Today Nature released the result of its pool about use of “cognitive enhancing” drugs. Although the magazine took the care to always say how it was not a serious research, the newspapers didn’t care to simply go on saying that 1/5 of “the scientists” (that mysterious entity, “the scientists”, who are always taking decisions and doing strange stuff that are reported indirectly in the papers) make use of such drugs.

But let’s not care for the general media and try to return to a high-level debate, as the one that was started when the poll began. When reading the new article at Nature, with the poll results, I started to understand that we are mixing two subjects: that of transhumanism, related to other possible advances such as BMI, and on the other side the discussion of the current use of drugs such methylphenidate (Ritalin).

While I often support the idea of transhumanism, after reading that article I realized I am strongly opposed to the way people seem to be using Ritalin in the academic world, and consequently the way they are proposing that other such drugs should be used in the future. I’ll try to explain those concerns of mine below.

The new hope
When I first read the articles at Nature regarding the “professional use of drugs in the academy” controversy, what really caught my attention was the use of the term cognitive-enhancing drugs. I had never heard that expression before, and it fitted nicely in concepts I had of what could be some initial forms of transhumanism, and of similar things we see in some science fiction stories. I think it is very important for us to think about this expression, what it really means. It could be the case that multiple persons are using it with different ideas.

When I heard the term, I though these drugs would enlarge our memory capacity and speed, but more then that, that they would help you to reason about more different things at the same time, faster. They would help you to find out relations and concepts that you wouldn’t grasp normally.

People always tell me I need “more focus”, that I move too frequently from one subject to another, and because of that I am not a scientist as productive as I could be. So, when I heard about new cognitive-enhancing drugs, what I thought was that they might help us (me) to better focus on multiple things. they would allow me to work the way I like, without people having the impression that I am wasting my time on the wrong dicrection (or better, directions). What I want is more power to do multi-tasking.

I believe people are often too focused, and should deal more with different subjects, and find out bridges between different research areas. Don’t we always hear about the need for multi or interdisciplinary studies? I’m just looking for that.

It’s not that I want to do different things at the same time. It’s not that I study specific characteristics of subtle questions in small areas of particle physics, geology and biochemistry at the same time. To me, the subjects I study usually do have relations between them. (Sometimes they don’t, also…)

But anyway, I like to study multiple subjects, and I am also interested in knowing superficially other subjects (as these three mentioned above). People see that as a bad lack of focus. I see that as a healthy practice, because it allows us to make analogies between different phenomenons, and also bring the view of experts from different areas to different subjects, what can always bring a light. It helps in breaking paradigms, and proposing new ones, and also is just more fun.

Of course, you must take care as to always dedicate yourself enough to every new topic you approach, so that you never stop in the middle of the road, and end up wasting your time. Knowledge it kind of quantized. You must also be sure you are actually producing something, and not just looking at different areas of science like you were uncertain about what you are going to eat at a restaurant.

So, fearing that one might loose himself when giving attention to (seemingly) different areas, people say everyone should focus. The focus would be needed because a scientist wouldn’t be able to concentrate on different areas. Well, I think this inability could be understood as a cognitive restriction. Thus, my hope was that these drugs might help to “expand the mind” of scientists, breaking this cognitive restriction, thus performing a cognitive enhancement.

The drugs would allow scientists to understand more ideas better and quicker. Propose and test new hypothesis more quickly too. I mean, propose new and better hypothesis, which is even more complicated. I would allow then to make more interesting analogies, seeing more “hidden” things…

The empire strikes back
Now that I am reading the new texts on the subject, it seems to me that it’s just the opposite of what I first thought: these drugs restrain your ability to focus on multiple things!... It seems they work more as a kind of cognitive blinders or perhaps a cognitive leash. They would restrain your mind so it doesn’t go on random walks of thought, but “help” you to concentrate on a specific, smaller subject. It would be useful when you need to prepare for a school exam, or finish a report because the concentration would drive cognitive resources to the specific task, and it would be completed in less time. You focus energy that would otherwise be spent on useless tasks.

Now let’s be frank. What is the importance to science of finishing a report in less time, or studying for an exam? What is the importance of exams in teaching?

Everybody knows exams are not fun. And everybody knows the only reason they are done is because it’s a quick and dirty way to make sure your students are grasping some minimal amount of information when doing a discipline. It is also the only way mediocre teachers have to evaluate the performance of his students.

Nobody is (or should be) proud of tests, exams, notes, grades, points, failing, repeating semesters, competition… And society should be moving away from these things. After all studies in psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, and all social revolutions in the XX century, we should be more conscious about the need to put an end to these archaic school traditions.

And the culture spread to other places… Researchers and schools compete against each other, comparing grades, and start to care more about doing well in high-level, abstract analysis then in actually producing science.

What I believe is that the current use of Ritalin and other drugs in the academy is linked to this test-grade-competition tradition. The science that Ritalin helps to produce is that one of little tests, late reports , and agencies that compete to see who publishes the biggest number of articles, who has the biggest number of Nobel prize laureates, and who gets more money from the military.

People are happy because Ritalin is helping them in getting along with this tradition. Instead of questioning the way we teach, learn, research and do science in general, people are happy because everything looks easier when doped.

So, it seems to me that Ritalin and these other drugs are being used as a kind of justification, or as saviours to the test-grade-competition model. Instead of looking for a better way to live, people are looking for a miracle solution to let us live in our squalid societies.

This is related, for example to this idea published in Nature that the prescription of Ritalin to children is less related to health, and more to a social control technique. I would like to extend this concept: I think researchers doing Ritalin are not after doing great science faster, they are just succumbing to adult social control.

The return of the jedi
We must change all of this. The tests and the competitions in science and teaching. That’s not what science is all about!... Can you imagine Socrates taking Ritalin? What would be his motivation? I bet he would drink conium before that.

I am OK with people taking drugs just as long as this don’t influence for the worse the way our society works. It seems to me these drugs might help making society a worse place, justifying more competition and more “focus”. I want the opposite, so I might start being against these drugs after all.

I want to know: does Ritalin help you breaking and proposing new scientific paradigms? And how much of its effect can be traced to just the feeling that it might be working, or a psychological effect instead of an actual cognitive-enhancement? When is anyone going to check out what cognitive characteristics are we really enhancing? Cognition is not something that simple, we can’t just go on using that word as if everybody knew what we are talking about. (It would be interesting to see the details of the effects of Ritalin in different activities…)

At the same time we would do good in thinking better what it means to be a scientist. Newspapers are already publishing that “1/5 of the scientists are working on drugs”, but who said this work they are doing are 100% science, and that science is 100% just that work they are doing?

For example, people always talk about the importance of peer-review, and how peer-review is central to the modern scientific culture. Are reviewers reading other scientists papers on drugs too? Are editors doing drugs? Are teachers taking Ritalin when giving classes, or preparing exams? Is there anyone walking in the libraries, looking for references high on speed? Are scientists taking cognitive enhancing drugs to answer questions in large congresses?

How would Ritalin help Newton to understand gravity better at that famous day under an apple tree?