Before going any further, I have to admit a bias in the way I approach the scientific study of minds and brains: I have a definite preference for studying the mind rather than the brain. Part of my preference is personal rather than professional. As a child I wouldn't collect butterflies with the rest of my science class because life — all life — seems sacred to me. And the stark fact about brain research over the course of the last century is that it generally involves poking around in the brains of live animals, often our close genetic cousins, the monkeys and apes, and then killing (they call it "sacrificing") the animal. I worked for one miserable semester in a monkey lab, dissecting the brains of dead monkeys to prepare them for microscopic examination. Every day I had to walk by cages of the ones that were still alive. I had nightmares.

At a different level, I've always been more fascinated by the thoughts themselves, not the neurons that give rise to them.

On a somewhat related note, I think these Chimp Portraits by Frank Noelker are quite beautiful.
- sally mckay 2-09-2009 11:13 pm

Of course, in some respects Levitin is being a big disingenuous. It's certainly nicer not to have to face the tortured monkeys, but any talk of the function of neurons is built on a history of vivisection.
- sally mckay 2-16-2009 5:06 pm