"If you're under 25 your brain isn't fully developed, so you can't be trusted to make informed decisions"
I'm seeing this a LOT lately, especially today with the Cass Review fallout. And it's utter guff, based on hearsay, misunderstandings of neuroscience, or wilful ignorance.
Firstly, the whole 'your brain stops developing at age 25' thing is spurious anyway. The original studies that came up with this figure, they just didn't include any subjects over 25. So that's when the data... stopped.
Saying 'the brain stops developing at age 25' because you didn't study anyone older is like saying "Olympic sprinters are only capable of running for 100m".
I mean, they clearly can go for longer. That's just when the race ends. It's not the same thing.
In truth, your brain likely never stops 'developing'. We're learning things, updating our neural connections and networks, for as long as we live. If we didn't, we'd just be frozen in place. A non-developing brain is basically static. Which means, dead.
But even if we did accept that the brain is 'done' at age 25, what we're actually saying is it's finished maturing. But that doesn't in any way mean that it's underpowered or non-functioning before then. Far from it.
E.g. your lungs are still developing/growing, until your early twenties. But last I checked, everyone under 20 is still capable of breathing just fine. Better than most people, if anything
Because 'not fully mature' is in no way the same thing as 'doesn't work properly'.
Teens in particular get a lot of stick for this. Their rebelliousness, they're highly-emotional nature, it's seen as proof they have something 'wrong' with their brains, because they're immature
The opposite is true. Their brains are doing exactly what they evolved to do
The risk-taking, emotive, exploratory, parent-rejecting tendencies of adolescents are seen in many social species, not just human. Unless it's the mother and father of all wild coincidences, this shows that teen brains are meant to do what they do.
Why? Well, if you're a species who likes familiarity and safety, you're at risk of stagnation. But if certain members of your population, particularly ones in their physical prime, tend to reject the norms and wander off to try new things, that'll stave off stagnation
But basically, it's very much not evidence based to look at under-25s and say 'Your brain isn't fully developed', when they're brains are working exactly as nature intended, in so many ways.
And they're absolutely capable of thinking things through, making decisions etc.
But even so, let's say it were true that under-25s have 'underdeveloped' brains, and thus can't be trusted to make decisions or hold views on important things.
This calls into doubt a huge number of things that are normal in our society
We make teenaged school students choose GCSEs and A-Levels that will likely DETERMINE THE COURSE OF THEIR ENTIRE LIFE. If their brains are underdeveloped, how is this allowed? They need at least another decade before they can be allowed to make these decisions.
If under-25s are too neurologically underdeveloped to make decisions that affect their body and wellbeing, then that rules out all career athletes under that age. You can't possibly let a 18 year old take up a sport that comes with significant concussion risk, surely?
If having a brain functioning at its peak is a requirement of making important decisions, then it's probably more important to have a maximum age limit than a minimum. Because the older you are, the more your brain wears out
That's not my stance, in the slightest. But if you're going to make rigid rules that insist on individual's brains having the capability of a 'fully developed' one, then you can't ignore the fact that this development can be 'reversed' due to the consequences of age.
In any case, if we're going to insist on adulthood being determined by this sort of biological absolutism, then in the biological sense, an 'adult' organism is one that is capable of reproducing. So, humans are adults as soon as puberty its. I.e. 11-12 years old.
Point is, it honestly doesn't matter what issue it's being applied to, the whole 'Those under 25 have underdeveloped brains' argument doesn't hold up any way you slice it.
It's often just an easy way of dismissing the valid perspective of younger people. Which isn't good.
@Garwboy it's all a pretext. they want to break Gillick competence for kids, they want to break bodily autonomy. there’s a reason the same people are also trying to ban abortion everywhere. it's the same people. they're just using trans people, and trans kids especially, as the wedge.
If you'd like to know more about how we deal with emotions and how they affect our thinking at all stages of life, my latest book is about exactly that
@Garwboy I've come to believe that whenever someone is putting forth an argument that kids are physically incapable of handling something, it's definitely nonsense.
I've only ever seen this from people interested in keeping kids powerless and unheard.
@justafrog@Garwboy Which is most people, in my experience. If I had basic human rights when I was a kid, I could have saved myself a lot of unnecessary suffering.
@Garwboy having read your interesting and informative thread, one thought predominated
If someone's brain is not mature before 25 then sending them to war before they can effectivley decide if they are going to obey or disobey is wrong
@Garwboy Trans kids absolutely should be trusted to know themselves. But unfortunately this sort of thing is also used by creeps to argue that they can get fully informed consent from adolescents. And... Nope.
@textualdeviance@Garwboy Yeah but the argument against adults having sexual relationships with teens is not "the teens' brains are not fully formed" but "the power imbalance makes the relationship abusive by default".
@Garwboy If the brain could not be trusted to make important decisions before age 25, I'd have to insist that all of these age minimums for enlisting in the military are also raised to 25.
@Garwboy BULLSHIT !!! Most Americans sign-up for military service when they are 18 and at that age my rate dictated that I make decisions about life saving situations. I was trained, as many others were, to make these decisions. After a few of these situations you become an adult AND a leader. 🖕🏻right off with this age of 25 thing.
I agree you can join the armed forces, attend university at under 25.
I think as long as you are presented with facts along with evidence and understand what questions to ask to critically analyse that information / facts, then you are more than capable of making informed decisions.
My other favorite variant and I believe the origin of this is a study in the teens that showed prefrontal cortex and "decision making ability" did not stop changing until around 25, on average. The problem was that transphobes as usual didn't bother to read the full study. The sort of decision making that was tested was immediate danger avoidance vs impulsive goal seeking. Like, "do you try to jump a ditch that might be too big" or, "do you climb farther out on a questionable tree limb to get a reward". That's very, very different from the sort of long term, balanced pros & cons sort of decision making trans teens make.
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