Neuro-Orthodoxy

The established, institutionalized set of beliefs about the brain that dominate neuroscience and public discourse—the often-unexamined assumptions that brains explain everything about mind, that brain imaging reveals thought, that neural correlates are causes, that brain differences explain social phenomena, that neuroscience is the ultimate authority on human nature. Neuro-orthodoxy includes commitments: that complex human experiences reduce to brain activity, that fMRI shows what people think and feel, that brain differences between groups explain social inequalities, that neuroscience will eventually answer all questions about mind, that neuro-talk is inherently more scientific than psychological or social explanation. Like all orthodoxies, it provides a framework for understanding, but it functions as ideology—making brain reductionism seem like the only rigorous approach, obscuring the limits of neuroimaging and neuro-explanation, and delegitimizing other ways of understanding human experience. Neuro-orthodoxy determines what research is funded, what explanations are taken seriously, and who counts as "scientifically literate" versus "naive" about the brain.

Example: "He explained every human phenomenon in terms of brain activity—love, politics, art, meaning—as if neural correlates were explanations. Neuro-orthodoxy had made reductionism feel like depth."

by Dumu The Void March 17, 2026