TOW #11:"There Is No Left Brain/Right Brain Divide" by Stephen Kosslyn and Wayne Miller

The commonly accepted idea that our brains are divide neatly into two sections, the left "logical and analytical" side and the right "intuitive and creative side" is actually a myth, according to Kosslyn and Miller. The truth is that the differences between left and right sides of the brain is actually very subtle, and the two sides mostly work together to process information. This article also addresses the root of the myth, an experiment done by the California Institute of Technology. The results of the experiment were skewed out of proportion by subsequent news sources, leading a majority of the public to believe in the idea of two very separate and different sections of the brain. Ultimately, although this theory is not true, the authors admit that exactly how the left and right side of the brain function separately and with each other is still vastly unknown. They do, however, hypothesis that a model of a "top-or-bottom" brain is better than the original.
The article mostly attempts to dispel the original theory through an appeal to logos, but the effort falls short. It describes the original experiment done by Caltech, but does not analyze it further or point out its flaws. It merely quotes one of the experimenters, Roger W. Sperry, cautioning the extrapolation of the data. Thus the reader is unsure why the left-right brain theory is baseless.
The new theory that the authors offer is also vague. Readers are told a "top or bottom" model would be better, but the article does not go into much detail about the differences between the top and bottom of the brain and how these differences influence behavior. It claims that "The characterizations of what each part does are based on years of solid research." But the article fails to show this research.
The audience of this article is probably the American public, given that this is Time magazine. But I feel the author's attempted too hard to put this concept into Layman's terms, which ended up cutting out a lot of crucial information regarding the two theories. Because of this, their argument that the current "Right vs. Left" theory should be changed into a "Top vs. Bottom" theory becomes muddled.
Kosslyn is a neuroscientist and former Harvard Professor of Psychology. Miller is a filmmaker and Providence Journal staff writer.