Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Muddled thinking ...

... and a bad headline: Scientists Locate 'God Spot' in Human Brain.

Despite the headline, 'Such results fit with previous research which shows that no single "God spot" exists in the brain.' Always a good idea to read the article all the way through, and then write the headline.
Then there's the article itself, and the study it tells of. Not surprising to find that when somebody thinks about something, some part of his brain is activated. What that tells you about the nature of the thing being thought about is unclear to me. Notice too that the assumption is that religion "evolved," presumably as something contributing to the survival of the organism, that, apparently, being all that biology is now about. I should think that would be what you want to demonstrate to begin with. Otherwise, it would seem to me, all that you be engaging in is an extended petitio principii.

See also There is no G-spot in the brain. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)

More fuzzy thinking here, though: "Regardless of whether God exists or not, religious beliefs do exist and can be experimentally studied, as shown in this study." What is being studied is brain activity triggered by stimuli that in some contexts are regarded as religious and in others not. What is so hard about getting that clear? Send these people back to grade school and teach them to diagram sentences. What or whom am I talking about?

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