What’s the matter with Andrew Brown’s brain?

He’s completely lost me again. Brown has a couple of posts up complaining about people referring to mental illness as a “brain disease” and confusing mind with brain — he seems to deplore the growing recognition that the mind is entirely a product of the brain, and that psychology is built on a physical substrate, which leads to what he thinks is a premature reduction of mind to brain. He’s not making an argument from dualism, though; the gist of his complaint is that you can’t deduce thoughts from the structure of the brain, therefore it’s an invalid approach.

That doesn’t make any sense. We also don’t have a consistent, predictable way of deriving the structure of the brain from behavior, but we don’t use that as an excuse to dismiss studying behavior, and it’s not an argument that we need to distinguish mind from brain. We’ll never have a complete description of any brain sufficient to derive thoughts from physiology; so? Time to face the truth and recognize that your mind is entirely produced by chemistry and electrophysiology and molecular biology of the brain, nothing more, and I find no reason to take offense when people are aware that a cup of coffee, the sun shining in your face, or a hug from your children cause biological changes to your brain.

I find the prospects exciting, not annoying. Here’s an example: scientists have created an artificial hippocampal nucleus on a chip. What they did was record the electrical activity from area CA1 of the hippocampus while rats were learning a memory task, and then stuck a device in their brains that played back that sequence into the hippocampus. When they pharmaceutically silenced CA1, which normally inhibits learning, and ran the chip instead, learning was restored. When they used the chip without the CA1 inhibitor, learning was enhanced.

Nobody understands exactly how this works, but there’s no denying that the function of this part of the brain is produced by patterned electrical activity. Incomplete understanding shouldn’t be a barrier to recognizing the reality staring us in our face.

Besides, I’d love to augment my brain with silicon. Although, to be honest, I’d rather test it on my students first — they won’t mind getting a chip implanted to help them learn, right?

A conversion story

Here is a sad, sad story: it’s the tale of Michael Glatze. He was a gay man, a gay activist, someone who supported and helped gay kids. Now he’s straight and crusades for gay conversion therapies. How, you might wonder, did that happen? You won’t be surprised to learn that it was that potent combination of fear and the Bible.

Michael didn’t begin to question his life path, he told me, until a health scare in 2004 that led to what he calls his “spiritual awakening.” That year, when Michael was 29, he experienced a series of heart palpitations and became convinced that he suffered from the same congenital heart defect that killed his father when Michael was 13. (Michael lost both his parents young; his mother died of breast cancer when he was 19.) After tests eventually ruled out his father’s illness, Michael felt that he had escaped death and found himself staring “into the face of God.” In a published interview with Joseph Nicolosi, a leader in the controversial field of reparative therapy, which seeks to help people overcome unwanted homosexual attractions, Michael said that he became “born again” in that moment and that “every concept that my mind had ever entertained — my whole existence — was completely re-evaluated.”

Along with this conversion came the adoption of a whole host of weird political shifts, too — he’s now a fan of Ann Coulter (which raises the question: was he always this stupid, or did he suffer brain damage when he was born again? The article doesn’t say).

The explanation for his conversion is revealing, though. When I gave up on church, it was entirely because I found no rational defense of the nonsense I was expected to believe in order to be a member; converting to Christianity is all about an emotional response, fear in particular.

Shhhh. My wife is sleeping in.

Don’t raise too loud a ruckus over this news, because I think she’ll be cranky enough when she wakes up and reads about the Obedient Wives Club.

A new club in Indonesia that encourages women to be totally obedient to their husbands and focus on keeping them sexually satisfied has generated an outcry from some activists.

The Indonesian branch of the Obedient Wives Club, launched early this month in Malaysia, claims to have about 300 members in several cities. Group leader Gina Puspita said the club would offer its members a package of teachings including how to treat their husbands in bed.

“A wife has to be 100 percent obedient to her husband in all aspects, especially in sexual treatment,” she said.

Don’t they know that Uppity Wives make the best partners? And how come no one ever promotes an Obedient Husbands Club? After all, if they think subservience is the best and most appropriate behavior for a woman in bed, wouldn’t it also be best for the woman if her man also obeyed her every command?

