Neuroscience and popular culture: Reasons not to buy "neuronovels" for people for Christmas

In the age of neuro-everything, I am hardly surprised to hear about the neuronovel. Jonah Lehrer at Frontal Cortex reports,

The last dozen years or so have seen the emergence of a new strain within the Anglo-American novel. What has been variously referred to as the novel of consciousness or the psychological or confessional novel-the novel, at any rate, about the workings of a mind-has transformed itself into the neurological novel, wherein the mind becomes the brain. ince 1997, readers have encountered, in rough chronological order, Ian McEwan's Enduring Love (de Clérambault's syndrome, complete with an appended case history by a fictional "presiding psychiatrist" and a useful bibliography), Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn (Tourette's syndrome), Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (autism), Richard Powers's The Echomaker (facial agnosia, Capgras syndrome), McEwan again with Saturday (Huntington's disease, as diagnosed by the neurosurgeon protagonist), Atmospheric Disturbances (Capgras syndrome again) by a medical school graduate, Rivka Galchen, and John Wray's Lowboy (paranoid schizophrenia). And these are just a selection of recently published titles in "literary fiction." There are also many recent genre novels, mostly thrillers, of amnesia, bipolar disorder, and multiple personality disorder.

Lehrer is appropriately skeptical, though at the end of his piece, he almost bows down to materialism - as he must, I suppose. It is very difficult for anyone with a stake in this present darkness to avoid at least appearing to believe that darkness is light.

My own view: Once we put -ogical or -ology in our explanation of a novel ... watch out! We are already wandering off the main highway of narrative. "Once upon a time" is actually much better.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Media watch: They’ll huff, and they’ll puff, and ...

... well huff and puff some more, I guess. Cornelia Dean’s recent New York Times story announces:

For many scientists, the evidence that moral reasoning is a result of physical traits that evolve along with everything else is just more evidence against the existence of the soul, or of a God to imbue humans with souls. For many believers, particularly in the United States, the findings show the error, even wickedness, of viewing the world in strictly material terms. And they provide for theologians a growing impetus to reconcile the existence of the soul with the growing evidence that humans are not, physically or even mentally, in a class by themselves.

And much else that you just knew it would say, quoting all the usual suspects.
Someone wrote to ask what I thought about it, given that The Spiritual Brain will ship in September. I replied,

This NYT piece is nothing but materialist huffing, and from a very predictable source.

Did you happen to notice how much specific research was cited?

None. Only opinion.

You are being asked to accept these views on authority alone.

There is a good reason for that. Actual research does not particularly support these views.

That is the topic of The Spiritual Brain, and if this article is anything to go by, I promise you it will be an eye-opener for many.

Publisher’s Weekly noted

the authors warn against the temptation to force the complex varieties of human spirituality into simplistic categories that they argue are conceptually crude, culturally biased, and often empirically untested.

which describes only a part of what’s wrong with all the materialist bilge, but that’s a good start.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), anoverview of the intelligent design controversy, and of Faith@Science. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy.

Brains on purpose: The Mindful Hack welcomes an interesting new neuroscience blog

Over at Brains on Purpose, Stephanie West Allen, who - in collaboration with Jeffrey Schwarts - specializes in neuroscience in relation to conflict resolution, is skeptical of the
pop science craze for neuroscience explanations for, like, everything:

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.

I've called it neurobullshipping myself, but I am sure Allen is far too polite for that.
Brains on Purpose has been added to the blogroll at the right. When I'm a few days between posts, go there.
Brains on purpose: The Mindful Hack welcomes an interesting new neuroscience blog

Over at Brains on Purpose, Stephanie West Allen, who - in collaboration with Jeffrey Schwarts - specializes in neuroscience in relation to conflict resolution, is skeptical of the
pop sicnece craze for neuroscience explanations for, like, everything:

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.

I've called it neurobullshipping myself, but I am sure Allen is far too polite for that.
Brains on Purpose has been added to the blogroll at the right. When I'm a few days between posts, go there.

(Note: Dr. Schwartz was lead author of The Mind and the Brain, a pioneering book in non-materialist neuroscience. He is a colleague of my lead author, Mario Beauregard. Our book The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul, will be out in August. It is billed as "Finally, the counter-argument in the case against God.")