"There's a Genome Recipe for Brains" Is As False as "Brains Make Minds"

 About 1950 the DNA molecule was discovered inside chromosomes,  scientists began making an untrue claim about DNA, the claim that it specified how to make an organism. There were various ways in which this false idea was stated, all equally false:

• Many described DNA or the genome as a blueprint for an organism.
• Many said DNA or the genome is a recipe for making an organism.
• Many said DNA or the genome is a program for building an organism, making an analogy to a computer program.
• Many claimed that DNA or genomes specify the anatomy of an organism. 
• Many claimed that genotypes (the DNA in organisms) specify phenotypes (the observable characteristics of an organism).
• Many claimed that genotypes (the DNA in organisms) "map"  phenotypes (the observable characteristics of an organism) or "map to" phenotypes.
• Many claimed that DNA contains "all the instructions needed to make an organism."
• Many claimed that there is a "genetic architecture" for an organism's body or some fraction of that body. 
• Many claimed that DNA or its genes "guide," "direct" or "control" the nine-month process by which a zygote progresses to become a full-sized human baby. 
• Using a little equation,  many claimed that a "genotype plus the environment equals the phenotype," a formulation as false  as the preceding statements, since we know of nothing in the environment that would cause phenotypes to arise from genotypes that do not specify such phenotypes. 

There was never any justification for making any such claims. The only coding system that has ever been discovered in DNA is a system allowing only low-level chemical information to be specified.  That coding system is known as the genetic code, and it is merely a system whereby certain combinations of nucleotides in DNA stand for amino acids.  So a section of DNA can specify the amino acids that make up a protein molecule. But no one has ever discovered any coding system by which DNA could specify anything larger than a protein molecule. Below is the genetic code, the only coding system ever discovered in DNA or its genes. The chemicals listed on the outer ring are types of amino acids. The A, T, C and G are types of nucleotides in a gene ( adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine).

The genetic code

A billion-dollar project was executed in the 1990's to completely map the human genome. Geneticists kept telling us that the project would reveal in DNA and its genes instructions for how to build a body. The project was completed around 2001. No instructions for building a body or any of its organs or cells or any of the organelle components of cells was ever found in DNA. 

Did our scientists then "fess up" and confess how they had been misleading us? Some of them started to tell the truth, but very many of them just stuck to their old lies about DNA being a body specification.  See the appendix of this post for a long list of scientists and doctors who told us the truth on this matter -- that DNA is not any kind of blueprint or recipe or program for making a human body. 

We see here a shocking case of a major group of scientists simply refusing to accept what nature was telling them -- that a human body does not arise from a reading of a specification in DNA or its genes telling how to build a human body. 

The latest example of a scientist continuing to teach the same old groundless falsehoods about DNA and its genes is the article "The genome offers a recipe, not a blueprint, for the brain" by neuroscientist Ila Fiete. Fiete tries to advance the old "recipe" version of the false claim that DNA is a specification for making a human body. 

When such a claim is made, a person will talk about "ingredients" being added. Whenever a person talks that way, he will sound like a biology ignoramus. Ingredients are simple things. The organs in human bodies are not built from simple things, but enormously organized components, components way, way too organized to be sensibly described as "ingredients."  Organ systems are built from organs and other very complex components; organs are built from tissues; tissues are built from cells so organized they are often compared to cities or factories; cells are built from many thousands of very complex and well-arranged organelles of many types; organelles are built from thousands of types of proteins and also protein complexes so complex they are often called "molecular machines"; protein complexes are built from very many types of protein molecules that each require special arrangements of hundreds or thousands of amino acids. None of these layers of organization larger than a protein molecule is specified by DNA or its genes. 

The diagram below specifies levels of organization in the human body. The black bar tells some of these levels that are not specified by a genome, not specified by DNA or its genes. 

Fiete makes this "starts out fairly true, but ends up false" statement: "Genes specify ingredients and a short list of directions, outlining which things to combine, in what quantity and when." No, genes do not specify "which things to combine, in what quantity and when," if you are talking about any level of complexity higher than a protein molecule. DNA and its genes (the genome) do not have any information about any "when." Fiete follow this statement with a true sentence and a groundless hand-waving sentence not matching anything that scientists have discovered. Referring to genes, she says:

"They don’t specify the border between the secondary visual cortex and its neighbor, or the wiring between each pair of neurons, or the precise size of the cortical sheet in each individual’s brain. Instead, these quantities emerge through the playing out of simpler processes that can lead to the self-organization of complex structures."

The reference to emergence and self-organization is just empty hand-waving. When scientists lack any explanation for how something in the body arises, they may refer to "emergence" or "self-organization," and when we hear such terms we should always be regarding such terms as indications that the person speaking has no substantial explanation. 

Fiete refers to "developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert’s 'French flag' model, in which a molecular gradient specifies locations in a tissue, activating downstream genes at specific concentration thresholds to determine what structure forms there."  There was never any good evidence to support this claim, and late in his career Wolpert confessed the lack of good evidence for it.  In 2015 he was asked this: "Where do you think the French Flag model fits with our current understanding of positional information, and what do you think are the exciting questions at the moment?" He answered this:

"There are problems we haven’t solved. It is terrible, but we still don’t have a molecular basis for it. If I still had an active lab, finding the molecular basis for positional information would be my objective, but would be quite tricky, since I’m not a biochemist or molecular biologist. There is one case of a molecule that might encode positional information, Prod 1, which is graded along the amphibian limb and was discovered by Jeremy Brockes. But it would be nice to find similar molecules in other systems."

