(Not really, although if I were a neuroscientist [which, I am sure, the professors who made a noble attempt to teach me that subject would agree it's a good thing for everyone that I am not] I think it would be a promising area of research. It’s known that increased use can make regions of the brain larger; for example, concert pianists tend to have particularly large portions of the motor region devoted to the fingers. I want to scan some used-car salesmen and politicians as well as certain “science” “journalists” and see if we can’t locate the areas involved in truth-stretching.)
Via @sbma44, this article has what might be the worst headline I’ve ever read.
The article itself, minus the headline and lede, is really interesting and, I think, accurately represents the research.
When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless.
That’s cool! As a quoted scientist points out, volition is presumably a sensation like anything else, and it’s interesting to find the brain region where that occurs.
What I want to know is whether the headline’s author seriously thought that free will might actually be something that scientists could invoke with electricity or just thought that would make the article sound more interesting. I mean, surely, whatever disagreements philosophers and theologians might have about the nature of free will, even the lowliest layperson can agree that it’s by definition something that somebody with a scalpel and a probe can’t do to you.