I'm sure I saw something similar before, but this spoof on scientific reporting from Genomicron is good for a laugh (and hopefully not too often true!). I list some of the better ones:
The statement
What it really means
It has long been known...
I haven't bothered to look up the reference
It is thought that ...
I think so
It is generally thought that ...
A couple of other people think so,too
It is not unreasonable to assume...
If you believe this, you'll believe anything
Typical results are shown
The best results are shown
Three samples were chosen for further study
The others didn't make sense, so we ignored them
Results obtained with the second sample must be interpreted with caution
I dropped it on the floor but managed to scoop most of it up
Correct within an order of magnitude
Incorrect
Stringent controls were implemented
My advisor was watching
I thank X for assistance with the experiments and Y for useful discussions on the interpretation of the data
David Perks, writing for Spiked, is skeptical about the explicit teaching of thinking skills to high school learners in Britain. He criticizes the influence of management training ideas on school education and the resulting de-emphasis of the importance of knowledge. Perks specifically questions the introduction of Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats methodology into schools.
I do not know just how central De Bono's methods would be in the teaching of thinking skills in British schools. What I do know is that whatever happens in American and British schools have a high probability of migrating to South African schools.
That considered, I had another look at De Bono's concepts and techniques. From what I saw, De Bono's techniques would be useful as a limited part of a general programme to enhance critical thinking within schools. Critical thinking, however, forms just a small part of De Bono's Six Thinking Hats methodology, the black hat. Perks characterises his view of critical thinking thus:
"In fact, argument and criticism – the tools of philosophers and thinkers in any serious field of knowledge – are to be dispensed with in the de Bono outlook, since they apparently lead to a ‘dangerous arrogance’."
"Without wishing to boast, this is the first new way of thinking to be developed for 2 400 years since the days of Plato, Socrates and Aritotle."
On his own website De Bono is quite derogatory about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, referring to them as the "Greek Gang of Three". A good review on De Bono's views and methods can be found at Think Differently!!, the blog of Dr. Lauchlan MacKinnon. Evidence to support De Bono's methods is somewhat lacking, considering the period it's been used. Some mainly anecdotal evidence can be found on his website.
De Bono has not always been well received in the press, as the following quote by William Harston shows:
"Well, the English language has a word that means: 'I have listened to what you have to say and I understand the points you are trying to make, but I find your argument utterly unconvincing.'That word is 'bullshit', and this book is full of it."
In conclusion, some of De Bono's methods seem useful, but hardly justify all the hype. An excellent book on teaching learners to think was available in 1936, why does the wheel need to be re-invented? I'm referring to the book "Clear Thinking" by R.W. Jepson, at that time the headmaster of Mercer's School, Holborn. Jepson's book can form the basis of a good programme to teach thinking - and it's free online!
IOWA CITY, IA—The mouse briskly traversed the complicated wooden maze in under 30 seconds, roughly 1/8,789,258 the time it took to secure funding for the experiment.
Well what can you say, mice and men (sorry, people) ruin the best laid plans. Where, however, could this mouse have come from? A conspiracy maybe? A recently exposed quack trying to get back at science? How about the mice from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Perhaps the Vogons are ready to demolish Earth again?
Or maybe it was just an exceptional mouse, the result of decades of selective scientific breeding? Or worse yet, the result of genetic manipulation? These darned scientists must be careful they don't breed a mouse that is more intelligent than they are.
Another word of warning to these scientists. The last paragraph in The Onion's report reads as follows:
"Taking into account my past successful experiments with chimpanzees, it is my final analysis that we are dealing with one smart little f...r," said team member Dr. Russell Sutton, who has already applied for an additional grant to study cognitive learning in the same mouse. "I wonder if he'll be so smart without a functioning hippocampus."
If the world has'nt been demolished yet, Dr. Sutton had better breed some more of these mice and run a decent scientific study. He must remember anecdotes and case studies count for squat.
Teachers in Britain have come in for a lot of flak lately about gullibility and practicing pseudoscience nonsense in their classrooms. This came about mainly through their involvement with Brain Gym. Brain Gym (also called Educational Kinesiology) is practiced in schools in many Western countries, including South Africa, so the accusations of gullibility really applies much wider than Britain.
One must be careful about singling out teachers. Brain Gym is also practiced by occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists, all of whom should really know better. Brain Gym has also targeted the corporate world and have found no shortage of gullible victims. A businessman or engineer doing Lazy 8's or pressing their brain buttons, the mind boggles, but it happens!