This was the most damning confession. By saying "we still don't have a molecular basis for it," Lewis Wolpert pretty much confessed here that the "positional information" claim that he had encouraged innumerable times in his career was basically baloney or BS. He confessed that there was merely "one case of a molecule that might encode positional information," in one type of organism, making it sound like there was no general basis for thinking that molecules specify the positions that cells should go to.  The claim associated with Wolpert that "morphogen gradients" tell cells where to go is debunked in my post here. 

Trying to create an impression or suspicion in the reader's mind that genes specify the position of cells, Fiete states, "Thomas Gregor and his colleagues report that multiple gap genes together specify a cell’s position through lateral interactions better than a single gradient without interactions." The claim is untrue, and genes do not and cannot possibly specify the position of any cell. In the study referred to, a mere claim was made that "expression levels of the four gap genes can be jointly decoded into an optimal specification of position with 1% accuracy." The expression level of a gene is how often the gene is used at particular times and places, and is something very different from what information is inside a gene and what a gene specifies. Gene expression levels are something figured out by scientists using high-tech equipment. A gene does not have any information on its expression level, just as a word does not have any information on how often it is used or quoted. 

What was going on in the paper was something similar to analyzing how often a word is used in a book, to predict which paragraph or chapter in a book the word was found. Just as doing such analysis does nothing to show that a word specifies the structure of a paragraph, analyzing gene expression levels and correlating them with some cell positions does nothing to show that genes specify the positions of cells.  The paper authors confess that their analysis "contrasts with the traditional interpretation of the gap genes as forming 'expression domains' that are either on or off," sounding like they were doing some contrarian analysis conflicting with previous studies.  Their claims involve one brief stage in the development of only one species, a type of fly. No one has ever shown that in general genes specify the positions of cells in species. 

Below is a Google Gemini infographic explaining gene expression. We see how a small section of a gene (containing different combinations of the nucleotide chemicals adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine) specify a particular section of a protein (consisting of some amino acids).  There is no coding system by which any combinations of these chemicals in a gene (adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine) can represent anything other than an amino acid or a "stop" signal meaning the end of an amino acid sequence. Genes only specify low-level chemical things, not higher-level biology things such as how to build a cell or any of the organelles that make up a cell, or where to place a cell or where to place any of the proteins in a cell. 

In the following quote Fiete gives us a hint that the "genome as brain recipe" in her title is not actually true. She states this: "My colleague P. Robin Hiesinger notes that even the cake analogy may give genes too much credit; typical recipes specify ingredients, as well as the order and duration of steps, but in development, these can themselves be emergent, as seen in the assembly of the sorting plate that guides fly eye neurons into the brain." Genes do not specify where and when their corresponding proteins should be used. 

Brains are made mainly of neurons, and genes do not specify how to make any neuron or any of the organelles from which neurons are constructed. So the genome is not a recipe for building a brain, and is not a recipe of the neurons or synapses or axons that make up a brain. 

After saying nothing of any substance to back up her claim that the genome is a recipe for building brains, and nothing of any substance to back up her hand-waving claims of "self-organization," Fiete has a paragraph lecturing us about the type of scientists we need. On that topic I say: what we need are neuroscientists who do not tell us old wives' tales about DNA and genes, scientists who talk straight to us about the physical limitations of genomes and the physical limitations of brains. Straight talk about the physical limitations of genomes and their contents leads to the conclusion that genes cannot be any program, blueprint or recipe for constructing a human body or any of its organs or cells. Straight talk about the physical limitations of brains and their contents leads to the conclusion that brains cannot be the source of human minds and cannot be any storage place of human memories. The two conclusions are mutually reinforcing.  If (partially because of the vast levels of hierarchical organization in human bodies) we cannot credibly explain the physical origin of any adult human body (and we certainly cannot), then it is all the more plausible that we lack any physical explanation for the origin of any human mind and lack any physical explanation for the wonders of human memory. 

What does a gene specify? A particular gene merely half-specifies the structure of a protein molecule. A gene merely specifies which amino acids make up a protein molecule, but that is merely a half-specification, because such a sequence of amino acids does not constitute the three-dimensional shape of a protein molecule. Protein molecules have a vast variety of extremely complex folded three-dimensional shapes, and no one has ever credibly explained how such shapes could be specified by a mere sequence of amino acids. The problem of how such 3D shapes arise is the still-unsolved problem called the protein folding problem. A related problem is the problem of how incredibly complex cells and anatomy can arise without there being any bodily specification for them. I call that the missing specifications problem, and explain it here. 