Although I am tempted to march into the bedroom now, and in a booming voice, say “Woman! Fix my breakfast! And your job for today is to be totally focused on keeping me sexually satisfied!” Except I don’t want a bowl of oatmeal in my face or to be kicked in the groin.

Some science journalists need to hang their heads in shame

Ben Goldacre and others carried out a very interesting study: they analyzed the top 10 UK newspapers for a week for their health reporting, and categorized the quality of the support for health claims. It’s not encouraging.

Here’s what we found: 111 health claims were made in UK newspapers over one week. The vast majority of these claims were only supported by evidence categorised as “insufficient” (62% under the WCRF system). After that, 10% were “possible”, 12% were “probable”, and in only 15% was the evidence “convincing”. Fewer low quality claims (“insufficient” or “possible”) were made in broadsheet newspapers, but there wasn’t much in it.

I do have one criticism, though. The paper is in a journal called Public Understanding of Science. It isn’t open access, though, so apparently the Public is not allowed to read about the Public Understanding of Science unless they cough up $25 per article. They can read about “science” for cheap in their local tabloid, though. Isn’t this part of the problem, too? Let’s also put part of the blame on a science publishing industry that puts up barriers to reading the real stuff.

Respect his authority!

The Minnesota Senate’s loudest voice against climate change, it’s chief denialist, is a Republican (of course) named Michael Jungbauer.

Sen. Jungbauer is fond of making pronouncements from on high regarding the scientific weakness of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He takes positions in direct opposition to 98 percent of published and peer-reviewed climate, atmospheric scientists and glaciologists. But the water and sewer treatment specialist by day is, apparently, quite knowledgeable on all manner of science. It certainly appears to be. He uses big words and cites studies in his lectures.

Now here is the amusing thing. Jungbauer attended Moody Bible College, Anoka Ramsey Community College, and Metropolitan State University (nothing wrong with the latter two, but the first is a bit dicey). He has not even completed his bachelor’s degree; he’s kind of a flaky dilettante. So, no credibility there.

He also claims to be an ordained minister, but but again, he’s a failure — he hasn’t even completed the course work at Moody Bible College. Instead — are you ready for this? — his sole academic credential is…

The truth is that Jungbauer was ordained by Christian Motor Sports International out of Gilbert, Ariz. His Senate biography says the organization provides “chapel services, pastoral care, outreach and Christian fellowship at car races, car shows, cruise-ins and tractor pulls.”

Clearly, he’s nothing but a shill in the pockets of the Tractor Pull industry.

Bryan Fischer + Rick Perry = American Theocratic Fascism

Do we really need another wretched Texas governor in the White House? Rick Perry wants to be our president, and he has the backing of Bryan Fischer. What a combination…

Other countries of the world: watch out if this comes to pass. At that point, we’d officially be a pariah nation—your only salvation would be that we’d be in total economic and cultural meltdown, and wouldn’t last much longer.

I’m sure it will be popular with Christians

Oh, jesus…Chris Stedman is coming out with a book titled Faitheist, all about “How One Atheist Learned to Overcome the Religious-Secular Divide, and Why Atheists and the Religious Must Work Together”, which leaves me with a strange gagging sensation in the back of my throat. My response is that people must work together on shared goals, but that faith and reason will always be deep and bitter enemies…and unlike Stedman, I am not confused about what side I’m on. I can share secular aspirations with religious people, but the moment they use me to rationalize or endorse faith-based folly, I’m out of there, and you should be too.

Ophelia Benson has the best send-up of Stedman ever, and you should read that…but I also have to point out this perfect comment from jejaime, which predicts Stedman’s next book:

LEFT-TEA-IST: How one Leftist learned to overcome the Leftist-Tea Party divide, and why Leftists and the Tea Party must work together.

I also wonder if Stedman will acknowledge where his title came from, or is that too much reaching out to the wrong side, or maybe it detracts from stealing credit for a clever title?