Ethics

Belcher on Neuroscience Journalism

By Adam Kolber

Mimi Belcher, a postdoctoral fellow at the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project, sent me an email criticizing some recent neuroscience journalism and gave permission to post her thoughts on the Neuroethics & Law Blog.  (Incidentally, it seems clear that Mimi is writing in her own personal capacity).  My own views are less caustic than Mimi's, so I'll add a brief remark in the comments section.  Here is the relevant portion of Mimi's email which I've copied verbatim:

An April 6 blog posting in the online Scientific American described a recently-published paper in the Archives of General Psychiatry (http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=is-wisdom-in-the-brain-2009-04-06). The original paper is a review of the current state of what is known regarding the neurobiology of attributes related to wisdom, and the authors (Thomas Meeks, and Dilip Jeste, both of whom are MDs at UC San Diego) draw correspondences in brain areas purportedly involved in aspects of this age-old construct. Although the authors concede that there may be more ways in which to define "wisdom", they operationally characterize it as "prosocial attitudes/behaviors, social decision making/pragmatic knowledge of life, emotional homeostasis, reflection/self-understanding, value relativism/tolerance, and acknowledgment of and dealing effectively with uncertainty." From the SciAm article:

Jeste describes those regions' roles in wisdom this way: "The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is like a proverbial father: a disciplinarian, cold, calculating, rationale. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is probably like a mother: kind, nice, helpful, sociable, emotional. The anterior cingulate is the proverbial uncle who when you have a fight between father and mother, you go to your uncle. The limbic striatum is a friend, a reward system."

Although I can appreciate the blog writer's challenge of filling a "60-second science spot" with condensed information, it's frustrating to see that this synthesis takes the form of reducing the description of the science to animistic will-bearing brain structures. Arguably, the responsibility for this dribble resides with the author of the study, who would do well to stick to a description of the science that doesn't incorporate an episode of "All in the Family". But it's ultimately the responsibility of the author of the newspiece (Jordan Lite) to make sure that these soundbites don't occupy the space where proper science writing should occur. As if lay comprehension of neuroscience wasn't already riddled with problems... now we have brain areas starring as members of our very own family.

Full post as published by Neuroethics and Law on April 10, 2009 (boomark / email).