NY Times reports bogus science claims

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html?_r=3&

The New York Times article cited above reports that some books and articles about the human brain have gone overboard trying to explain things by brain chemistry, and that some scientists are blogging to correct this inaccuracy.

As an example of an inaccurate, misleading book, they mention The Republican Brain which was published earlier this year:

"which claims that Republicans are genetically different from — and, many readers deduced, lesser to — Democrats. “If [this] argument sounds familiar to you, it should,” scoffed two science writers. “It’s called ‘eugenics,’ and it was based on the belief that some humans are genetically inferior.”

(Just FYI, eugenics was the theory that inferior people should be stopped from reproducing. Eugenics has been completely discredited and is considered dishonorable.)

The lesson here is to not blindly swallow everything somebody writes or says!  Even if it sounds scientific.

This article from the NYT says it very well, " bogus science gives vague, undisciplined thinking the look of seriousness and truth."

So you will still have to think things through, even when it looks like an expert said it.