Check out The Frontal Cortex

I've recently discovered Jonah Lehrer's great science blog, The Frontal Cortex. Yesterday he included a fascinating excerpt from a review he wrote for a book about our ability to read and all the amazing things the brain does to allow you to do what you're doing at this very moment.

And in a recent post that looked at the emotional dimensions of our decision-making process with respect to going for a first down rather than punting, he also made this observation which is relevant to the recent changes in mammogram and Pap smear screening recommendations:

Just consider health care: the only way we're ever going to reduce medical costs is to restrict procedures that haven't passed evidence-based efficacy tests. Maybe that means 40 year old women don't get mammograms, or that we treat prostrate cancer less aggressively, or that we stop performing spinal fusion surgeries. Although there's solid evidence to question all of these medical options, such changes provoke intense debate. Why? Because our emotions don't understand statistics. Because when we have back pain we want an MRI. Because when it's our father with prostate cancer we want the most aggressive possible treatments. And so on.

The point is that there's often an indefatigable gap between the rigors of cost-benefit analyses and the emotional hunches that drive our decisions. We say we want to follow the evidence, but then the evidence rubs against a bias like loss aversion, and so we make an exception. We'll follow the evidence next time.

AND SPEAKING OF HEALTHCARE AND CHOICE, Harry Reid has decided to let the Senate vote on an amendment to his healthcare bill that will incorporate on a very small scale the key idea from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden's own bill: that people who currently get their health insurance from their employer have the choice to instead buy it on an open insurance exchange.