This is the telling response from a teacher calling herself "scarycurlgirl" and commenting in Charlie Brooker's column "Comment is Free" in The Guardian:
Everyone's a bloody expert on education aren't they? Being a teacher these days is about constantly dealing with the vomit that government calls policy, whilst defending yourself against wildly ambitious parental expectations akin to making numerous high quality silk purses out of frankly unsuitable sow's ears. Teachers do Brain Gym for a number of reasons, one of which might possibly be because they've been told to do it. And if you're a teacher and you don't do what you're told to do, you get shat on.
Education these days is like playing soccer with a rugby ball. Just when you think you've got it, it bounces off in a completely random direction. And just as you get near the goal, someone tells you you're actually plying netball. And the crowd REALLY hate you, because they could do it so much better.
And yes, Brain Gym has got to be bollocks, otherwise I am really going to have to look carefully at what I teach in Biology in the future.
Scarycurlgirl certainly does'nt pull her punches, but many teachers will find much to agree with in her views.
Educational quackery has had a hard time lately. Questionable approaches such as learning styles, multiple intelligences, facilitated communication and Brain Gym have come in for a lot of negative comment and bad publicity. It has been said that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but let's trust that parents and schools take note this time and seriously start demanding evidence before they commit to questionable educational solutions.
Spare a thought, however, for some misled consultants selling snake oil educational products. Many of them were duped by the unscrupulous originators of these products. I have come across teachers who were retrenched and then used their retrenchment packages to acquire training up to the required level in the quacking granfalloons (franchises) that they bought into. Having spent their measly severance pay on nonsense, they now had no option but to continue. Yes, they should have known better, but critical thinking and evidence supported practice have never featured strongly in teacher training.
Even sadder are young people whose parents paid for them to do courses that sounded scientific and that they hoped would set them up as entrepreneurs in the burgeoning market for educational solutions. Neither they nor their parents had the background or training to distinguish science from pseudoscience.
I've seen this happening especially in the brain based pseudosciences. The charlatans who sell neuro-nonsense know only too well the allure of neuroscience.
I have referred in a number of posts to a quacking granfalloon and each time have had to explain myself. This is what I previously wrote on the topic of granfalloons in a post entitled "Whole-brain half-wittedness":
They are often what I would like to call inbred granfalloons. A granfalloon is a group of people, often hierarchically organised, that associate around a meaningless, fabricated premise. The granfalloon would be established by the leader (or guru) and members would be limited to approved training and literature. The guru may be well aware that his or her product is nonsense, but the faithful followers or practitioners are kept in the dark. The quaint American expression "mushroomed - kept in the dark and fed manure", seems appropriate.
A more comprehensive description of a granfalloon is to be found in Anthony Pratkanis' excellent"How to sell a pseudoscience":
Establish a Granfalloon
Where would a leader be without something to lead? Our next tactic supplies the answer: Establish what Kurt Vonnegut terms a "granfalloon," a proud and meaningless association of human beings. One of social psychology's most remarkable findings is the ease with which granfalloons can be created. For example, the social psychologist Henri Tajfel merely brought subjects into his lab, flipped a coin, and randomly assigned them to be labeled either Xs or Ws. At the end of the study, total strangers were acting as if those in their granfalloon were their close kin and those in the other group were their worst enemies.
Granfalloons are powerful propaganda devices because they are easy to create and, once established, the granfalloon defines social reality and maintains social identities. Information is dependent on the granfalloon. Since most granfalloons quickly develop out-groups, criticisms can be attributed to those "evil ones" outside the group, who are thus stifled. To maintain a desired social identity, such as that of a seeker or a New Age rebel, one must obey the dictates of the granfalloon and its leaders.
Essential to the success of the granfalloon tactic is the creation of a shared social identity. In creating this identity, here are some things you might want to include:
(a) rituals and symbols (e.g., a dowser's rod, secret symbols, and special ways of preparing food): these not only create an identity, but provide items for sale at a profit.
(b) jargon and beliefs that only the in-group understands and accepts (e.g., thetans are impeded by engrams, you are on a cusp with Jupiter rising): jargon is an effective means of social control since it can be used to frame the interpretation of events.
(c) shared goals (e.g., to end all war, to sell the faith and related products, or to realize one's human potential): such goals not only define the group, but motivate action as believers attempt to reach them.
