Neurobullsh*t: Why Nearly Everything You Know About Your Brain Is Wrong

Are clowns good for children’s mental health? Is it possible to record dreams and play them back? Do women like pudding more than men do? These questions are justa sampling of what neuroscientist Joseph Devlin has been asked to prove throughout his career, illustrating both our enduring fascination with the brain’s capacity and quirks, and the wealth of misinformation presented as fact.  

In today’s world of self-optimization, every day a seductive new brain claim is billed as the fix to all of our problems: tapping into our “chimp brain” can complement our leadership style, dopamine explains every impulse, and spending 10,000 hours performing a task will make you a world-leading practitioner. But, as Devlin outlines in his book, more often than not, these claims are nothing more than “neurobullsh*t”: oversimplified, misinformed, or completely invented. 

Neurobullsh*t busts the growing wave of brain myths that masquerade as science—ideas like left vs. right brain, “learning styles,” Myers Briggs types, or the “lizard brain”—tracing their origins and persistence. Building on his popular LinkedIn series, Neurobollocks, Devlin presents the science that refutes these nonsensical neuro claims, revealing instead what science has proven about our brains, emotions, decision making, and identities, while arming readers with the tools to see through neurobullsh*t.