[larsonf]

No matter someone's stance on this, it seems a bit forward to discredit a relatively widely-held theory as something that is weakly argued by providing a few bullet points and then an outright assertion of another competing theory. This kind of thing has no place on Hacker News.

[biggfoot]

How is it a widely-held theory? It hasn't stood up to scrutiny, at least any well documented tests.

It is sorta misleading, in fact, because a lot of good authors and speakers assume it as a well known fact and add their leaps of imagination to it. It is OK at best as a pop culture thing, maybe a poetic spin off.

Why does it have no place on Hacker ... oh, you know what, scratch that. No point entering that debate. Thanks.

[larsonf]

I think you're right on this.

It's not so much about whether the stance is true or not and whether we should debate that. It's that articles that discredit something as trivially untrue by way of a trivially small statement. In the extreme it would be like discrediting [insert pseudoscience topic] by simply mentioning a copy of Nature. There's some degree here, sure. But tabloid-style takedowns, regardless of whether they are right, seem almost out of place.

I am wrong to say this has no place, though, which is in itself a pretty big claim with no substance behind it.

[InclinedPlane]

It's not a scientific theory, at best it's folk wisdom. This article is pointing out that there is no scientific basis for it.

The onus is not on anyone to disprove the theory, the onus is on the theory's proponents to prove it, they haven't done so, not to the slightest degree.

[Reallynow]

Yes. As a PhD neuroscientist, I use reference to the triune brain as a sort of shibboleth: If someone mentions it, I can tell they don't know any neuroscience.

[Daniel_Newby]

The bullet points are objective and contain links to the scientific literature. The triune brain theory is rather more subjective.