(d) shared feelings (e.g., the excitement of a prophecy that might appear to be true or the collective rationalization of strange beliefs to others): shared feelings aid in the we feeling.
(e) specialized information (e.g., the U.S. government is in a conspiracy to cover up UFOs): this helps the target feel special because he or she is "in the know."
(f) enemies (e.g., alternative medicine opposing the AMA and the FDA, subliminal-tape companies spurning academic psychologists, and spiritualists condemning Randi and other investigators): enemies are very important because you as a pseudoscientist will need scapegoats to blame for your problems and failures.
As I write this, the news that Charlton Heston is dead has just become known. I respected him and I enjoyed his movies. He seemed a real and substantial person, unlike most of Hollywood's actors. Everyone may not have agreed with his politics, but few could have doubted his integrity. My thoughts go out to his family.
The fact that he supported causes that were not always popular is reflected in this quote from his address to the Arizona State Legislature: "Political correctness is just tyranny with manners."
I also found much that I could agree with in another well-known Charlton Heston speech, this time to students at Harvard Law School.
Farewell Chuck.
Read a similar, but more comprehensive, view of Charlton Heston in Spiked.
My favourite TV programme, "Law & Order", last night had an excellent episode entitled "Compassion". It was from the 14th season in 2003. We get to see many TV series much later in South Africa.
The plot was roughly as follows:
A real estate swindler, turned grief counsellor/psychic medium is murdered. A female paediatric oncologist (Dr. Allisson) is arrested and charged for the murder. She happens to have been both a victim of his real estate fraud, and have also attended his "crossing over" seances.
The question? Did she kill him out of revenge (rationally), or did she kill him to send him ahead into heaven as a compassionate friend for her young cancer patients after death (insanity)?
As the episode unfolds, it turns out that the snake oil salesman (Jack McCoy's term for him) did his job so well that he fooled Dr. Allison (her sanity failing due to the stress of treating terminally ill children) into believing in his ability to communicate with the dead and in his wonderfully compassionate nature. She poisons him and sends him ahead to heaven where he will comfort her little patients after death.
Poetic justice, one might say!
I could find no indication that this was in any way based on any real event. Congratulations, however, for the script writer for the ironic story.
And no, I do not advocate that snake oil salesmen (or should it be salespersons?) and such like, be killed. Let science rather deal with them and humanely put them out of business by educating consumers.
The evidence-based concept has not been without its critics, both medicine related and in other areas of practice. Much of the criticism has been directed at the mindless bureaucratic application of the concepts, rather than at its merits. Other criticism focussed on what the critics considered the inability of the model to cope with complexity and contextual issues.
This debate has also raged within Psychology, reflecting to some extent the tension between "therapists" and "scientists". While the term evidence-based therapy has been used, other terms such as empirically based, empirically validated and empirically evualated therapy have also been considered. The term "empirically supported therapy" gained some support (pun not intended), as it was considered to better reflect issues of complexity and context.
I would suggest that the term "evidence-supported" would be better yet. Not all evidence is empirical and empirical methods are not appropriate in all contexts.
Googling the term "evidence-supported" in various combinations gives a small number of hits, but on "evidence-supported management" there's nothing that's analogous to Pfeffer and Sutton's EBM.
We have been experimenting in a special school with the implementation of evidence-supported practices in a number of ways. These include encouraging staff (teachers and therapists) to apply evidence-supported principles in their work. We are also starting to implement the principles of evidence-supported management in the school's management, based on the work of Pfeffer and Sutton. Lastly, we're working on improving the critical thinking skills of our learners.
Terry Pratchett, fantasy author and self-declared Alzheimer's sufferer, recently stated the case for snake oil cures. He did it in his inimitable style, such that even skeptics such as myself had to take note. His speech included this gem:
"Some of them wanted to sell me snake oil and I’m not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake."
Who can blame victims of currently incurable diseases should they want te keep all options open? It is easy to be dismissive and skeptical in general, but not so easy when you are faced with an actual victim desperate for a cure - any cure.
That having been said, should one be as accommodating to the quacks and charlatans who sell snake oil cures? There is, I suppose, a logical inconsistency here. How can you understand and accept the victim's use of snake oil cures and at the same time denounce the quacks or charlatans who sell them?