Appendix; Since the false claim that DNA is a blueprint or program or recipe for building bodies continues to be told, I will need to cite again a list I have compiled of distinguished scientists and other PhD's or MD's who have told us such an idea is untrue. Below is the list (I will boldface underline the references to recipes):

1. On page 26 of the recent book The Developing Genome, Professor David S. Moore states, "The common belief that there are things inside of us that constitute a set of instructions for building bodies and minds -- things that are analogous to 'blueprints' or 'recipes' -- is undoubtedly false."
2. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake says this "DNA only codes for the materials from which the body is constructed: the enzymes, the structural proteins, and so forth," and "There is no evidence that it also codes for the plan, the form, the morphology of the body."
3. Describing conclusions of biologist Brian Goodwin, the New York Times says, "While genes may help produce the proteins that make the skeleton or the glue, they do not determine the shape and form of an embryo or an organism." 
4. Professor Massimo Pigliucci (mainstream author of numerous scientific papers on evolution) has stated  that "old-fashioned metaphors like genetic blueprint and genetic programme are not only woefully inadequate but positively misleading." Regarding the "DNA as body recipe" claim he has stated this: "The expression of specific genes in the course of development resembles nothing like the way a cook handles the ingredients of a recipe. Living organisms are also highly differentiated in a number of functional parts or components (cell types, tissues, etc.), in contrast with the homogenous cake that comes out of the oven. Moreover, the genome is not written in anything like a 'language,' as in the case of a recipe, and it certainly does not contain a description of the desired end product in any meaningful sense of the word 'description.’ "
5. Neuroscientist Romain Brette states, "The genome does not encode much except for amino acids."
6. In a 2016 scientific paper, three scientists state the following: "It is now clear that the genome does not directly program the organism; the computer program metaphor has misled us...The genome does not function as a master plan or computer program for controlling the organism; the genome is the organism's servant, not its master.
7. In the book Mind in Life by Evan Thompson (published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press) we read the following on page 180: "The plain truth is that DNA is not a program for building organisms, as several authors have shown in detail (Keller 2000, Lewontin 1993, Moss 2003)."
8. Developmental biologist C/H. Waddington stated, "The DNA is not a program or sequentially accessed control over the behavior of the cell."
9.  Scientists Walker and Davies state this in a scientific paper: "DNA is not a blueprint for an organism; no information is actively processed by DNA alone...DNA is a passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA, some (but by no means all) of which goes on to be translated into proteins."
10. Geneticist Adam Rutherford states that "DNA is not a blueprint," a statement also made by biochemistry professor Keith Fox. 
11. "The genome is not a blueprint," says Kevin Mitchell, a geneticist and neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin, noting "it doesn't encode some specific outcome."
12. "DNA cannot be seen as the 'blueprint' for life," says Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, who says, "It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times."  
13. Sergio Pistoi (a science writer with a PhD in molecular biology) tells us, "DNA is not a blueprint," and tells us, "We do not inherit specific instructions on how to build a cell or an organ." 
14. Michael Levin (director of a large biology research lab) states that "genomes are not a blueprint for anatomy," and after referring to a "deep puzzle" of how biological forms arise, he gives this example: "Scientists really don’t know what determines the intricate shape and structure of the flatworm’s head."
15. Ian Stevenson M.D. stated "Genes alone - which provide instructions for the production of amino acids and proteins -- cannot explain how the proteins produced by their instructions come to have the shape they develop and, ultimately, determine the form of the organisms where they are," and noted that "biologists who have drawn attention to this important gap in our knowledge of form have not been a grouping of mediocrities (Denton, 1986; Goldschmidt, 1952; B. C. Goodwin, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1994; Gottlieb, 1992; Grasse, 1973; E. S. Russell...Sheldrake, 1981; Tauber and Sarkar, 1992; Thompson, 1917/1942)."
16. Biologist B.C. Goodwin stated this in 1989: "Since genes make molecules, genetics...does not tell us how the molecules are organized into the dynamic, organized process that is the living organism."
17. An article in the journal Nature states this: "The manner in which bodies and tissues take form remains 'one of the most important, and still poorly understood, questions of our time', says developmental biologist Amy Shyer, who studies morphogenesis at the Rockefeller University in New York City."
18. Timothy Saunders, a developmental biologist at the National University of Singapore says, "Fundamentally, we have a poor understanding of how any internal organ forms.”
19. On the web site of the well-known biologist Denis Noble, we read that "the whole idea that genes contain the recipe or the program of life is absurd, according to Noble," and that we should understand DNA "not so much as a recipe or a program, but rather as a database that is used by the tissues and organs in order to make the proteins which they need."
20. A paper by Stuart A. Newman (a professor of cell biology and anatomy) discussing at length the work of scientists trying to evoke "self-organization" as an explanation for morphogenesis states that "public lectures by principals of the field contain confidently asserted, but similarly oversimplified or misleading treatments," and says that "these analogies...give the false impression that there has been more progress in understanding embryonic development than there truly has been." Referring to scientists moving from one bunk explanation of morphogenesis to another bunk explanation, the paper concludes by stating, "It would be unfortunate if we find ourselves having emerged from a period of misconceived genetic program metaphors only to land in a brave new world captivated by equally misguided ones about self-organization."
21. Referring to claims there is a program for building organisms in DNA, biochemist F. M. Harold stated "reflection on the findings with morphologically aberrant mutants suggests that the metaphor of a genetic program is misleading." Referring to  self-organization (a vague phrase sometimes used to try to explain morphogenesis), he says, "self-organization remains nearly as mysterious as it was a century ago, a subject in search of a paradigm." 
22. Writing in the leading journal Cell, biologists  Marc Kirschner, John Gerhart and Tim Mitchison stated, "The genotype, however deeply we analyze it, cannot be predictive of the actual phenotype, but can only provide knowledge of the universe of possible phenotypes." That's equivalent to saying that DNA does not specify visible biological structures, but merely limits what structures an organism can have (just as a building parts list merely limits what structures can be made from the set of parts). 
23. At the Stack Exchange expert answers site, someone posted a question asking which parts of a genome specify how to make a cell (he wanted to write a program that would sketch out a cell based on DNA inputs).  An unidentified expert stated that it is "not correct" that DNA is a blueprint that describes an organism, and that "DNA is not a blueprint because DNA does not have instructions for how to build a cell." No one contradicted this expert's claim, even though the site allows any of its experts to reply. 
24. A paper co-authored by a chemistry professor (Jesper Hoffmeyer) tells us this: "Ontogenetic 'information,' whether about the structure of the organism or about its behavior, does not exist as such in the genes or in the environment, but is constructed in a given developmental context, as critically emphasized, for example, by Lewotin (1982) and Oyama (1985)."
25. Biologist Steven Rose has stated, "DNA is not a blueprint, and the four dimensions of life (three of space, one of time) cannot be read off from its one-dimensional strand."
26. Jonathan Latham has a master's degree in Crop Genetics and a PhD in virology. In his essay “Genetics Is Giving Way to a New Science of Life,” a long essay well worth a read, Latham exposes many of the myths about DNA. Referring to "the mythologizing of DNA," he says that "DNA is not a master controller," and asks, "How is it that, if organisms are the principal objects of biological study, and the standard explanation of their origin and operation is so scientifically weak that it has to award DNA imaginary superpowers of 'expression'” and 'control' to paper over the cracks, have scientists nevertheless clung to it?"
