On Tue, 10 May 2011 01:55:16 -0700, Rainer Scheuchenpflug wrote: >Dear Tipsters, > >Mike Palij <[email protected]> on Mon 9 May 2011 drew our attention to an >article published by dpa on a demonstration that depression may be a brain >disease: > http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/EMIHC267/24479/24524/1400000.html?d=dmtICNNews > > >Hey, the researchers used fMRI to get to their findings, so obviously the >conclusions have to be trusted, because they are based on _real science_.
Yes, indeedy. One good heuristic to follow in evaluating research is whether it involves incredibly complex hardware/software and costs a ridiculous amount of money to run (and even more money to run correctly). If yes, then it's real science. Why, just look at physics research! ;-) >Does anyone else experience a Pavlovian appetite for a salmon dish after >reading such articles? > http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdfv Hmmmm, salmon. But I digress. When I teach cognitive psychology, right after I cover the contemporary nueroimaging techniques, I use the salmon research as a cautionary note about being over reliant on high tech approaches to the study of mind-brain relationships. I also point out that one can pretty much ignore the brain when studying cognition because one needs very little brain in order to function as a "normal" human being, or at least as a French civil servant; see: http://uk.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=UKN1930510020070720 The original article was published in The Lancet (IIRC). I don't know whether this statement applies to all humans, to all civil servants, to all French persons, or just the intersection of civil servants and being French (though I do lean towards all civil servants) but clearly, one doesn't need much in the way of brains to get by. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] P.S. ;-) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=10490 or send a blank email to leave-10490-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
