Are there any behaviorists left? If so, Gazzaniga's latest text is
guaranteed to inflame. In yet another example of nothing-butness,
the Dartmouth Medical School psychiatrist (Mind Matters, 1987),
with sterling credits for his work on patients and animals with
split brains, states a bold new hypothesis: the selection theory of
brain and behavior. Essentially, Gazzaniga's theory applies to the
nervous system a concept that is now generally accepted about the
immune system - that you are born with all the antibodies you need
to counter any of the millions of invading foreign antigens
(usually proteins). The antibody-producing cells circulate, and
when one encounters its opposite number, it responds by
proliferating to produce neutralizing antibodies. Gazzaniga argues
that we are born with a similar behavioral repertoire - a library
of responses that are selected in accordance with what the
environment serves up. The best that our parents and society can do
is to ensure that we have opportunities; that our environments are
not short-changed, deprived, or deranged. So forget about
"instruction"; forget about much recovery after brain damage or
catching up by premature babies. Instead, consider that we come
into the world equipped to perceive reality and survive; that we
develop an internal interpreter of events that occasionally allows
rational processes to override our repertoire of primitive beliefs.
Think, too, that the addict and the sexual deviant may he
demonstrating "bizarre manifestations of biological systems that
have been selected out to promote survival." There is no question
that Gazzaniga is on solid ground in describing evidence for
biological-genetic roots for much of behavior. The danger lies in
dozing the door, leaving no room for plasticity - for neuronal,
gene-therapeutic, or other changes in circuitry - in response to
environmental challenge: something more than "nothing but." (Kirkus
Reviews)
Recent, stunning discoveries suggest that natural selection
affects not only physical characteristics but also mental
processes, from learning to substance abuse. Michael S. Gazzaniga
reveals that just as the environment selects those organisms most
likely to survive, within the brain the environment selects
pre-existing capacities from a massive inventory of
possibilities.
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