My latest Wired article is now online and on the newsstands. It's about the messiness of experimental science, the blind-spots created by knowledge, Thorstein Veblen, European Jews and the background static created by the Big Bang.
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Jonah Lehrer is a contributing editor at Wired. He's also written for The New Yorker, Seed, Nature, and the New York Times and is a contributor to Radiolab. He's the author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist. His new book is How We Decide.
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« Free Will and Ethics | Main | Willpower »
The Neuroscience of Screw-Ups
Posted on: December 22, 2009 10:53 AM, by Jonah Lehrer
Find more posts in: 
Brain & Behavior
Brain & BehaviorTrackbacks
Trackback URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/127695
2
You are on a roll, Jonah. This article is beautiful!
3
Beautiful article. I forwarded it immediately to all my nerdy friends. Thanx :-)
4
Bricks and mortar, the best way to describe this article. JL I dig your writing style. You provide the conceptual bricks and then layer the mortar of insight to give the article its richness.
Thank you…fantastic!
Victor Antonio, Sales Influence
5
p.s., Loved your book, "How we Decide". Merry Christmas!
6
Beautiful text. Loved to read it.
7
I like how this line ties to your recent post on Why We Travel:
"There are advantages to thinking on the margin. When we look at a problem from the outside, we’re more likely to notice what doesn’t work."
many thanks, m-
8
It's not easy to think on the margin when you've been working in the middle. Dunbar's E. coli team probably needed weeks of neurotransmitter-draining work before the correct resonant pattern could assert itself against all expectations.
I liked the data on the cingulate gyrus, which I couldn't document ten years ago. Thanks!
9
great article. especially loved the part about metaphors and analogies....it almost felt like it was another article at that point. would like to hear you talk/investigate more about the creation of a "specialized language" and how using metaphors and analogies facilitate outside thinking...
how do you deal with the "scientists" that subscribe to wired? their comments are intolerable (almost as bad as youtubers). someone went on a tirade about the process of dunbar's ball experiment. geez, dunbar informing the subjects of density and the environment of the balls dropping was immaterial to seeing how the brain behaves to view the information it's given. that's what he was really testing. although, i would avoid using the word "squirt" next time. and the "programmer" who accused you of not knowing how the scientific process works...i'm not scientist, but i at least know he missed the point.
sorry, i'm getting all riled up, for you.
anyways, great article. enjoyed the avatar post, too :)
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Comments (9)
Loved it, Jonah. Thanks!
Posted by: Jillian Wright | December 22, 2009 2:54 PM