That Is Not How Your Brain Works
Happy Holidays. In this special issue we are reprinting our top stories of the past year. This article first appeared online in our “Mind” issue in March, 2021.
The 21st century is a time of great scientific discovery. Cars are driving themselves. Vaccines against deadly new viruses are created in less than a year. The latest Mars Rover is hunting for signs of alien life. But we’re also surrounded with scientific myths: outdated beliefs that make their way regularly into news stories.
Being wrong is a normal and inevitable part of the scientific process. We scientists do our best with the tools we have, until new tools extend our senses and let us probe more deeply, broadly, or precisely. Over time, new discoveries lead us to major course corrections in our understanding of how the world works, such as natural selection and quantum physics. Failure, therefore, is an opportunity to discover and learn.1
Brains don’t work by stimulus and response. All your neurons are firing at various rates all the time.
But sometimes, old scientific beliefs persist, and are even vigorously defended, long after we have sufficient evidence to abandon them. As a neuroscientist, I see scientific myths about the brain repeated regularly in the media and corners of academic research. Three of them, in particular, stand out for correction. After all, each of us has a brain, so it’s critical to understand how that three-pound blob between your ears works.
