Rightfully relegated to the bench yesterday by starting quarterback "Ben Carson thinks slaves used Expedia to book luxury cruise to America.”, was this tidbit, reported here by the Washington Post.
“But on Monday, he (Carson) told a factually wrong parable about the brain. Specifically, Carson said, the brain was incapable of forgetting and could be electrically stimulated into perfect recall — a statement that, even though made by one of the most famous former neurosurgeons alive, was far more fiction than science.”
Actual brain doctors who are not idiots were quick to set the record straight (though most of us didn’t need confirmation of our sanity bias)…
“Dan Simons, a University of Illinois psychologist who studies attention and memory, told Wired that Carson’s claim was “utter nonsense.” Simons said it failed on nearly all counts: Humans cannot recall large swaths of text unless memorized for that purpose. Doctors cannot force patients to remember anything in crystal detail, even with deep brain stimulation. No human brain holds within it “a perfect and permanent record of our experiences,” the psychologist said.”