27. An interesting 2006 paper by six medical authorities and scientists tells us that "biochemistry cannot provide the spatial information needed to explain morphogenesis," that "supracellular morphogenesis is mysterious," and that "nobody seems to understand the origin of biological and cellular order," contrary to claims that such order arises from a reading of a specification in DNA. 
28. Keith Baverstock (with a PhD in chemical kinetics) has stated "genes are like the merchants that provide the necessary materials to build a house: they are neither the architect, nor the builder but, without them, the house cannot be built," and that "genes are neither the formal cause (the blueprint), nor the efficient cause (the builder) of the cell, nor of the organism."
29. Evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin stated, "DNA is not self-reproducing; second, it makes nothing; and third, organisms are not determined by it." Noting that "the more accurate description of the role of DNA is that it bears information that is read by the cell machinery," Lewontin lamented the "evangelical enthusiasm" of those who "fetishized DNA" and misspoke so that "DNA as information bearer is transmogrified into DNA as blueprint, as plan, as master plan, as master molecule." In another work he stated "the information in DNA sequences is insufficient to specify even a folded protein, not to speak of an entire organism." This was correct: DNA does not even specify the 3D shapes of proteins, but merely their sequence of amino acids. 
30. In 2022 developmental biologist Claudio D. Stern first noted,  "All cells in an organism have the same genetic information yet they generate often huge complexity as they diversify in the appropriate locations at the correct time and generate form and pattern as well as an array of identities, dynamic behaviours and functions." In his next sentence he stated, "The key quest is to find the 'computer program' that contains the instructions to build an organism, and the mechanisms responsible for its evolution over longer periods." Since this was written long after the Human Genome Project had been completed, he thereby suggested that no such instruction program had yet been discovered in the genome (DNA). 
31. Referring to developmental biologist Alfonso Martínez Arias, a 2024 article says, "Martínez Arias, 68, argues that the DNA sequence of an individual is not an instruction manual or a construction plan for their body...The Madrid-born biologist argues that there is nothing in the DNA molecule that explains why the heart is located on the left, why there are five fingers on the hand or why twin brothers have different fingerprints." In the article here, Arias says, "DNA cannot send orders to cells to move right or left within your body or to place the heart and the liver on opposite sides of your thorax. DNA cannot measure the length of your arms or instruct the placement of your eyes symmetrically across the midline of your face. We know this because each and every cell of an organism generally has the same DNA in it, with the same monotonous structure....The genome is not actually a blueprint for an organism or its architect."
32. Two scientists said this: "We see no valid use for definitions of the genotype and phenotype in terms of blueprints, programs, or sets of instructions, and their realizations or manifestation....The program/manifestation metaphor is factually misleading, because it suggests that the genotype uniquely determines an organism’s phenotype. However, as is well known, all it does is specify an organism’s norm of reaction to environmental conditions (Rieger et al., 1991,Lewontin, 1992)."
33. A 2022 paper in the journal Science (one authored by more than ten scientists) says this: "Although the genome is often called the blueprint of an organism, it is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a parts list composed of the various genes that may or may not be used in the different cell types of a multicellular organism....The genome in and of itself does not provide an understanding of the molecular complexity of the various cell types of that organism."
34. A Duke University biologist and a Cornell University biologist have confessed this: " No information about the overall architecture of these body parts is present in the cells and tissues of the parts themselves, or in each organism’s genes."  
35. Physics PhD Eric Heden states, "The molecular coding within DNA, rich and vast as it is, falls impossibly short of being able to supply the informational guidance needed to supervise the development and moment-by-moment cellular activities of living organisms."
36. In their book "The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma" (page 148)  biologists  Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart state, "DNA provides no instruction on where to place the proteins in the cell. There is no genetic information for large-scale cellular organization." 
37. In his PhD thesis "Using Genetic Algorithms to Evolve Microstructures," David Basanta states, "Cells contain their genetic material in long strings of DNA located in several places inside the cell but mainly in the nucleus. This DNA does not specify the features of the cell or the multicellular organism in which the cell is a constituent part." 
38. Anthropologist Ann Horsburgh states, "The metaphor of genes as blueprints is powerfully seductive but wholly inaccurate. Genes do not specify organismal morphology or behavior."
39. Werner A. Müller (chairman of the Department of Physiology at the University of Heidelberg)   on page 2 of his textbook on developmental biology states this: "It is commonly stated that the genome incorporates a Bauplan, an architectural plan or blueprint of the body. Actually, this is not the case; the genome is not a sketch or design of the finished body. The information capacity of DNA is simply too low to store blueprints of the very complex final pattern of an organism." On the same page after describing how limited is the information in DNA (the genome), he notes that "we do not yet understand in detail how a developing organism is created on the basis of such minimal information."
40. Physician James Le Fanu has stated,  "There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to account for why a fly should have two wings, four legs and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs and a mind capable of understanding the origins of the universe." 
41. In a scientific paper on heritability entitled "The Heritability Fallacy," David S. Moore (holder of a mathematics PhD from Cornell University) has stated this:" Our DNA, we now know, does not contain specific blueprint-like instructions about traits; rather, DNA segments merely contribute to the production of different kinds of RNA molecules. These RNA molecules can, in turn, regulate other DNA segments, or contribute to the production of proteins that are constituent parts of cells, cells that are assembled into systems that manifest identifiable traits." Later in the same paper he refers to "the demonstrably false notion that genes have some direct and isolated influence on traits."
42. In a 2024 scientific paper two scientists confessed that "morphogenesis does not have a hardwired blueprint, it is not a linear readout of genetic information." Later they said, "The complex morphological patterns of organs emerge during development and cannot be deduced from its cellular and molecular constituents." As an alternative to "DNA as blueprint" myths, they offered this very vacuous-sounding explanation: "Instead, cells constantly adapt to surrounding cues to buffer against stochastic fluctuations and self-organise into a variety of macroscopic structures." That is a bit of empty hand-waving that fails to explain how there arises anatomy so fine-tuned and functional, and also fails to explain how so many types of enormously organized cells arise.
43. On page 94 of his book "What Genes Can't Do," former cell biologist Lenny Moss stated this: "The standard rationale for speaking of genes in the conflationary style -- as the 'information,' 'blueprint,' 'program,' 'instructions,' and so forth for building an organism -- is that DNA provides the template for synthesizing proteins and that proteins, as enzymes, regulate all of the chemical reactions of the cell. For this rationale to hold up it must be the case that either (1) spatial arrangements of enzymes in the cell are of no great consequence or (2) that spatial arrangement is somehow prefigured and predetermined by the one-dimensional array...in the genes. A principal objective of this chapter is to provide evidence and an argument to the effect that neither of these is the case." In the book's introduction, he stated, "The seemingly prevalent idea that genes constitute information for traits (and blueprints for organisms) is based, I argue, on an unwarranted conflation...held together by rhetorical glue."

