HOW THE BRAIN MAKES POTENTIAL 195in the population according to a bell- shaped curve. Th at image, implic-
itly or explic itly, motivates the research and is also a crucial assumption in
the statistics by which results are tested. Th e fact is that descriptions of
real functions in the central ner vous system, as with physiological and
behavioral functions, fl atly dispel the image. György Buzsáki and Kenji
Mizuseki explain in a wide- ranging review: “Most anatomical and phys-
iological features of the brain are characterized by strongly skewed
distributions with heavy tails and asymmetric variations that cannot be
compressed into a single arithmetic mean or a typical example.... Th is
is perhaps not surprising, as biological mechanisms possess emergent and
collective properties as a result of many interactive pro cesses, and multi-
plication of a large number of variables.”^36
Unsurprisingly, then, worries about the empirical prob lems in this
fi eld have been increasing. As mentioned previously, a special issue of the
journal Cognitive and Aff ective Behavioral Neuroscience reported that “re-
searchers in many areas of psy chol ogy and neuroscience have grown
concerned with what has been referred to as a ‘crisis’ of replication and
reliability in the fi eld.” Th e authors pointed to functional neuroimaging
as “one of the major concerns in the fi eld.”^37
But all these shortcomings are only the empirical prob lems.
THEORETICAL PROB LEMSTh e more fundamental prob lems in the brain- IQ research, in my view, are
its conceptual under pinnings (and their unconscious ideological roots).
First, simple associations between region size and specifi c function are
unlikely. Th e brain is not a machine with built-in functions that vary merely
in speed, power, capacity, and so on, determined by gene diff erences.
Function arises not in isolated regions but in the rich interconnectivity
among them. As Bargmann and Marder say, “Th e entire ner vous system
is connected, but reductionist neuroscientists invariably focus on pieces
of ner vous systems. Th e value of these simplifi ed systems should not let
us forget that be hav ior emerges from the ner vous system as a whole.”^38
Likewise, in an extensive review, Mike Hawrylycz and associates re-
mind us that “much recent evidence indicates that the vast interconnected
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