7.05.2008

Public interest and neuroscience

Booming neuroscience interest. Who is afraid of the neurobomb?

Explanations of psychological phenomena seem to generate more public interest when they contain neuroscientific information. Even irrelevant neuroscience information is seen as more satisfying by non experts, in a research project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Researchers warn against the "seductive allure of neuroscience explanations".

Bringing research, that is still in a preliminary stage, into public circulation is accelarated by ICT. It points again towards the need for a more independent (mathetic) coaching of pupils, as young as possible, to make clear that there is always a basic need for judging the reliability
and validity of a given news item. It's often described as
media literacy.
One of the champions of media literacy was the French educator CĂ©lestin Freinet. At the beginning of the 20th century he made newspapers with his children, using a simple printing press. By doing so, children learned that they could easily produce information themselves. That made them more critical towards text they saw in "official" newspapers. Freinet discovered several didactical techniques useful for critical and democratic media literacy.

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