My Brain Wave Headband Tests Looked for a Neural Correlate of Recall, But Found None

 The EEG is a device that can detect electrical activity from parts of the brain. When an EEG device is used, electrodes or sensors are placed next to different parts of the skull. The device will pick up a dozen or more different lines that show electrical activity in different parts of the brain. 

The analysis of brain waves obtained by EEG devices is an area of science where bad methods, pareidolia and junk analysis is very abundant.  There have been many people trying to use fancy statistical methods to try to extract identifiable "signals" or "signs" from EEG data that is very noisy and polluted. Muscle movements abundantly contaminate EEG readings. Many experimental studies using EEG readings have been guilty of poor design or Questionable Research Practices, such as failing to exclude unnecessary muscle movements that may contaminate EEG readings, or the use of way-too-small study groups.

When a neurologist asks you to sit for an EEG reading, you will be asked to remain still throughout the reading.  But you will sometimes see experimental studies in which experimenters will unwisely ask people to make muscle movements when EEG readings are taken. For example, a person may be asked to press a button at a particular time during the EEG reading, or to click a particular key on a keyboard. A good study design will avoid mixing EEG readings and muscle movements. 

Studies trying to find EEG correlates of various types of cognitive activity give inconsistent results. For example, the paper here states this about theta waves (one of the five types of brain waves), making it sound like the research results are "all over the map":

 "Contrary to findings from scalp EEG/MEG, almost all intracranial studies of human memory report at least some decreases in theta power  associated with memory success, and many report exclusively decreases in theta power...The intracranial studies we have discussed so far feature prominent theta power decreases, which are at odds with theta increases reported in many scalp EEG studies. There are however, several intracranial studies that show increases in theta power associated with successful encoding  or retrieval."

