Ben Sommer

Professor Cassedy

Intro to Sociology

11 November 2017

SOC assignment 7,8

In Episode 5 with David Eagleman, we learn about why we need the brain and much more. David

Eagleman takes us through experiments, history, and facts about our brain and the networks and events

it creates. One of the best takeaways from the episode is the line from Eagleman we have a

fundamentally social nature. He stressed through the episode that we need each other to live and that

without each other we wouldnt be as healthy. For example, the woman who was in solitary

confinement compared herself to a plant after some time in an Iran prison cell. Without human

interaction we cannot be a part of the worlds neural network.

In the blue eyed brown eyed experiment, Jane Elliot, the teacher shows the children how to be

less judgmental of those around them. On day one she tells her students that the blue-eyed students

were better than the brown eyed students. Immediately most students with blue eyes turned on their

brown eyed neighbors. All due to their teacher distorting the image of brown eyed students. The next

day the teacher says she lied and that the brown eyed students were better than the blue-eyed

students. She makes her point about how we shouldnt judge people by eye color nor skin color. In this

example, the powerful in group was the eye color that the teacher had said was better. The out group

was the less important eye color.

Social stratification is a societies way of ranking the people and their subgroups based on class

wealth and power. Different societies can do this differently. The blue and brown eyes experiment
relates to social stratification in a few ways. First, the experiment characterized or ranked the children

by quality or trait. Often around the world we will see people characterized by their religion. When

people are ranked by their religion it leads to terrible things. The quality they were ranked by was eye

color. When Jane Elliot said, blue-eyed people are not as good as brown-eyed it made the blue-eyed

children the down group. When people are in a down group they can feel dehumanized, and this

dehumanized feeling results in powerlessness. Powerlessness brings you to the bottom of stratified

groups. Another point that relates to stratification is the truths of the world comment by David

Eagleman. Eagleman made a point that truths of the world can be fixed and false. When people listen to

the truths of the world without making their own opinion they can generalize others putting them in

ranks or classes that are harmful. The person of power, Jane Elliot, influenced her students to think

differently of others. The power was delegated by trait of eye color, ultimately dividing the classroom

into groups of more and less power.

During the episode one of the experiments carried out by Eagleman was testing the empathy of

in and out groups. The procedure was to show 130 people videos of hands being stabbed with needles.

The people shown the video had their brain waves and patterns monitored in the areas that show pain.

The hands stabbed were then labeled by religion so that the patients could mirror the pain differently

for each hand. For the hand that was the in-group people had shown more empathy. Even people who

were atheist had shown more empathy to the hand that was atheist. The atheists empathy proves that

it wasnt really about religion, more about what group you associate with, or the in-group. For every

in-group you are in there is an out-group. The brains patterns had implied that pain was felt more for

the in-group than the out.

My overall takeaway from this episode is vast. I learned many things but also re-touched on

topics I had already learned. In the episode it is said that political agenda manipulates the brain. The sad

truth is that certain religions are put in the down group and people of power can then spread
discrimination and propaganda against them. This propaganda is what leads to genocide. I was also sad

to see that the typical human has less empathy for the homeless. Things I was happy to see and learn

about were that humans are born with social ability as shown in the duck and bear experiment. And

lastly, I was happy to see John Edgar Robison was helped in 2008 by the Harvard scientists who

conducted TMS on Johns dorsal lateral pre-frontal cortex; allowing his brain to read facial signals.