Should the purveyor's motives and beliefs influence your tolerance? Should one be more tolerant of a quack who truly believes in his (or her) brand of snake oil and who believes he's making a difference, as against the charlatan who through deception sells what he knows is snake oil? The motives and beliefs may be different, but the outcome is the same.
"There is no such thing as alternative medicine. There is only medicine. There is good medicine and bad medicine. There are doctors and there are quacks."
Snake oil bring false hope for the victims of disease and fraudulant prosperity for the quacks. It also delays the very medical progress that could have offered real cures. Should quacks and charlatans get away with it, regardless of whether their activities are based on gullibility or fraud?
For those who still wonder about snake oil cures, the 2007 book by R. Barker Bausell entitled Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine, may give some answers. Read this review by Dr. Harriet Hall in eSkeptic.
I bow out with the strains of "Lily the Pink" running through my mind. Read all about Lily Pinkham, snake oil purveyor, here. A kindred spirit is the South African Minister of Health, Dr. Manto Tshabalala Msimang, a great believer in "natural" cures.
Hat tip to Mind Hacks for reporting on a recent very controversial hypothesis by Prof. Benny Shanon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that psychotropic drugs may have played a role in Israelite religious experience. This reminded me of a neuroscientifically interesting, hopefully less provocative, example of medico-deductive reasoning that I came across many years ago.
Prof. Michael Saling of the University of the Witwatersrand Department of Neuropsychology recounted this anecdote at a clinical neuropsychology course in around 1988/9. A question in the Wits final year neurology residents' exam read simply: "How did David kill Goliath?"
The answer, as I recall (it was 20 years ago), was that Goliath being a giant, may have had a pituitary tumor. The tumor's pressure on the optic chiasm resulted in a bilateral hemianopsia (visual field defect). It also led to the weakening of the arteries in the Circle of Willis. The visual field defect allowed David to get closer to Goliath and have a more accurate slingshot. The impact and penetration of the stone into Goliath's forehead, resulted in the rupture of the arteries and severe haemorrhaging. Goliath lost consciousness, allowing David to decapitate him.
I can't recall if Prof. Saling mentioned whether any of the residents got it right!
This graphic image of a pituitary macroadenoma from eMedicine.
When preparing this post, I tried to find the origin of the theory. The first similar account seemed to be in a 1983 letter by Rabin and Rabin to the New England Journal of Medicine, entitled "David, Goliath, and Smiley's people. I was unable to get access to it online, but I found this summary of their theory by Dr. Stanley Sprecher:
Undoubtedly Goliath's great size was due to acromegaly secondary to a pituitary macroadenoma. This pituitary adenoma was apparently large enough to induce visual field deficits by its pressure on the optic chiasm, which made Goliath unable to follow the young David as he circled him. The stone entered Goliath's cranial vault through a markedly thinned frontal bone, which resulted from enlargement of the frontal paranasal sinus, a frequent feature of acromegaly. The stone lodged in Goliath's enlarged pituitary and caused a pituitary hemorrhage, resulting in transtentorial herniation and death.
As can be seen, the pathology is different from my recollection of Dr. Saling's account. A review of other possibilities by Dr. Vladimir Berginer can be found online in Medical Archaeology
The comments on the recent Bad Science posting on Brain Gym included several in which the commenters indicated not having the courage to question the introduction of pseudoscience nonsense in their school or business. I've had corporate managers tell me that they've submitted to the indignity of performing pseudoscientific activities such as those of Brain Gym and Neurolinguistic Programming, rather than protest and being seen as not "being team players".
I've mentioned before that nonsense congregates. It also migrates. Brain Gym has moved from the school environment to the corporate environment. It is one thing for a grade one child to press his Brain Buttons, it is something quite different for an adult manager. Yet, this kind of indignity is often expected when companies embrace pseudoscience.
Harvard University's Bob Sutton of the No-Asshole Rule and Evidence Based Management fame, has 15 rules he believes in. I'd like to single out number 11, which in a small way is relevant to this discussion:
"The best people and organizations have the attitude of wisdom: The courage to act on what they know right now and the humility to change course when they find better evidence."
The message? Employees have to be able to question something as simple as the introduction of a pseudoscience technique and know that their argument and their evidence will be heard. Bringing in nonsense activities into an organisation will not normally threaten the future of that organisation, although it may divert valuable resources to nonsense. The question is whether organisational culture that suppresses dissent at that level, will allow it where more important issues are at stake?
