Reddit reviews Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience

>It tells us that different types function in different ways by preferring certain areas of the brain. These different areas of the brain overlap with the Jungian functions that make up the mbti types.

...No it doesn't, it can't tell us any of those things.

It tells us that if we group people according to categories of things they might believe or think, or ways they might act, then we'll find corresponding brain areas that correlate to those categories that we've created.

Yes, no shit. That's what the brain does. You could expand the categories out to a million, or limit it to 2, and you'll get similar correlations to brain states - because the brain is responsible for our thoughts and behaviors, so if you create a category of thoughts and behaviors then the brain will necessarily map onto them.

That tells us absolutely nothing about personality types, whether the construct is valid, whether it's telling us anything meaningful about personality, or anything at all.

>I don't think it's 100% proof of it's validity, but it shows that mbti is much more reliable than horoscopes.

Not at all, because you can get the exact same effect with horoscopes. Get a list of descriptions of what defines each star sign and then map the brains of people and you'll find that you can categorise people according to those star signs.

It's nonsense. In science we call this kind of research "neurobabble" or "neurobollocks". It's just rephrasing your beliefs by randomly inserting "brain data" to make people more likely to think your research is valid or telling us something meaningful.

I recommend this article for some background on the kind of trickery going on here: The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations, and for a longer discussion on the topic you can read this book: Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.

>Show me the ones who think they're wrong, and have better ideas about it.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/psychopath-ish

https://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Seductive-Appeal-Mindless-Neuroscience/dp/0465062911

There are even articles on the debate:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-problem-with-the-neuroscience-backlash

>It's interesting how terrifying the idea of "born psychopaths" is to some people.

I'm not terrified of the idea at all. I have zero problems accepting that people are born with psychosis and schizophrenia. But psychopathy is something else entirely.

Perhaps you're not aware but a few decades back scientists wanted to change the name from psychopath to sociopath -- the reason being that back then they believed that this was a condition caused by society not psyche.

The pendulum swings on nature vs. nurture and we are now in a nature stage. I have no doubt it will swing again. And decades from now people will still be arguing about how serial killers are created.