harper One. That was where I first learned about Ben Stein's Expelled movie, and pelted back to my hotel room to blog about it - which is why that post originated in Seattle, not Toronto. Does Expelled - in which Jeffrey Schwartz makes a cameo appearance - mean that Stein and the Discovery Institute also intend to declare war on Hollywood? Hey, connect the dots, and ... celebs, shed those three-inch heels and run for the exits!!

Next: 3 Haul out the goblins that scared them before

3 Haul out the goblins that scared them before

One thing to know about the New Scientist's readership, or The National Enquirer's, for that matter: On some topics they actually do not particularly want correct information.

Just as National Enquirer readers do not gladly hear that a movie star is not getting a rumoured divorce, New Scientist readers do not want to know why many doctors and psychologists find non-materialist neuroscience promising rather than threatening. So they probably won't seek corrrect information or thank anyone for providing them with it.

So the Gefter piece obligingly illustrates another key strategy in the "hit piece" technique - misleading definitions.

1. We are told that Schwartz and Beauregard are "attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism."

There are a number of models of dualism, and Beauregard and Schwartz think that interactive dualism is the best model, not Cartesian dualism. But knowing that might leave readers with questions or possible subjects to follow up on privately, in which case they might discover a whole new world out there that they don't want to know about and New Scientist never intended them to know about.

Anyway, while we are here, "dualism" is typically used by materialists as a term of abuse. That helps prevent people from seeing what should be obvious: The only alternative to dualism is monism - in other words, everything is material. That means that your consciousness - and any ideas you have as a result - are merely an illusion created by random firings of neurons.

So if you think that your consciousness and your ideas are in some sense real, that they do bring you into contact with reality, you are a dualist already! You think that non-material entities such as your ideas can actually exist. We can sort out what kind of dualist you are later. If, by contrast, you think that everything you have ever thought or ever will think is an illusion, arguing the case with you would be a waste of time.

Making "dualism"into a term of abuse is one way that hard core materialists keep a hold on their loyal and/or frightened followers. So, if the term scares you, think.

2. "ID [intelligent design] argues that biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution."

Here, Gefter repeats a legacy media fidget - a false definition of intelligent design theory. For the record, intelligent design theorists like Michael Behe and William Dembski argue that the intricate machinery we find in cells requires design as well as chance and the repetitive laws of nature. That has nothing to do with whether evolution occurs, though it strongly implies that evolution is not random and purposeless.

However, I will not belabor that point here because - strictly speaking - it is not relevant to non-materialist neuroscience. If evolution had been random and meaningless, but had nonetheless produced minds that can act on brains, non-materialist neuroscience would be just the same today. As with her use of the term "creationists", Gefter is using the term "ID" to frighten her readers into refusing to consider non-materialist neuroscience in a reasonable way.

3. Henry Stapp's interpretation of quantum physics is "non-standard."

Stapp uses the von Neumann interpretation, which is a standard one:

In the interpretation of quantum physics created by physicist John Von Neumann (1903–1957), a particle only probably exists in one position or another; these probable positions are said to be "superposed" on each other. Measurement causes a "quantum collapse," meaning that the experimenter has chosen a position for the particle, thus ruling out the other positions. The Stapp and Schwartz model posits that this is analogous to the way in which attending to (measuring) a thought holds it in place, collapsing the probabilities on one position. This targeted attention strategy, which is used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorders, provides a model for how free will might work in a quantum system. The model assumes the existence of a mind that chooses the subject of attention, just as the quantum collapse assumes the existence of an experimenter who chooses the point of measurement. - The Spiritual Brain, p. 34.

Misleading statements and definitions can do a great deal to reassure readers that they need do no thinking outside the box. But these techniques cannot do everything. There is also the art of stripping context from people's words and then adding another, irrelevant context.

Next: 4 Context reduces fear. So get rid of context

4 Context reduces fear. So get rid of context

Usually, when you hear a person's words in context, you understand the person's concerns.

So the hit piece author, seeking to demonize her subject, may strip words from their context and assign a different context, creating a misleading picture.

Amanda Gefter's New Scientist hit piece on the non-materialist neuroscientists provides a number of good examples. Here's one - she quotes Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard as follows:

Earlier Beauregard, a researcher in neuroscience at the University of Montreal, Canada, and co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, told the audience that the "battle" between "maverick" scientists like himself and those who "believe the mind is what the brain does" is a "cultural war".

