Origins of the Myth
The myth may have started with a false attribution of it to Albert Einstein or from William James writing "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources" in 1908. It could have also been from the work of Karl Lashley in the 1920s and 1930s who removed areas of the cerebral cortex in rats and found they could still relearn some tasks- this action in humans however would be highly damaging. There is no one major reason for why it spread but because of the nature of pop culture this myth has popularly spread.
Citations Neuroscience For Kids. (n.d.). Retrieved September 01, 2016, from https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html Albert Einstein. (n.d.). Retrieved September 01, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein |