Post by John on Apr 30, 2007 11:34:34 GMT -5
The Field of Social Neuroscience
You’ve heard the old saw before: Science is one thing, religion another—that on one hand, science deals with hard facts, while religion deals with unverifiable beliefs and inflexible dogmas. In fact, these days we are hearing an awful lot from fanatical atheists like Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, who say that Christianity is actually a threat to science: that religion and science are fundamentally at odds.
So I always find it amusing when areas of scientific inquiry confirm fundamental truths, so basic to the Christian faith. And that’s exactly what we see in the emerging scientific field of inquiry called social neuroscience. This is the study of the brain in the interpersonal world. In a new book called Social Intelligence, author Daniel Goleman explores the fascinating “neural ballet” that connects humans brain-to-brain. And guess what? Goleman concludes that we are hard-wired to connect. According to the author, “Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person.”
What’s more, the impulse to imitate is undeniably imprinted in our biology. As Goleman explains, “A different variety of brain cells, mirror neurons, sense both the move another person is about to make and their feelings, and instantaneously prepare us to imitate that movement and feel with them.”
for the rest of the story:
www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=6433&zbrandid=420&zidType=CH&zid=1429833&zsubscriberId=121235556
I was about to conquer the world but then I got distracted by something shiny.