Another paper tells us this:  "Similarly, encoding-related induced gamma oscillations in the hippocampus,

prefrontal cortex, and left temporal lobe have been

reported to show an increase in amplitude with successful

encoding in humans [65,66] and the hippocampus of nonhuman primates [67], while the reverse relationship has also been reported in the hippocampus and rhinal cortex [4]." Of course, such inconsistent results and variations would be expected if scientists are analyzing different types of brain waves which can randomly vary, without any real relation to some task or some particular place in the brain being checked. Given the relatively low cost of EEG use (compared to much more expensive fMRI scans), and an abundance of neuroscientists looking for experimental work to do, and the freedom of an experimental neuroscientist to check brain waves from any of many brain regions, we might expect that almost any relation between a task and some type of brain wave increase or decrease somewhere in a brain might be found by one experiment or another. 

Prior to a few years ago, experiments involving EEG readings were something that could pretty much only be done by neuroscientists or wealthy citizen scientists, because of the expense of EEG devices and the software used to analyze brain waves. But in recent years the door has been opened for low-cost experimentation involving EEG readings. 

A new wave of inexpensive headband devices have been put on the market, devices capable of reading brain waves. Such devices have been marketed mainly for those interested in activities such as biofeedback and meditation. But the same devices can also be used for low-cost, risk-free neuroscience experiments involving taking brain wave readings, and analyzing them. In some cases, there is a low-cost software infrastructure that allows the data from such devices to be conveniently analyzed. 

I researched the available devices, and found some scientific papers suggesting that at least one of them (the Muse 2 device) was capable of reliably reading brain waves from some areas of the brain. Below is the Muse 2 device that I bought for $249. The device is placed on the forehead, at about the same spot that you might put an exercise sweatband on your head. 

The protocol I used to get the data below is described in the Appendix of this post, where I also describe scientific papers I read about the Muse 2 device, papers that influenced my experimental design.  The Appendix goes into lots of details so that anyone can reproduce my experimental method.  

There were six experiments I performed that I discuss below. The experiments detected five types of brain waves:

1. Delta waves, with a frequency between 0.5 and 4 Hertz. 

2. Theta waves, with a frequency between 4 and 8 Hertz. 

3. Alpha waves with a frequency between 8 and 12 Hertz.

4. Beta waves with a frequency between 12 and 35 Hertz.

5. Gamma waves with a frequency between 35 and 100 Hertz.

Experiment 1, Conducted on October 26, 2026

Here is a short description of what went on when Experiment 1 was performed. 

1. Having read a recommendation to use an alcohol wipe in a particular way to enhance the performance of the Muse 2 headband, I wiped my forehead with one of those little alcohol wipes that come in tiny packets, and also wiped the electrodes of the Muse 2 headbands with such a wipe. 

2. I turned on the Muse 2 headband, and placed it on my forehead, so that its front sensors touched the middle of my forehead. 

2. I went into the Mind Monitor smartphone app described below, and verified that it was well-connected to the Muse 2 headband (the two communicate electronically). 

3. I clicked on a sound recording file of a type described in the Appendix, clicking on the top file in a folder filled with such files. 

4. The sound recording file told me: "Start recording, close eyes, and think of nothing." I clicked on the Record button of the Mind Monitor app. I then pressed the Muse 2 headband against my forehead, closed my eyes, and thought of nothing for the next 30 seconds, while remaining motionless. 

5. After  30 seconds had elapsed in the sound recording, I heard the recording give this instruction: "Recall high school events." I did that silently for the next 60 seconds, while not moving. I not only visualized experiences I had, but also silently thought to myself sentences describing various experiences I had in high school. 

6. After 60 seconds of silence from the recording, while I was silently doing the recall activity described above with my eyes closed, and not moving, I heard the word "Stop." I then pressed the Record button on the Mind Monitor app. When a recording is ongoing, this causes the recording to stop; and you see then on the app screen a prompt allowing you to email the file to any email (below is a screen shot of what appears). I pressed the Gmail button shown below, and then typed in my email address, sending the data file as an attachment in an email. This is very easy; all you have to do is type in your email address.

7. Using the very convenient Mind Monitor chart app at https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php,  I graphed the data from the email I received, an email including all of the brain wave data recorded during the roughly 90 second experimental session. The first 7 seconds from the recorded data was discarded. This was because such data would have been affected by my muscle action in pressing the Record button on the Mind Monitor app and my muscle action in closing my eyes and pressing the Muse 2 headband to my forehead; and it was desired that the analyzed data would only be data collected when I was motionless and with eyes closed. 

Let us look at the experimental results.  Below are the delta wave results and the gamma wave results that I collected:

 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling experiences I had in high school.  We see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. 

Below are the theta wave results and the beta wave results that I collected. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling experiences I had in high school.  We see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. 

Lastly, we have the alpha wave results that I collected:

Again, we see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. The resting period alpha wave results are slightly higher. 

Experiment 2, Conducted on October 26, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 2 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall holiday events" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling holiday events.

Let us look at the experimental results.  Below are the delta wave results and the gamma wave results that I collected:

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling experiences I had during holidays such as Christmas.  We see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. 

Below are the theta wave results and the beta wave results that I collected:

Below are the alpha wave results that I collected:

Again, we see no major difference between the rest period and the recall period. The resting period alpha wave results are slightly higher. 

Experiment 3, Conducted on October 27, 2026, Around Noon

The procedure for Experiment 3 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall words used by biologists" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling words used by biologists.

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves:

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling words used by biologists. We see no significant difference. 

