Neuroscientist Bobby Azarian — pseudo-scientifically attacked the quality of Trump supporters' brains — and implicitly missed the definition of a Gaussian distribution

© 2018 Peter Free

 

11 April 2018

 

 

This essay is in two parts

 

First, I excerpt what a politically "liberal" neuroscientist said about President Trump's supporters.

 

Then, I explain why this neuroscientist's snide implications combine arrogance with provocative stupidity.

 

 

We seem to be drowning in hostile vacuity's hurricane seas

 

Neuroscientist Bobby Azarian wrote a representatively anti-Trumpist article.

 

It attacks the allegedly low quality of Trump supporters' brains:

 

 

Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise.

 

Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.

 

Science has unequivocally shown that the conservative brain has an exaggerated fear response when faced with stimuli that may be perceived as threatening.

 

These brain responses are automatic, and not influenced by logic or reason.

 

Terror Management Theory predicts that when people are reminded of their own mortality . . . they will more strongly defend those who share their worldviews and national or ethnic identity . . . and act out more aggressively towards those who do not.

 

By constantly emphasizing existential threat, Trump creates a psychological condition that makes the brain respond positively rather than negatively to bigoted statements and divisive rhetoric.

 

[T]he loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America’s addiction with entertainment and reality TV.

 

They are happy as long as they are kept entertained.

 

[W]hat can we do to potentially change the minds of Trump loyalists before voting in 2020?

 

As a cognitive neuroscientist, it grieves me to say that there may be nothing we can do.

 

The overwhelming majority of these people may be beyond reach, at least in the short term.

 

© 2018 Bobby Azarian, A neuroscientist explains what could be wrong with Trump supporters’ brains, RawStory (07 April 2018) (excerpts)

 

 

Notice Azarian's essay heading — "wrong with"

 

Scientifically speaking, any time one chooses to classify about 40 percent of an overall population as deficient or impaired — one has obliterated the definition of a "normal" or Gaussian distribution.

 

When roughly 38 to more than 40 percent of Americans support the President, one cannot legitimately define them as "flawed" according to any reasonable genetic or population-based standard.

 

 

The moral? — Do not pretend to use science to "abnormal-ize" a representatively normal neighbor

 

President Trump (and his authoritarian ilk) get support because a massive portion of the American — and presumably the world population — are wired somewhat like he is.

 

Implying that "these people" are deficient in a scientific sense is both inaccurate and unnecessarily hostility-provoking.

 

I do not dispute that Azarian is probably correct in that "we" will not change "their" minds.

 

But any intelligently ethical system of governance is going to have to come to grips with the fact that humanity combines inbuilt stupidity with penchants for greed and violence.

 

The key point is that virtually all of us suffer from these presumed defects in some ways.

 

Azarian's politically "liberal" arrogance reveals a lack of insight as to his own ilk. The word "dumbass" seems a fair categorization in this instance.