- Original article by Sumaiya Shaikh, published July 18, 2017
- Rebuttal to the original by Shruti Muralidhar – below
- Sumaiya Shaikh responds to the rebuttal, published July 19, 2017
This is in response to Sumaiya Shaikh’s article in The Wire titled ‘The Cognitive Neuroscience of a Lynching’. She has attempted to explain the human behaviour seen in acts of extreme violence, such as lynching. As a trained and practising neuroscientist who works in the field of learning and memory, I find that a lot of the neuroscience in her article is unsubstantiated, outdated or plainly incorrect. Following are some chosen paragraphs from her write-up, accompanied by my comments.