We can't find evidence that holds up here. Proponents are reasoning from mechanism or analogy rather than direct human data, and the most credible skeptics raise objections we can't dismiss.
And the reason I don't like that phrase is that the brain has many different circuits that it uses in order to perform things like focus or task switching or creativity. So the idea that there's a single thing that we would call a smart drug is simply not in concert with the biology.
Every Sunday: the week’s new conflicts and verdict changes — and nothing else.
Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
Now, nootropics is a word that I don't like. I don't like it because it means smart drugs and as a neuroscientist we know that we have brain circuits for focus, brain circuits that enable creativity, brain circuits that allow task switching and on and on. So there's really no such thing as a brain circuit for being smart.