Big Think - What Carl Sagan Got Very Wrong About the Human Brain
Ross Pomeroy
Carl Sagan wrote a book about human evolution (a field admittedly out of his ken) that advocated for a particular and rather fringe academic theory. The Triune brain theory by Paul MacLean theorized that the human brain had three parts of layers: a reptilian, mamalian/limbic, and cognitive (primates and humans). This theory did not have much respectability with academics who studied the issue then (or now), but Sagan's reputation and popularization of the theory means it is has had a widespread effect on popular understanding (e.g. the bad theory is often found in text books).
No comments:
Post a Comment