In a message dated 31/10/2009 14:10:13 GMT Standard Time, tsticht at znet.com  
writes:

The idea  that neuroscience has much to say about education
is disputed by many  cognitive scientists, including  cognitive
neuroscientists.


I just want to comment on and reinforce this truth. We operate,  today, on 
one end of a spectrum, I think, the end labelled "evidence". We have  been 
hijacked by evidence. The educational spectrum runs from that end labelled  
"evidence" to another labelled "experience". Obviously we have to pay a 
degree  of attention to evidence, but the front line of scientific advance is an  
unsettled place where what seems to be right today is often found to be 
wrong  tomorrow. (Behaviourism anyone?) A sterling example of wild and 
widespread  over-enthusiasm for "evidence" and generally sciency-looking,  expensive 
stuff is the credibility given almost everywhere to the  "evidence" of 
brain scans. Many people seem to think they are educationally  useful, but they 
really are not. Scans tell us next to nothing about what the  brain is 
doing. At best they are very wobbly pointers. The idea, for instance,  that you 
can take a before and after scan and demonstrate learning, or even any  real 
change of state in the real world, is much, much more than the technique  
can really bear in fact. It indicates approximately nothing.
 
Hugo


at: _http://www.hugokerr.info_ (http://www.hugokerr.info/) 

"We're here to help each other get  through this thing - whatever it might 
be." (Kurt Vonnegut) 
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