"If you're under 25 your brain isn't fully developed, so you can't be trusted to make informed decisions"
I'm seeing this a LOT lately, especially today with the Cass Review fallout. And it's utter guff, based on hearsay, misunderstandings of neuroscience, or wilful ignorance.
Why? I'll tell you why
/1
Firstly, the whole 'your brain stops developing at age 25' thing is spurious anyway. The original studies that came up with this figure, they just didn't include any subjects over 25. So that's when the data... stopped.
But that doesn't really mean anything.
/2
Saying 'the brain stops developing at age 25' because you didn't study anyone older is like saying "Olympic sprinters are only capable of running for 100m".
I mean, they *clearly* can go for longer. That's just when the race ends. It's not the same thing.
/3
But the 'Your brain stops developing at 25' thing is one of those mainstream claims that's out there now, like 'we only use 10% of our brain'.
I'm guilty of it, I accepted it as established fact many times. Some people on here steered me right, so I'm not pointing fingers
/4
In truth, your brain likely never stops 'developing'. We're learning things, updating our neural connections and networks, for as long as we live. If we didn't, we'd just be frozen in place. A non-developing brain is basically static. Which means, dead.
/5
But even if we did accept that the brain is 'done' at age 25, what we're actually saying is it's finished *maturing*. But that doesn't in any way mean that it's underpowered or non-functioning before then. Far from it.
/6
E.g. your lungs are still developing/growing, until your early twenties. But last I checked, everyone under 20 is still capable of breathing just fine. Better than most people, if anything
Because 'not fully mature' is in no way the same thing as 'doesn't work properly'.
/7
There seems to be this idea that an 'underdeveloped' brain is like a half-built house: not fit for purpose until completed
In reality, it's more like evolution. Every step on the evolutionary ladder is a fully functioning species, they just change over time
/8
Teens in particular get a lot of stick for this. Their rebelliousness, they're highly-emotional nature, it's seen as proof they have something 'wrong' with their brains, because they're immature
The opposite is true. Their brains are doing exactly what they evolved to do
/9
The risk-taking, emotive, exploratory, parent-rejecting tendencies of adolescents are seen in many social species, not just human. Unless it's the mother and father of all wild coincidences, this shows that teen brains are *meant* to do what they do.
/10
Why? Well, if you're a species who likes familiarity and safety, you're at risk of stagnation. But if certain members of your population, particularly ones in their physical prime, tend to reject the norms and wander off to try new things, that'll stave off stagnation
/11
[And yes, I *have* covered this in more depth in my books. Two of them actually]
/12
But basically, it's very much not evidence based to look at under-25s and say 'Your brain isn't fully developed', when they're brains are working exactly as nature intended, in so many ways.
And they're absolutely capable of thinking things through, making decisions etc.
/13
But even so, let's say it *were* true that under-25s have 'underdeveloped' brains, and thus can't be trusted to make decisions or hold views on important things.
This calls into doubt a huge number of things that are normal in our society
/14
We make teenaged school students choose GCSEs and A-Levels that will likely DETERMINE THE COURSE OF THEIR ENTIRE LIFE. If their brains are underdeveloped, how is this allowed? They need at least another decade before they can be allowed to make these decisions.
/15
If under-25s are too neurologically underdeveloped to make decisions that affect their body and wellbeing, then that rules out all career athletes under that age. You can't possibly let a 18 year old take up a sport that comes with significant concussion risk, surely?
/16
Also, let's follow the logic to its conclusion
If having a brain functioning at its peak is a requirement of making important decisions, then it's probably more important to have a *maximum* age limit than a minimum. Because the older you are, the more your brain wears out
/17
Thanks to basic entropy, if you're at retirement age, your brain will likely be losing fluid intelligence, the ability to reason, solve problems etc.
Can you trust such people to make important decisions? If you insist and a peak-performance brain, then technically no
/18
That's not my stance, in the slightest. But if you're going to make rigid rules that insist on individual's brains having the capability of a 'fully developed' one, then you can't ignore the fact that this development can be 'reversed' due to the consequences of age.
/19
In any case, if we're going to insist on adulthood being determined by this sort of biological absolutism, then in the biological sense, an 'adult' organism is one that is capable of reproducing. So, humans are adults as soon as puberty its. I.e. 11-12 years old.
/20
No, I don't think any rational person in modern society would consider an 11yo an adult. There are countless other factors to consider
But that's tacit acknowledgement of the fact that hard biological boundaries as a decider of human development are a bad idea
[Hint hint]
/21
Point is, it honestly doesn't matter what issue it's being applied to, the whole 'Those under 25 have underdeveloped brains' argument doesn't hold up any way you slice it.
It's often just an easy way of dismissing the valid perspective of younger people. Which isn't good.
/end
If you'd like to know more about how we deal with emotions and how they affect our thinking at all stages of life, my latest book is about exactly that
Am I exploiting a popular thread to sell books? Yes
Do my kids still need to eat? Also yes
@Garwboy paediatric palliative kids are amazing to talk to. They have very little emotional baggage, and it's the parents that want more treatment, and are unwilling to accept the kid is dying. The kid tends to be aware and accepting.
In those cases you could argue that the child is more mature.
Thus a rhetorical question would be do you need emotional baggage to be considered mature?
Dean Burnett (that brains guy)
A