Dr Ben Goldacre, writing for The Guardian over at Bad Science, smote Brain Gym, and again, and again, and again, and again, and (sigh...) yet again! Will Brain Gym, a quackish granfalloon, react officially? I can find no evidence that they have in the past reacted officially and publically to accusations of quackery. Brain Gym's guru, Paul Dennison, seems to believe in just lying low in the knowledge that things will quieten down again.
Brain Gym has now also been exposed as pseudoscience nonsense in the commentary Neuroscience and Education by the British Economic and Social Research Council and in this scholarly article by Keith Hyatt. The evidence against Brain Gym is mounting and the education establishment worldwide must surely now take note.
Up to now Brain Gym was spread like a virus in schools throughout the world by scores of consultants whose only required qualification seemed the completion of a series of Brain Gym courses. They were ably assisted by thousands of well-meaning, but gullible teachers. The picture below shows teachers doing a mindless Brain Gym exercise during a training session (from Bangor Daily News via Bad Science). Apologies to these ladies who probably did not bargain on having their faces spread all over the internet.
Many commenters on Brain Gym denounce its pseudoscience nature and the excessive claims of Brain Gym practitioners. They see some merit in the exercises, however, claiming that any physical exercise would be beneficial to children at school. I beg to differ. Most of the exercises have some pseudoscientific or plain nonsense rationale. They make no sense in the absence of the explanation given for them in the Brain Gym manuals.
An example is the "Brain Buttons". The Brain Gym Teachers Edition (given to me by a disgusted teacher), describes this as follows:
"The Brain Buttons (soft tissue under the clavicle to the left and right of the sternum) can be massaged deeply with one hand while holding the navel with the other hand"
This is supposed to improve the brain's contralateral functioning and "increase the flow of the body's electromagnetic energy".
The explanation from the Brain Gym Teachers Edition:
"Brain Buttons are known in acupuncture as Kidney 27's. ... This is known in Applied Kinesiology as ocular lock ..."
How can a teacher teach this nonsense exercise without giving the child the pseudoscience explanation? The same applies to most of the other exercises.
In South Africa Brain Gym was taken on by Christian churches because they perceived it as New Age with Eastern religeous influences. The reaction by some of the Brain Gym practitioners was to remove all references to the origin of the exercises from their literature and to declare it to be science based. As to the honesty of this, you be the judge.
"Three policemen. One service pistol. No clip for the firearm ... and no bullets! That's how police had to patrol the town on Friday night. Their worst fears were realised in the early hours of Saturday morning when robbers opened fire on them."
Patrolling with an unloaded pistol anywhere in the world is stupidity, but in South Africa it's suicide. Surely the police's standard operating procedures should not allow it to happen? A pistol with no magazine is a single shot weapon, with no cartridges (bullets) it becomes an inefficient and dangerous baton.
South Africa has some of the best and most experienced "gunfighter" police officers. The story is told of a top American police trainer who came to train flying squad officers (an elite unit) in South Africa. He had never been in actual combat. He asked his trainees whether any of them had ever been involved in a gunfight. He was dumbfounded to find that many had lost count of the number of times they had been in gunfights.
How then for these capable and experienced police officers to transfer their expertise to their less capable colleagues, such as those who went to a gunfight with an empty pistol?
Basic target shooting training and participation in practical shooting exercises are of course prerequisites before any higher lever tactical training can be done. The problem is that even the best training do not necessarily transfer to real life situations.
Interestingly, the opposite also sometimes applies. Jim Cirillo, while on stakeout duty for the NYPD, was involved in a much spoken about shootout. During the incident he shot and hit three armed robbers, firing six shots, three of which were head shots. Cirillo was never able to repeat this feat on the shooting range.
"Gunfghter" police officers are few and far between, even in very professional police forces. It is unrealistic to expect that level of expertise from the majority of officers. On the other hand, the level of incompetence shown by the officers described in the "look Ma, no bullets" incident, is unacceptable.
Good basic training is non-negotiable. For the rest, the use of competent "gunfighter" police officers as mentors to especially younger officers seems a good idea. The use of narrative in auditory format could also work, especially in a country where the majority of police officers have English only as a second or third language. The use of story telling and narrative as learning tools also feature strongly in traditional African culture and can therefore be especially effective.
These measures, however, will have to be followed up by scenario based training under realistic circumstances.
Just for interest sake, see below what shooting feats are possible!
These feats were performed by Jerry Miculek, the current revolver World Practical Shooting champion.
