The Invariant Gardener

The first paragraph is a beautiful piece of propaganda for neuroscience :

Recent advances in the neuroscience of emotions are high­lighting connections between cognitive and emotional func­tions that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of learning in the context of schools. (p.3)

Nothing explains such a statement, so this paragraph boils down to a mere annoucement of what is intended :

highlighting new connections between emotional, cognitive, and social func­tioning (p.3)

We may infer that a revolution is awaiting for these « new connections » between psychological dimensions. I’m absolutely thrilled at this idea of learning what these new connections are indeed. Aren’t you ?

But we will have to wait a little

The second paragraph start with an beautiful piece of self-conceit:

Modern biology reveals humans to be fundamentally emo­tional and social creatures. (p.3)

The interesting word here is « reveals ». As if the veil of ignorance was still concealing that truth. Obviously, the authors have a rough and self-centered conception of the history of ideas. Let us remind that in 1756 Hume already stated that  : « Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. »

I would suggest that almost all what is at stake in this article is probably solved by this simple assertion. We will come back to that later.

Concerning the fact that humans are social creatures, of course no revelation occured because of modern biology — unless Aristotle is considered as one of its representative.

But never mind with this illegitimate proudness.

Let’s come to the key argument of this paragraph :

Any com­petent teacher recognizes that emotions and feelings affect stu­dents ’ performance and learning, as does the state of the body, such as how well students have slept and eaten or whether they are feeling sick or well. We contend, however, that the relationship between learning, emotion and body state runs much deeper than many educators realize and is interwoven with the notion of learning itself. (p.3)

Are you exited when reading this ? Lucky you. It appears to me as one more contention without any substance. We’ll still have to wait.

So what about the next big statement ? :

It is not that emotions rule our cognition, nor that rational thought does not exist. It is, rather, that the original purpose for which our brains evolved was to manage our physiology, to optimize our survival, and to allow us to flourish. (p.3)

Not only the authors casually oppose Hume’s statement, they dogmaticly assert trivial statements concerning brain’s functions that give us no light on what is at stake.

So, we are still waiting for the first sound argumentation. I hope that you are not too disappointed.

It appears that propaganda is not the privilege of economics or politics. It is obviously an important tool in the factory of science.

Let’s come to deal with the first article’s abstract . It’s a gold mine with nice sprinkles. Immordino-Yang & Damasio make here two strong assertions. This is the first:

“the neurobiological evidence suggests that the aspects of
cognition that we recruit most heavily in schools, namely
learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning,
are both profoundly affected by and subsumed within
the processes of emotion; we call these aspects emotional thought”.

Does this new concept of “emotional thought” has any value ? Do we need that ? Has a thought devoid of any affect whatsoever been isolated in some laboratory recently ? Have we any proof or, at least, any clue that such an emotionless thought could exist in some situation ? The answer is: no, no, no and no

There’s no need for the concept of “emotional thought”. All thoughts are emotional like all mammals have blood in their veins. The concept of “bloody mammals” won’t help.

The second assertion is the following :

“emotion-related processes are required for
skills and knowledge to be transferred from the structured
school environment to real-world decision making because
they provide an emotional rudder to guide judgment and action.”

This statement originates in Damasio’s beautiful book “Descartes’ error” where he explains at length that people who have lost their emotional capacity are no longer able to make judgments or decisions. Their intellectual capacity, even if apparently intact, is of no help when a choice has to be made.

This is an interesting result, sure enough, but what is its meaning from a psychological viewpoint.

Let’s use a metaphore. Do you remember these tournaments between knights that where used as judgments of God in Middle-Age? What would happen if no knights were willing to fight, each for one opposite version of a the “reality” waiting for the judgment of God? Well, no such judgment would ever occur. Indecision would remain, of course.

When there’s no energy invested in the process, no decision can be made. It’s obvious, almost trivial. It’s a logical consequence of the energetic conception of emotions which is now older than a century and which has been defended by many great authors of the XIXth and XXth centuries.

Nothing (really) new under the sun. That’ll be my provisional conclusion for tonight

A colleague of mine recently handed me two articles dealing with neurosciences and education. After their takeover bid attempt of psychology, neurosciences are coveting education as a possible conquest for their empire.

Sadly enough, less and less people seems able to judge this discourse for what it is: a pure rhetoric with no serious argument

In an attempt to help teachers, educators and any person interested by the field of education staying away of what appears to me as useless conceptions, in what follows I will indulge in the activity which always gives me tremendous satisfactions : criticism.

In a serie of posts, I intend to read very closely these two recent articles :

1) “We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education” by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio.
2) How Educational Theories Can Use Neuroscientific Data by Daniel T. Willingham and John W. Lloyd  

I don’t have read them yet. So it is supposed to be a kind of challenge. My only conviction is that, anyhow, I will learn something even if I still don’t know what.

My starting point is the fact that in my theory and pratice of psychology I have simply no use of neuroscience. Psychology is an autonomous science. I wouldn’t say so of education science but I am adamant that neurosciences won’t help in the least because my mind of school psychologist is complety devoid of neuroscientific concepts which would be of practical value when operating in the psychological realm.

Of course, this journey inside of the neuroscientific rhetoric will be an excellent opportunity to draw a global perspective of my synthetic conception of psychology

I hope you will have fun as much as I surely will.