Neuro-babble

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"When it comes to narratives, the brain seems to be the last province of the theoretician-charlatan. Add neurosomething to a field, and suddenly it rises in respectability and becomes more convincing as people now have the illusion of a strong causal link..." Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile, p. 351

Comments

  1. Scott10:18 PM

    I've noticed (especially since the coming of the internet) that there seems to be this periodic pushing of fad fields that we're all supposed to be really interested in if we want to be really cool and up on everything. Right now it seems to be neurology, AI, and space exploration. Not too long ago it was genetics, CSI-type stuff and psychological profiling.

    I've kind of wondered if there's not some conspiratorial element to this -- like there's some circle of elites or government agency (the BLS, maybe?) that decides "hmmm...? what should the little people be thinking about for the next few years, so they'll push their kids to study this stuff & we can flood the market with particular expertise?"

    Or something like that. I know there's supposed to be a BRAIN research initiative going on right now.

    Or maybe it's just random social cycles...

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