In a previous post on brain profiling, I've indicated that the concept is pseudoscientific and in fact has nothing to do with the differential functioning of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I quoted Ned Herrmann, the originator of the concept, as follows: "The whole-brain model, although originally thought of as a physiological map, is today entirely a metaphor." I've further indicated that brain profilists consider their brain profiles to be metaphors, although you often have to read very carefully to distill that fact from their writings.
Now we have one group of brain profilists who claims to be able to construct "genetic" brain profiles. Nowhere in their work do I find the weasel word, "metaphor". A description of the work of Dr. Annette Lotter and Associates with the South African Springbok rugby team appears in the normally scientifically reliable South African edition of the Popular Mechanics (September 2007). The full article by Andy Colquhoun is available here.
The article has the normal left brain right brain pop psychology nonsense that you'll find in such articles. I've previously referred to this as whole-brain half-wittery.
It then goes further and describes how 32 genetically determined combinations of left right dominance of brain hemisphere, hand, foot, eye and ear, determine people's reaction to stress. Based on the genetic brain profile, Lotter and Associates claim that they are able to predict "blockages" persons will experience under stress. These "blockages" cause different parts of the brain to become inaccessible under stress.
I quote one example:
"(Rugby) Players with left-eye dominance are overly sensitive to body langauge, and if you know that, you can throw them of their game by pulling faces or making gestures. You might also wonder how they would react to the haka (the Maori war chant used by the All Blacks)"
No, this is not satire. Have a look below at the All Black haka referred to. If there was any validity to the claim, any left eye dominant player who faced the All Blacks, would go into a catatonic state! To my knowledge that has never happened.
I have been an active target pistol shooter for many years. Pistol shooting is the one sport where the participant's dominant eye is fairly noticeable. Face pulling and grimaces are very common when bad shots are fired (add to that that many of my fellow shottists are an ugly lot!), yet I've never seen a left-eye dominant shottist being phased by that. The fact that there are many left eye dominant shottists competing at the top level, is a Popperian falsification of Dr. Lotter's claim. That, however, is anecdotal and as everone knows, anecdotal evidence have little scientific standing.
Let's look at facts. Consider that about 36% of the general population is left-eye dominant, that 34% of right-handed persons and 57% of left-handed persons are left-eye dominant Bourassa, 1996). Those are the percentages of rugby players you would prefer not to select when playing the All Blacks!
The claim that left-eye dominant people are sensitive to facial expressions assumes that eye dominance has a specific and predictable relationship to hemispheric asymmetries, from which specific predictions can be made about behaviour. This is questionable. Eye-dominance and its relationship to the hemispheres of the brain is not a simple either-or matter, as it is well known that each eye is connected via the optic chiasm to both hemispheres of the brain and that each eye has two visual half-fields that project to different sides of the brain. Sally Springer and George Deutsch, in their authoritative book, Left brain right brain (1998, p.133), point out that the relationship of eye and ear preference to hemispheric asymmetry is not particularly strong.
Left-eye dominant rugby players cave in under the haka? I think not! But consider for a moment the position of a left-eye dominant player who is not selected for a team because his coach believed this pseudoscientific nonsense.
As to Lotter Associates general claim that depending on the genetic brain profile and the pattern of motor and sensory dominance, different parts of the brain would become inaccessible or develop blockages under stress, I know of no scientific evidence to support this. There are stacks of reliable information on the internet on stress and the brain, but in no reputable website do I find anything on brain blockages as described by Lotter and Associates.
This quote by Druckman and Bjork (1991) from the excellent report of the American Academy of Sciences, based upon research commissioned by the American Army, says it all:
Sports performance is a quintessential problem in complex motor, cognitive, affective, and attentional processes, and it depends on functions that are widely distributed throughout both cerebral hemispheres. Studies that characterize the cognitive, attentional, or motor components of sports as “left hemisphere abilities” or “right hemisphere abilities” are fatally flawed. Not only is it inherently insupportable to characterize sports abilities by brain hemisphere, it is also methodologically and logically flawed to narrowly localize these complex processes.
This and the previous report by Druckman and Swets (1988) are both available free online. Sporting bodies, even those with limited funds, have no excuse not to properly research approaches and fads they subject their players to. The Springbok team have a history of involvement with management fads. This included whole-brain half-wittery. They should also take heed of the Druckman and Bjork quote above.
