Where did the idea that we “only use 10% of our brains” originate? Eistein? or a Dale Carneigie huckster?
me lose brain?
Welcome to the boards. The Master has addressed this issue partially: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_028.html
No one really knows the full answer as to how this became such a widespread urban legend.
The myth is absurd on the face of it. Consider that 25% of the resting metabolism is used to run the brain. A lot of evolutionary history was driven by the need for fuel and it is inconceivable that 90% of it was useless. At least of my brain, I’m not sure about yours. 
Where did the idea originate? I can’t offer documentation, only some speculation, MAYBE, just maybe…
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A layman once heard a doctor proclaim,
At any given moment, only X% of your brain is active," and misinterpreted that as meaning “We only use X% of our brains.” -
A long time ago, in the early days of medicine, before neurology was an advanced science, a layman heard a doctor say, “We’ve mapped out clearly the purpose and function of X% of the brain. The rest of it remains, as yet, a mystery to us.” The layman misinterpreted that as meaning, “X% of my brain is used, and the rest doesn’t do anything.”
In itself, this misperception wouldn’t be harmful. The problem is, there are too many people ready to believe that the portions of the brain NOT in use can be harnessed and channeled into… oh, you name it, ESP, telekinesis, whatever.
Is there any portion of our brain we don’t use/don’t know what it does? I mean a reasonably large piece, not some cell in the middle of our brain stem :p.
i think people confuse the somatic and non-somatic functions of the brain…anything that’s non-somatic all of a sudden becomes “useless”…
Not the mention the fact that you never hear anyone say “She got shot in the head, but it’s okay, the bullet only damaged the part of her brain that doesn’t do anything.”
I heard something several years back about a girl who, due to a birth defect, was born with only 5 or 10% of her brain, yet was of at least average intelligence. Anybody else remember this?
That sounds very implausible to me.
It sounded pretty implausible to me too, but there it was. This kid supposedly only a small portion of his or her cerebrum clinging to the inside of the skull, and the rest was fluid. By any conventional reckoning a person like that should be profoundly retarded, if not dead. This wasn’t a FOAF story, I actually read this in some article. I just hope it wasn’t in the Onion.
If anyone can find more info on this and prove me sane I would be most appreciative.
pravnik: I couldn’t find the particular case you refer to.
However, if you search “porencephaly” + “intelligence”, it seems that normal intelligence is certainly possible. It depends on how much is missing and where.
I think this is what I remember: hydrocephallis. It appears there’s some disagreement on whether the brain in question is really missing, or if a fully formed brain is merely compressed (sometimes to 1 cm!) in the cranium by fluid.
Or, hydrocephallus.
Erp. Make that hydrocephalus.
One L. < turns bright red >
That happens about L% of the time when doctors use Roman Numerals.
This miscontrued myth probably originates from the statistic that conscious awareness only uses 10% of the brain’s “resources”.
Oh, and hello everybody. I’m new here.
There have been cases of people with significant brain loss through accidents who see to have most of their faculties afterwards. I remember seeing a photo of a man who was in a bomber in WWII when a piece of steel was rammed through his head from an explosion. They flew back and landed with this guy holding this giant chunk of steel driven through his skull. He lost something like 25% of his brain matter. As I recall, he seemed to have the same amount of intelligence afterwards, but was prone to fits of violent rage or something.
I heard this myth arose from this misquote from years back:
“We only know what 10% of the brain does”.