{"id":29928,"date":"2023-01-10T10:31:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T18:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29928"},"modified":"2023-01-10T10:31:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T18:31:10","slug":"book-built-on-sand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/book-built-on-sand\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Built on Sand"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long\u2019s The Molecule of More<\/em> to be both thought provoking in the way it portrayed the role of dopamine in a wide range of human behaviors and simultaneously reckless in the way it presented studies to back their claims. Lieberman and Long\u2019s explanation of dopamine activity as an indicator of possibility and anticipation rather than a marker of pleasure[1]<\/a>\u00a0is helpful in dispelling a common misperception of dopamine. This understanding of dopamine seems to set the foundation for the rest of the book.<\/p>\n

Thought Provoking<\/strong><\/p>\n

The phenomena of being driven by unexpected reward was dubbed \u201creward prediction error\u201d by Lieberman and Long[2]<\/a>. Outside of the study that brought it into scientific and popular discourse, the motivational application of \u201creward prediction error\u201d abounds in society around us. I imagine it\u2019s why I get excited when I find a 20 dollar bill in my pocket. I haven\u2019t gained more money, but it was unexpected so it sets off a dopamine response. Game developers also understand this phenomenon. My brother, who has over 10 years working on the strategy and product side of various games used to tell me that the retention rate (how many people who downloaded the game would keep playing months later) of games with a sense of randomness is much higher than ones that are entirely skill based. And it makes sense. Entirely skill based games probably have a very low reward prediction errors. You can easily tell if you will lose or win, or at least reasonably predict what outcome to expect. I imagine this is also why college basketball fans love the Cinderella stories that are brough on during March Madness. There is an element of randomness to a one-and-done tournament that makes every heart-wrenching loss drops your stomach lower and every epic underdog win makes you soar higher. There is an abundance of reward prediction error.<\/p>\n

Much of what Lieberman and Long talk about bleeds over into basic economics concepts as well. For example, if dopamine\u2019s job is to \u201cmaximize resources that will be available to us in the future\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0rather than just the amount of pleasure it produces now, it echoes the economic principle that people, rather than acting to maximize current value, will make decisions that maximize utility (which can include both present and future benefit). Contrary to Lieberman and Long[4]<\/a>, economists would characterize this as people acting rationally. Even further, the authors mention what economists call diminishing marginal returns, the idea that the more of something you predictably get, the less extra utility you receive from an additional unit. As someone who studied both biology and economics, the biochemical explanation that drives decision making is fascinating.<\/p>\n

Reckless<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Molecule of More<\/em> epitomizes what I find most cringe-inducing about popular science books. Almost from the get-go, the authors choose to make bold claims using ambiguous language around what studies that might be citing.<\/p>\n

\u201c”It seemed more likely that the evolutionary processes that harnessed dopamine were driven by the need to motivate survival and reproductive activity. So they replaced cocaine with food, expecting to see the same effect. What they found surprised everyone. It was the beginning of the end for dopamine as the pleasure molecule. Dopamine, they discovered, isn\u2019t about pleasure at all. Dopamine delivers a feeling much more influential.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

In the above passage, the authors employ almost a \u201cclick-bait\u201d strategy, saying that the scientists who studied human drug addicts replaced the cocaine and sugar that they were administered with food. Oddly, they never tell us exactly what it was the found. Even worse, the authors never revisit this study that they make reference to, instead opting later to refer to a study scientists performed on rats.<\/p>\n

What I find to be particularly reckless about this book is the way it references studies done without properly citing these studies. One particularly egregious example comes from the second chapter: “Dopamine does the opposite. Human beings who have genes that produce high levels of dopamine have the highest number of sexual partners and the lowest age of first sexual intercourse.”[6]<\/a>They make a bold, eye-catching (especially because it involves sex) claim without backing it up. The study they reference is one done on voles. The experiment did not even involve dopamine, rather it involved the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. The authors, however, make the jump from voles to humans and from oxytocin and vasopressin to dopamine.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, the authors provide a long list of \u201crecommended reading\u201d at the end of each chapter that I haven\u2019t read through. But I found the constant use of such a strategy by the authors to be reckless, or at best, lazy. Their inability to trace their arguments to peer reviewed studies clearly severely hinders what is otherwise a fun and though-provoking book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael Long, The Molecule of More<\/em> (Dallas: BenBella Books, Inc.), 2018, 5.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 6<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 9<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 29<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid, 3<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid, 18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found Daniel Lieberman and Michael Long\u2019s The Molecule of More to be both thought provoking in the way it portrayed the role of dopamine in a wide range of human behaviors and simultaneously reckless in the way it presented studies to back their claims. Lieberman and Long\u2019s explanation of dopamine activity as an indicator […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2487],"class_list":["post-29928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lieberman-long-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29930,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29928\/revisions\/29930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}