So Québecois Beauregard - of all people - is a U.S.-style right-wing culture warrior?

Now, reading that and knowing how wrong it is, I did something that few New Scientist faithful will likely do: I got and read the actual transcript of Beauregard's remarks. And here are his words in context, with the quoted words highlighted:

But in reality, many more colleagues have sent me e-mails or have had secret discussions with me saying that it's time for a major paradigm shift in neuroscience, but since we're only a minority of maverick scientists at this point, it's not possible yet to reverse the old paradigm, even though a lot of young neuroscientists are very encouraged to look in this direction. But they're still afraid of having trouble securing research funding and encountering opposition from universities. The field is still controlled by the old guard, and the old guard still believes in the old doctrine that the mind is what the brain does and that you can reduce all spiritual and mystical experiences to simply electrical or chemical processes in the brain. So there's a battle. It's like a cultural war, if you will. But we are making progress slowly.

So, it turns out that Beauregard is - as noted earlier - talking about the problems non-materialist neuroscientists have confided in him about and is not himself seeking a battle with anyone. Gefter needed to take his remarks out of context in order to portray him as a threat to her readers.

Here's another example:

Well, the movement certainly seems to hope that the study of consciousness will turn out to be "Darwinism's grave", as Denyse O'Leary, co-author with Beauregard of The Spiritual Brain, put it. According to proponents of ID, the "hard problem" of consciousness - how our subjective experiences arise from the objective world of neurons - is the Achilles heel not just of Darwinism but of scientific materialism. This fits with the Discovery Institute's mission as outlined in its "wedge document", which seeks "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies", to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one.

If you go to the page at The Mindful Hack where I wrote that consciousness might be Darwinism's "grave", you will find that I was responding to hard core materialist Nicholas Humphrey, who himself uses the term the "Achilles Heel." Now, an Achilles' heel is a spot where a fatal wound may be inflicted in an otherwise invulnerable person, and he asks whether consciousness is the Achilles Heel of Darwinism.

Do you see how this works? I did not originate the idea that consciousness might be a problem for Darwinism. Humphrey titled his own essay that way (though he believes the problem surmountable). I responded, suggesting that "grave" might be a better term, given the evidence. But Gefter's piece cleverly creates the impression the Discovery Institute or the "wedge document" had something to do with it - and that it is all part of a plot to "replace the scientific world view with a Christian one."

And if you got all your science news from New Scientist, you would never even wonder ...

Next: 5 Finally, an idea! Wow, a real idea! But wait ...

5 Finally, an idea! Wow, a real idea! But wait ...

Right in the middle of "Creationists declare war over the brain," New Scientist's gift to writing teachers (= "the structure and function of the irresponsible hit piece, unpacked") we suddenly segue away from the National Enquirer style. We encounter an actual argument against the non-materialist interpretation of neuroscience.

It was unclear to me at first why anyone would bury an actual argument in all this scare-the-pants-ology. But then, when I had a closer look at the argument, I sort of understood. Here it is:

To properly support dualism, however, non-materialist neuroscientists must show the mind is something other than just a material brain. To do so, they look to some of their favourite experiments, such as research by Schwartz in the 1990s* on people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Schwartz used scanning technology to look at the neural patterns thought to be responsible for OCD. Then he had patients use "mindful attention" to actively change their thought processes, and this showed up in the brain scans: patients could alter their patterns of neural firing at will.

From such experiments, Schwartz and others argue that since the mind can change the brain, the mind must be something other than the brain, something non-material. In fact, these experiments are entirely consistent with mainstream neurology - the material brain is changing the material brain.

The problem is that Gefter's explanation does not explain anything. The brain is a semi-liquid organ, always in motion, so live brains do indeed change themselves all the time. However, when the mind changes the brain, it is a result of information received by the immaterial consciousness itself. Here is an example, from The Spiritual Brain, that dramatically illustrates the difference information received into one's consciousness can make:

University of Michigan researchers recently demonstrated the placebo effect in young, healthy men. They injected saltwater into their volunteers’ jaws and measured the impact of the resulting painful pressure via PET scans. Volunteers were told that they were receiving pain relief. They reported feeling better. The placebo treatment reduced the brain responses in a number of brain regions known to be implicated in the subjective experience of pain. No pain-relief drug was used in the study.

