Social Mode

A study attacking use of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) in social neuroscience as flawed and an overselling their results by scientists printed in Nature under the above name and authored by Alison Abbott has touched a nerve in science. [Yes, it is a double entendre…] Social neuroscience is the study of the neuro­biological mechanisms underlying social behavior.

The field frequently uses fMRI to reveal which brain areas are activated while a subject is exposed to specific social interactions or socially relevant content — e.g., situations that may evoke anger, jealousy, spirituality or guilt.

But a lengthy and no-holds-barred paper accepted for publication in Perspectives on Psychological Science and already circulating widely on the Internet, claims that many studies misused the statistics, measurement and methodology to make points and support positions what were not supported by the data assessed by a very large team of researchers that understand both the technology and the statistical logic used in almost all science fields.

Some of the papers authored responded with dismay, anger and guile. One is reported to have stated, “This is not the way that scientific discourse should take place.”

This is indeed the way scientific discourse needs to take place. I am amazed that Ed Vul and his colleagues had the stones to delve into what others suspected but, for lack of a better term, were too lazy to make the analysis and then question individual authors for their imaging methods. In any event the methods need to be substantiated more now than in the past due to the proliferation of information. If left untested the number and aura created can generate a form of viral buzz that makes some research acceptable before it is validated, reproduced or reviewed by peers. Given the sensationalism with which some of the results are heralded and spring board people to be guests of Dr. Phil of Oprha’s show, the microscope needs to be every where if we as society continue to put science on the same dais as sports and financial logic. Clearly there is always the potential of a McCarthyisque tone now that the White House has turned its attention to other things than pillorying the efforts of science.

The amount of published research from imaging experiments has drastically increased over the last 10 years. Of course, some scientists are very knowledgeable and have a really strong grasp of their methodology, from both the data acquisition end and there are others who use a plug-and-play like approach. An area of the brain lights-up and both types of experimental teams have the opportunity to explain it for the reader what it all means. When this is done in retrospect enormous problems raise their shinny little heads.

The criticized authors complained about the immediate publicity of the criticisms. This may indeed not be the way that scientific discourse took place in the past but the Internet has changed the rules as all in politics and business have come to find out. Now science is seeing that ‘change’ is part of the lab and the lecture hall as well as the fMRI tube.

Questioning findings that were publicized is a requirement of science first and the populace second. There are thousands of journals and more coming every day. Some have yet to earn their chops. Their reviews are the same that get published there and have incestuous relationships like coaches in the NFL. Clearly, for science to not return to the dark ages it must regulate its content or someone else will do it for them and that elicits pictures of Alberto R. Gonzales or Rush Limbaugh or perhaps the former attorney general of New York State, Eliot Spitzer. It seems appropriate that the criticisms be addressed and answered by the same audience. Journals that accept manuscripts according to the chance that they make headlines in the popular press may want to consider a different strategy.

All experimenters better be sure they can explain their data, particularly those who don’t work in the field of brain imaging, and are at the mercy of the reviewers to assure them that those images weren’t made in Photoshop.

Short of that, use the Baloney Detection Kit published here. If the authors appear out to prove something rather than understand something you might want to apply the Kit. In either case, you are going to continue to hear about fMRI and interpreting results for many more years.

Now, you want to know what the real problem is?

There is a lack of empiricism in the questions being asked in the first place so this distraction is the same old pea soup in a kettle that psychologists, philosophers and non-scientists everywhere have wasted the eons away with. No matter how exact, exotic and sophisticated the instrument you use to measure, if what you measure is not observable, empirical and the concept is not falsifiable, it is equivalent to flying in an airplane at 35,000 feet at night and looking out the window for answers to even the big questions like, “What the heck is going on out there?’

Good luck with those subjective approaches… let me know how that pans out.