24 It is worthwhile to take a moment to understand the difference between a structural and a functional network. “Structure” refers simply to the phy… - Michael S. Gazzaniga

Science results from a profoundly social process. The common portrayal — that science emerges from a solitary isolated genius, always laboring alone, not owing anything to anyone — is simply wrong.

When shown a series of photographs of five natural landscapes — tropical rain forest, temperate deciduous forest, coniferous forest, savanna, and desert — the youngest subjects (those in the third and fifth grades) picked the savanna as a preferred landscape. Older subjects equally preferred those landscapes with which they were familiar, as well as the savanna.52 People were happier viewing scenes with trees rather than inanimate objects, and also preferred the shapes of trees with spreading canopies, similar to those found on the African savanna, rather than rounded or columnar ones.

Robert Sapolsky, professor of neurology at Stanford, makes the extremely strong statement: “It’s boggling that the legal system’s gold standard for an insanity defense — M’Naghten — is based on 166-year-old science. Our growing knowledge about the brain makes notions of volition, culpability, and, ultimately, the very premise of a criminal justice system, deeply suspect.