The researchers commented (2004): "These findings provide strong refutation of the conjecture that placebo responses reflect nothing more than report bias."47

47 Tor D. Wager, James K. Rilling, Edward E. Smith, Alex Sokolik, Kenneth L. Casey, Richard J. Davidson, Stephen M. Kosslyn, Robert M. Rose, Jonathan D. Cohen, “Placebo-Induced Changes in fMRI in the Anticipation and Experience of Pain,” Science 303, no. 5661 (February 20, 2004): 1162–67. They write: "In two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments, we found that placebo analgesia was related to decreased brain activity in pain-sensitive brain regions, including the thalamus, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex, and was associated with increased activity during anticipation of pain in the prefrontal cortex, providing evidence that placebos alter the experience of pain."

- The Spiritual Brain, p. 142

As the study authors observe, these findings certainly provide "strong refutation of the conjecture that placebo responses reflect nothing more than report bias." But they also demonstrate something else: the critical importance of what the mind believes is happening.

Essentially, volunteers did not feel pain when they were told they should not expect to, despite the fact that they were receiving no pain relief. Their brains apparently did not know that because their minds were not informing their brains correctly.

That cannot be accounted for by claiming that "the material brain is changing the material brain," in Gefter's phrase. The material brain isn't doing anything in this case except receiving input from the immaterial mind and acting on it - in this case receiving incorrect information and failing to produce sensations of pain that might otherwise be expected. And, as anyone who has suffered severe jaw pain will acknowledge, it's hardly something one can just fail to notice or choose to ignore.

I can now see why Gefter needs to offer her argument to her readers in a hit piece. Presented all by itself as an account of the interactions of the mind and the brain, it would not fare well.

Before we move on, let me offer a brief word about explanations in science in general. Any grand theory can "explain" a broad variety of phenomena. Some theories are presented as "theories of everything." For example, Freud, Marx, and Darwin (a familiar triad of theorists of everything) could each offer an "explanation" for the life and works of Mother Teresa or Gandhi. For example, Freud might say that Mother Teresa was sexually repressed, Marx might say that she was a useful idiot for capitalism, and Darwin might say that she was spreading her ideas instead of her genes by raising thousands of abandoned children as traditional Catholics.

In each case, the explanation supports the theory, but beyond that it doesn't lead anywhere. That is, if I wanted to know why Gordon "greed is good" Gecko is the way he is, one of these contradictory "theories of everything" might be useful at some point. But if my goal is to understand people who have transcended materialism and accomplished remarkable things as a result, materialist explanations are useless.

To sum up, a useful explanation in science must shed light, not merely come up with a story that supports the theory. Gefter's explanation of mind brain relations as mere brain-brain relations supports a materialist theory, but does not shed any light on the way the mind and the brain actually interact.

(*Note: When I tried this link, it did not lead to the article, only to The New York Times 's site.)

Next: 6 Scare their pants back on again and send them out to raise hell about stuff they know nothing about

6 Scare their pants back on again and send them out to raise hell about stuff they know nothing about

Once readers have settled into a "conspiracy" mode, as per Amanda Gefter's hit piece in New Scientist, they can swallow the most extraordinary displays of foolishness without curiosity.

Have a look at this comment from Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh, UK on the non-materialist approach to neuroscience:

"This is an especially nasty mind-virus because it piggybacks on some otherwise reasonable thoughts and worries. Proponents make such potentially reasonable points as 'Oh look, we can change our brains just by changing our minds,' but then leap to the claim that mind must be distinct and not materially based. That doesn't follow at all. There's nothing odd about minds changing brains if mental states are brain states: that's just brains changing brains."

Amanda Gefter advises us that Prof Clark's view is "the voice of mainstream academia." Is it indeed? Wittering about a "mind-virus"? No wonder materialist theory is in trouble.

Gefter ends by rallying her readers for a "big pre-emptive push" to educate the public about the brain. Does that mean more hit pieces?

In a letter to various notables, accompanying a copy of the hard cover edition of The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard and I said

Today, non-materialist neuroscience is thriving, despite the limitations imposed by widespread misunderstanding and, in a few cases, hostility. Readers are urged to approach all the questions and evidence presented in this book with an open mind. This is a time for exploration, not dogma.

At the time, it hadn't occurred to either of us that dogma would be supplemented by dark tales of conspiracy. But maybe that is a typical end state for a failing dogma.

Anyway, it's Hallowe'en, right?

Return to: Is THIS your best shot? A response to New Scientist's recent hit piece on non-materialist neuroscientists