Knowledge Is Power

Or not.

Evidently we now know a little more about the neuroanatomy of gullibility than we used to. Interesting it might be; but it doesn't tell us anything about how to make teabaggers -- who, in general, are old farts -- regain charge of their brains. It may explain, for example, why birtherism is alive and well despite the incontrovertible evidence of the falsity of every one of its claims; or how it is that a college classmate just forwarded a warning about the New World Order and the already-planned -- with signed documents! -- consolidation of Canada, US, and Mexico; but it tells us nothing of how to take those who buy into that stuff and bring them back to earth, or, granting mercy, put them out of their misery. It does, I suppose, allow us to cut them a little slack: it's not their fault; their brains are just rotting, shriveling like elderly gonads.

(HealthDay News) -- Whether it's an email from an unknown gentleman on another continent pleading for money or a financial scammer selling a promising penny stock, the young and old tend to be more easily duped than middle-aged people.

Now, researchers have pinpointed the area of the brain responsible for this gullibility and have theorized why it makes children, teens and seniors less likely to doubt.

The ventromedial area of the prefrontal cortex of the brain -- a softball-sized lobe in the front of your head, just above your eyes -- appears to be responsible for allowing you to pause after hearing or reading something and consider whether it's true, according to a study published recently in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.

"When most adults hear or read something, they believe it at first, and begin to process it," explained study author Erik Asp...

In children, the prefrontal cortex is still developing, not reaching full maturity until the late teens or even early 20s. As you age, the brain area responsible for doubting may begin to deteriorate, gradually reducing your propensity to question. The area is the last thing to develop in the brain and may be the first area to begin to show some decline, Asp explained...

Maybe instead of picture ID, we should be demanding brain scans of voters of a certain age. Because the last thing we need is more gullible people drooling in front of Bill O'Reilly's or Sean Hannity's image on TV, or nodding in mute, age-related, prefrontal apoptosis, literally lobotomized into agreement with Rush Limbaugh as he drains his pus into the airwaves; or downloading emailed conspiracies into their heads, letting them displace what's left of their neural processors.

Feel sympathy for them? Sure. Hope Romney doesn't voucherize their Medicare benefits out of existence? Yes, of course. Get them the help they need? Heck, I'm a liberal, after all. Pad their cells with goose down in suede. But allow them further to pollute the political process by accepting the crap they're being fed, deliberately, by people who have their worst interests at heart? When they no longer have the grey-matter wherewithal to recognize what's being done to them? Maybe not.

MRIs at polling places. I'm there. With hat in hand.

You'd Think...

In a nutshell, this is exactly what is driving me slowly crazy. There's nothing really surprising that the guys who lost power are trying to get it back; nor, given who they are, is it unexpected that they'd be lying to accomplish it, saying the exact opposite of what's factual, day after day. It's not even startling that the so-called news network which is unapologetically committed to carrying the polluted water of those democracy-hating prevaricators echoes and enhances the dishonesty.

What's so deeply disappointing is the ease with which so many fellow citizens have bought it. How thoroughly they've forgotten where we were on January 20, 2009, and how we got there. What's so deeply disappointing is the banality of the political "debate" over solutions; and the fact that our electorate, in numbers big enough to make a difference, are so lazy of thought and absent of knowledge, so used to being fed easy solutions and graven images that they neither notice or even care. That's what's disappointing, and I've said it time and again.

There's much to worry about; there are decisions President Obama has made and priorities he's elaborated which which I have problems, and I've said that, too. But I don't doubt for a minute that he's trying to find and do what's best, and that he's hampered by unprecedented obstinacy on the other side. I acknowledge that the problems he faces -- we all face -- are so huge as to be nearly impossible. Neither have I the slightest doubt that we'd be much closer to solutions were the opposition party, as constituted in Congress, even a little bit willing to help out. To work for solutions rather than destruction. And, most importantly, if the public were able to face facts rather than to seek to reinforce their need for victimhood and easy answers. (Socialism. Nazism. Ignoring terrorism.) But that's simply not the case; and, it seems, given the rise of magical thinking and the deliberate destruction of education that it might never be again.

It's likely that the next elections will bring major shifts in political power. Faced with governing again, will Republicans simply resort, as always, to their discredited solutions of tax-cuts and deregulation? And will the public let them, once again, embody that clichéd but true definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result?

Sad Story, Sad Ending

Anyone catch the much-hyped story of the man in a coma for 23 years, found to be able to communicate? Anyone, like me, find it hard to believe, especially when the communication was "facilitated?"

Sadly, if you were skeptical, you were right.

I've seen it before, and it's a lesson that applies broadly: if people want to believe something, they will. In this case it's undeniably obvious; in the case of, say, followers of Glenn Beck, whereas the evidence is obvious to anyone outside the sphere of influence and nearly as easily demonstrated, it's close to impossible to convince the deceived. Perhaps the difference is understanding evidence; perhaps it's the openness to data. Stupid as they'd been, there were scientists -- of a sort -- involved in the coma case.

In the way-back, I watch a televised story of the miracle of facilitated communication involving severely autistic kids. So severe was their disability that they'd been fully unable to communicate; so strong was the belief of their care-givers, that in one case a "message" received via the facilitators led to prosecution and conviction of a dad accused of abusing the child. Yet video of the sessions made it clear there was no way the kids were actually providing input. The "facilitator" was poking the children's fingers on an alphabet board, spelling words, while the subjects weren't even looking. When it was clearly shown, by preventing the facilitator from knowing the answer to questions posed to the kids, that there was no communication, the response of the facilitators fell into two types: those that were crushed, sad, and embarrassed; and those that continued to insist it was real.

I find it at least as fascinating as sad. It reveals much about who we are; how easily led, by a need to believe things that give us solace or confirm our prejudices, into the most indefensible and easily disproved certainties. As it tells us about the limitations of human intellect, it also cries for a way to incorporate that knowledge into the public realm: would that it were possible. Were it so, tea bags would be in tea cups where they belong, bipartisanship would actually exist, and we'd be a lot further along the path to political solutions.

And, of course, this.