I had heard of the we use only 10% of our brains thing a lot. Then I started to hear other things about how that does not actually hold any truth. In the lecture slides you mention the people who love this myth and it is the groups that are faking things with pseudoscience. I tried to do some research for myself. Since I never really thought us only using 10% of our brains really made any sense. I found this website post about linked below. In mentions how the myth is untrue. It has been perpetuated over time and no one is really sure how it got started. In the post a neurologist is talking about the myth. He says "It turns out though, that we use virtually every part of the brain, and that [most of] the brain is active almost all the time,". He mentions how even the simple task of pouring coffee in the morning can use a lot of functions of the brain even though most people do not realize it. Another thing is that at the very end he mentions that we undrstand the brain and how it works very poorly. Saying that it is not that we use 10% but rather we only understand 10%.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/
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I agree with you and felt the same way regarding the "10% of the brain" myth, so I'm glad that our course covered this silly concept that society and pop culture continues to perpetuate (like the films "Lucy", as referenced in the lecture, or "Limitless", where characters are given other-worldly superpowers just by using "more" of their own brains...a bit ridiculous, when you use more than 10% of your brain and think about it...). It's an interesting-sounding factoid, so I understand why it catches our attention, but it just doesn't seem to make sense, and a simple Google search easily dispels this myth.
ReplyDeleteNeuroscientist Barry Beyerstein provided several reasons why the myth is false, but the first and most obvious one is that if only 10% of the brain is normally used, then damage to other areas should not impair performance. Why, then, are head injuries so dangerous and devastating, considering that 90% of what's inside of our skull supposedly isn't even in use? Of course, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities, and even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_percent_of_the_brain_myth).
I agree with what you are saying about only using 10% of our brain power and that it is a myth. I think as humans our brains do so much and have so many different capabilities that how could we use only 10%. I never really thought about the fact that if only 10% is used than why is damage to other areas impeding on performance. As someone who has had 2 concussions, back to back, I can agree wholeheartedly that if one part is hurt or bruised then why is it affecting so many different things. I also like that quote, "Saying that it is not that we use 10% but rather we only understand 10%".
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ReplyDeleteI think this myth is heavily tied to the advertising campaign of the film Lucy. I never of the myth until commercials of the film were released. I stopped herring of the myth after the hype for the film died down. To look at the bigger picture here people just want to be more the human it’s kind of a gift it led to the creation of tools and why we strive to learn different skill, but it also makes us more inclined to be led by the nose by unsubstantiated claims that promise super-human abilities.