ABSTRACT
One of the major goals of neurobiology is to discover the causal determinants of behavior. In neurobehavioral studies, the most widely accepted experimental paradigm for achieving this goal is generally referred to as the localization of function. This paradigm is broadly understood as the attempt to identify the specific role of a neural structure in producing a particular behavioral function. This chapter shows that neural positivism results in inconclusive and contradictory conclusions when applied to complex and probabilistic biological systems. The fish escape response is triggered by neurons of the reticulospinal formation. This system is phylogenetically old and its basic organization has been conserved over the course of vertebrate evolution. Neural positivism is based upon the assumption that in the nervous system a given end is achieved from fixed means. This view ignores the real issue of neural function and instead pursues the cosmetic satisfaction of artificial logical criteria.
