Why do I keep posting about other people's posts that are easier to locate than mine? Isn't that sort of backward? I may be overdue for writing something of my own. However, it won't be this one.
The point here is to get an idea down quickly.
What is the idea though? That's the problem.

I'm thinking about symbols (in general, not any particular one) and mentalism: how the old view of psychoanalysis seems really obsolete today but still relevant. That the criticism of neuroscience (felt to be sticking "neuro-" in front of some other class of obvious generalization, e.g. "neuromanagement bullshit") is off base but understandable because the narrative attempts to explain things in layman's terms, never getting to the actual "neuro" part. Ah, the consequences of presuming stupid people are stupid. Actually a consequence of thinking it necessary to dumb down one's writing.

The "neuro-obviousness" problem is symptomatic of another "shadow" feature of science, which does stem from the presumption that one's audience is stupid. Science, both the body of knowledge and the social network of scientists and their hangers-on, suffer greatly from their past practice of ignoring the "message" side of what they do, and this is even more dangerous than the political left ignoring "framing" as Lakoff accuses. This may be changing as "Bush-era science", that is PR in a scientistic frame threatens to displace real science in forming policy. Who would want to use science to develop policy anyway? It's incomprehensible for non-scientists. Ironically, the one exception is the neuro-obvious study of the simple things the brain does and our ability to quantify them. Unfortunately, this field is not immune to rhetorical pollution.

Hopefully I'll have time to rework this. Not now though.