Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

CHAPTER 72
Neuropolitics: Neuroscience
and the Struggles over the Brain
JOHN WEAVER
Neuroscience is the latest interdisciplinary field that is producing impressive results in the quest
to understand and map the brain. It combines cognitive psychology, neurophilosophy, computer
programming, and medicine. Neuroscience also is a sign of the times as it seeks to unveil and
reduce the mysteries of the brain to a principle of transparency. Transparency is a hallmark
characteristic of our postmodern world as the Visible Human Project in anatomy and Physiology,
“reality” television, online shopping, virtual architecture, and surveillance cameras suggest. In
our transparent world, we work from the assumption that everything can and should be opened in
front of our eyes so we can peruse, investigate, lurk, and pry into the interworkings of all facets
of life. Neuroscience is no different than voyeuristic television in this regard. Neuroscience offers
us fresh insights into such issues as the mind/body dichotomy, the stale nature/nurture debate,
diversity, and creativity. Yet, it also threatens to open up frightful issues dealing with the minds
of criminals, unborn fetuses, and life or death issues. In spite of what many of the advocates of
neuroscience proclaim, this new field of study has ushered in a new era of neuropolitics in which
the mind/brain is a new site of political struggles. In this essay, I want to explain the basics of
neuroscience, delve into some of the interesting issues neuroscience reinvigorates, and remind
my readers that neuroscience has the dangerous potential to become a new form of eugenics
where purist’s nightmares are put into action.
NEUROSCIENCE BASICS
Neuroscientists estimate that there are one hundred billion neurons in the brain with each
neuron containing thousands of synaptic connections. Each synaptic connection symbolizes a
weight or a strength that the neuron can use to connect to other neurons to create a network for
sight, taste, touch, smell, or the many other functions the brain performs. The potential strengths
and weaknesses of the connections are virtually infinite given that the potential neuron networks
can choose from scenarios that contain one hundred billion neurons connected to one hundred
trillion synapses. For example with sight, the neuron connections can range from legal blindness
(poor neuron connections) to a life time of 20/20 vision or better (very strong connections) with
millions of possible levels of strengths in between this continuum.