Below are the results for the beta waves and the gamma waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was silently recalling words used by biologists.  We see a slight increase in the gamma rays during the recall period.  An AI overview tells us, "Because gamma waves share the exact same high-frequency electrical spectrum as active muscle tissue (electromyography, or EMG), even minor muscle movements—like blinking, swallowing, shifting your neck, or clenching your jaw—will create massive electrical noise that completely masks the brain's true gamma signals."

Below are the results for the alpha waves:

We see no substantial difference between the rest period and the recall period.

Experiment 4, Conducted on October 28, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 4 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall people you loved seeing" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling people I loved seeing.

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  people I loved seeing. We see no significant difference. 

Below are the results for the alpha waves and the beta waves.

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  people I loved seeing. We see no significant difference. 

Finally there was the result for the gamma waves:

We see no substantial difference between the rest period and the recall period.

Experiment 5, Conducted on October 28, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 5 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall celebrities with words in their names" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling celebrities with words in their names.  For example, I recalled the name of Frank Sinatra (a name including the English word "frank"), and I also recalled the name of Tom Cruise (a name including "cruise," a word in English).  The recall activity was quite verbal, and required an element of thinking in addition to recall. 

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  celebrities with English words in their names. We see no significant difference. 

Below are the results for the alpha waves and the beta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  celebrities with English words in their names. We see no significant difference. 

Finally, we have below the results for the gamma waves.

We see no big difference between the rest period and the recall period. The recall period may have a tiny bit more gamma waves, but the difference looks like a mere random fluctuation. 

Experiment 6, Conducted on October 28, 2026

The procedure for Experiment 6 was exactly the same as the procedure described above for Experiment 1, except that the sound recording file contained the instruction "recall historical figures" rather than the instruction "recall high school events"; and rather than spending 60 seconds recalling high school events, I spent 60 seconds recalling the names of historical figures.  For example, I recalled the names of Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle and Descartes (among quite a few others).

Below are the results for the delta waves and the theta waves. 

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  historical figures. We see no big difference, and these waves are slightly higher in the resting state. 

Below are the results for the alpha waves and the beta waves.

The left third of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was thinking of nothing, motionless. The right two-thirds of of the graph shows what was occurring with these two types of brain waves when I was motionless and silently recalling  historical figures. We see no noticeable difference.

Finally, we have below the results for the gamma waves.

We see no major difference. 

Conclusion

The results displayed above are consistent with the idea that the brain is not the source of recall. Overall, we fail to see any substantial evidence of net greater brain wave activity during the 60 seconds of recall activity in an eyes-closed motionless state, compared to the 30 seconds in which no thinking and no recall occurred in an eyes-closed motionless state, In two of these graphs we see a little more activity during the recall period for one of the wave types; but this is offset in other graphs by less activity during the recall period than during the rest period, so "it's a wash." 

The results I report above are consistent with the findings discussed in my post "The Brains of 60 Subjects Seemed to Look the Same During Eyes Closed Mental Rest, Recall and Math Activity," which describes a scientific paper discussing EEG experiments.  However, my experimental efforts using the Muse 2 were a low-budget "shoestring" affair involving only six quick experiments with a single person. So I cannot claim any great weight in these experiments.  I do think that the protocol used is a good one, as it involves only brain wave readings taken during an eyes-closed motionless state.  And the type of graphs I have presented show a good way to compare whether there is any clear difference between brain waves in a rest state and brain waves in a state of mental activity. 

After several days of testing with the Muse 2 device, I started to get a complete failure of the device to connect to the Mind Monitor app. I now cannot recommend the device to any low-income buyers. 

Appendix

The average reader may want to skip this appendix, which is intended  mainly for those who may be interested in reproducing these experiments. 

Before buying the Muse 2 device, I reviewed several scientific papers discussing whether the device was effective. 

• The 2021 paper "Validating the wearable Muse headset for EEG spectral analysis and Frontal Alpha Asymmetry" stated the following: "We show that the MUSE can be used to examine power spectral density (PSD) in all frequency bands, the individual alpha frequency (IAF; i.e., peak alpha frequency and alpha center of gravity), and frontal alpha asymmetry. Furthermore, we observed satisfying internal consistency reliability in alpha power and asymmetry measures recorded with the MUSE."  The paper had "recommendations for using the Muse device in future clinical and experimental research" that included "eye’s closed recordings of at least 1 minute" and "cleaning the participants’ skin with alcohol wipes and wetting the dry electrodes to reduce impedance."  My experiments described above follow these recommendations. 
• Another scientific paper (the 2024 paper "Comparison of EEG Signal Spectral Characteristics Obtained with Consumer- and Research-Grade Devices") analyzed the Muse 2 device. Referring to the side electrodes of the device that pick up signals from the temporal lobe, the paper claimed that the Muse 2 device "exhibited poor signal quality at the TP9 and TP10 channels (temporal site)" but said "the signal on the frontal electrodes was satisfactory."  My experiments described above took this into consideration, and I have only given data from the frontal electrodes (corresponding to the channels of AF7 and AF8). 
• A 2026 paper in Nature ("A comprehensive evaluation framework for consumer-grade EEG devices: signal quality, robustness, and usability") discussed tests of several EEG headband devices including Muse 2, and said, "The results indicate that all tested devices successfully detected both non-neural physiological artefacts and brain wave signals, with consumer-grade devices displaying comparable alpha rhythm characteristics and noise robustness to the research-grade device." The paper noted "Muse2 exhibited relatively higher sensitivity to movement compared with the other devices." My experiments described above took this into consideration, and my graphs of those experiments show only data gathered when I was entirely motionless. 

