Pulling a bike helmet down to just above your eyebrows protects the frontal lobe. And woe be unto ye who smack the frontal lobe, as it is the home of our ability to predict the future. As such, a smacked frontal lobe makes for a poor gambler: If someone with damaged frontal lobes pulls nine white socks out of a drawer of ten white socks and ten black socks, he may still predict the tenth sock is equally likely to be black or white. So too, telling a person with misfiring frontal lobes that the Patriots have pulverized the Lions in every game since the departure of Barry Sanders does little to affect their estimation of the point spread (for this reason, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish the predictions of die-hard Lions fans from those of patients with damaged frontal lobes).
In fact, lesion of the right frontal lobe has been shown to remove the ability to make any decisions based on advice. Even with inside information that the Patriots will beat the Lions, a frontal-lobe-less gambler may put his money on the Lions.
The frontal lobe also allows us to predict the outcomes of our own actions: What’s the likely outcome of hitting that snowboard kicker at 40 mph? What might happen if you have just one more beer? What’s the result of an affair? It’s as if removing the influence of the frontal lobe releases our id, which can result in basic personality changes.
Wild Kingdom: The Red-Necked Phalarope
In exceptional societies like that of the red-necked phalarope, in which males raise the offspring, male reproductive potential is bound by time and energy, and female reproductive potential is bound by the number of mates she can find. Fittingly, female red-necked phalaropes compete for males and then guard their men jealously.
