final_thp_5thedition

activity indicated that low-income students would be
unable to learn as efficiently as their high-income
counterparts. If people continue to draw erroneous,
unsubstantiated conclusions from this type of misrepresented,
media-blasted science, the general populace
will ignore the golden rule of observational sciences:
correlation is not causation. This core message loses
its way to the general media-consuming public in light
of dramatic, sensationalist headlines.
mis•com•mu•ni•ca•tion
During the transition from scientific discovery to
public dissemination, when did people forget to mention
that correlation does not mean causation in
science? Regarded as one of the most important points
of research dissemination, this reminder is repeatedly
ignored in media portrayal of headline-worthy scientific
discoveries. The Erika Hayasaki article featuring my
principal investigator’s research even discussed such
headlines, including “Poverty Shrinks Brains from
Birth” and “Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions.”
Interestingly, in his Atlantic article “The Point
When Science Becomes Publicity,” James Hamblin
writes that this responsibility lies with the original
researchers themselves, rather than reporters and
news outlets sharing the information.
Hamblin interviews Petroc Sumner, a psychology
professor at Cardiff University in Wales and the lead
investigator of the concerned study. Sumner discusses
the correlations (and does not imply causation) of
well-conducted research being poorly represented in
the media and exaggeration in press releases issued by
researchers and universities. Researchers, Sumner told
The Atlantic, have a responsibility to not sensationalize
their own research in order to make it more consumer-friendly,
but rather to present the research and its
implications as faithfully as possible. Misinterpretations
of correlation-based research implying causation
not only distorts implications of observational
research, but often leads to questionable medical
advice or seemingly scientifically supported falsehoods
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—things like “Sleeping on your stomach will litter your
visage with angry red pustules” or “People are choosing
marijuana over OxyContin for their recreational -
high.”
While intriguing, the idea that scientists sensationalize
their own work and purposefully cause public misunderstanding
is particularly disturbing. This is
because once we claim things
.
like “Poor brains are not
as smart,” we are paving the way for a “nouveau eugenics,”
a term used by Matthew Hughey, a University of
Connecticut professor of sociology, in Hayasaki’s cover
story. Social neuroscience is the field of study dedicated
to understanding the intersectionality between the
brain and human social interaction. The implications
of a misinformed social neuroscience nouveau eugenics
movement are grand: they potentially support
discrimination against already disadvantaged people,
and they do so with an arsenal of scientific research
which, to the layperson, could be misconstrued as
evidence for their claims about inferiority of said
disadvantaged people‘s brains.
neu•ral dis•crim•i•na•tion
In neuroscience, the “wiring” of the brain is a rather
finicky process. Many analyses are made through the
use of functional magnetic resonance images (fMRIs)
which essentially highlight areas of higher blood flow
in the brain, and consequently brain activity, of someone
in a large brain scanner. This activity can be analyzed
in real time and provides a visual approximation
of participants’ brain activity.
Neuroscientists believe synaptic connections are
forged, pruned, and weeded over long-term exposure
to certain people, places, and situations. In Immordino-Yang’s
research, for example, fMRIs of younger adolescents’
brains appear different from their own brains
two years later, but in minutiae. Potentially significant
minutiae—minutiae my lab certainly finds worth
exploring, but minutiae nonetheless.
When researchers’ press releases and media outlets