A major reason why I selected the Muse 2 device instead of competitors is that I saw a video saying that the Muse 2 device can be used with an app that can generate a data file, and that you can conveniently get an email with the Muse 2 data gathered by that app at a particular time. I paid $15 for the app (called Mind Monitor), and found that it works very well for the type of experimental purposes I had in mind.  The Mind Monitor app is a smartphone app specifically designed to collect data from the Muse 2 headband. The Mind Monitor app includes a convenient Start/Stop button allowing you to manually start recording data from the Muse 2 headset, and then manually stop recording the data. As soon as you have stopped recording data, you will see on your smartphone some options that allow you to send the recorded data to yourself as an email. 

I tried this, and found this all worked very conveniently. What was sent to my email was an email with a comma-separated data file as an attachment. When I opened up the email with the data, and clicked on the attachment sent with the email, I got a screen with an "Open With Google Sheets" button at the top right. Clicking on that button produced a Google Sheets spreadsheet with all of the Muse 2 data appearing well-arranged in columns corresponding to particular EEG channels. Each row had a timestamp in its first column. 

To produce the graphs above, I used File/Download from the Google Sheets spreadsheet, to save the comma-separated file on my hard drive. I then went to the very convenient Mind Monitor chart app at https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php,  Using the Choose File button on that web page, I chose the comma-separated file I had just saved on my hard drive. Once you have done this, it is very easy to chart the data on the comma-separated file created by the Mind Monitor smartphone app.  You can choose which type of brain waves you wish to chart, and which of the six Muse 2 channels you wish to use. Having heard from one of the scientific papers above that the two frontal channels (AF7 and AF8) are the most reliable, I graphed only those channels. 

After buying the Muse 2 device, I designed an experimental protocol for the purpose of trying to test whether brain waves differ between a state of mental rest, and various states of mental activity.  I decided the experiments would involve reading of brain waves while I was motionless, silent, and with eyes closed. Each experimental run would involve 30 seconds of eyes-closed mental rest involving no thinking, seeing, moving or recalling, followed by 60 seconds of strong mental activity involving some particular task (occurring in a motionless, eyes-closed state). 

To help use this experimental protocol, I created a list of dozens of short prompts, each of which would involve some instruction such as "Recall names of historical figures" or "keep subtracting 7 from 200" or "imagine a trip to a foreign country." For each of the prompts, I made a sound recording of about 100 seconds.  Each sound recording began with this instruction: "Start recording, close eyes, and think of nothing." Then 30 seconds later (after 30 seconds of silence) each sound recording would have a very short instruction to do some type of mental activity.  The instruction would last no more than about six seconds. Then 60 seconds later (after 60 seconds of silence) the sound recording would say, "Stop."

To use one of the recordings as part of the experiment, first I used an alcohol wipe to wipe my forehead and the electrodes of the Muse 2 headphone. I then turned on the Muse 2 headband, and put it on my head, so that the front electrodes touched the middle front of my forehead. I then entered into the Mind Monitor app on my iPhone. After verifying that the connection was good between that app and the Muse 2 headband,  I clicked on the top file in my folder of sound recordings:

Clicking on the sound recording, I heard the words "Start recording, close eyes, and think of nothing." Upon hearing that, I clicked on the Record button on the Mind Monitor app, and quickly closed my eyes and pressed the Muse 2 device against my forehead. I thought of nothing for the next 30 seconds, and did not move. After 30 seconds of silence from the sound recording, I then heard the prompt asking me to perform a particular cognitive task. I did that task for the next 60 seconds, until hearing a "Stop" instruction at the end of the sound recording. When I heard that instruction, I had been eyes-closed and motionless for the previous 90 seconds. As soon as I heard that "Stop" instruction, I pressed the Record button on the Mind Monitor app, which causes the current recording to stop. 

I thereby had about 97 seconds of brain wave data recorded. Once you stop a recording with the Mind Monitor app, you get a screen allowing you to email the recording to yourself. I used this smartphone capability to send an email to myself, one that included the brain wave data as an attachment. The graphical user interface allows you to choose a title for the email, and it is a good idea to type a unique title such as "Experiment 1, testing recall of high school events." 

The email contained brain wave data that I graphed above. After graphing the data I excluded the first seven seconds of recorded data, because under my method there was muscle activity during most of those seconds. I wanted the graphed data to be only data for seconds in which I was motionless, and with eyes closed; so I excluded the first 7 seconds of the data.  I made that exclusion by a simple act of cropping a bit of the left part of some screen shot from a chart obtained at the Mind Monitor chart app at https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php.  So, for example, you can very easily chart all of the data showing one or two particular brain waves, and two channels (using checkboxes of that web page).  You can then take a screen shot of the resulting graph, and simply crop 7 seconds from the left part of the graph (removing something like the left 6% of the image). 

I followed the same procedure described above when running each of the experiments described here. 

Below are options I used when graphing a brain wave of a particular type (gamma waves).

Besides the experiments discussed above (involving recall tasks), I also did experiments involving two other types of activity: math calculation and imagination. Two future posts will report on the results of such experiments.