Will - much respect for your post. I think your summary of the 1-2-3 points is spot on. It boils down to one of the biggest debates in cognitive neuroscience at present: the drive to generalize what you do and make it accessible to the public while still having what you say be scientifically valid. I can almost guarantee that this paper wouldn't have been published in Nature Neuroscience if they didn't make the reach they did. Nature actually seeks that in the articles - that is how they get the huge impact factor. How many times did we all access the paper during our current discussion? Exactly.

The Neurocritic article you linked to was very good with a lot of excellent analysis. I think the paragraph you cited underscores two things. First, we know so little about clinical disorders. We use our arsenal of research tools to help understand what goes on when they occur, but we really do not have a deep understanding (genetics->neurons->neur­otransmitters->regional activity->large scale networks->behavior) of clinicals states. Second, I would like to echo part of Zarniwoop's last post - what are other areas of the brain doing? Maybe liberals have a larger ERN, but what if conservatives have, say, a greater executive working memory capacity? Which would you rather have/be?

My advisor in grad school probably said it best: "in science and in life, truth accrues and error cancels". If this study did stumble on a real effect then it will be replicated by other groups from around the world. Conversely, if this result was a fluke then replications will fail and it will fade from influence. Scientific knowledge is constantly evolving - the results from this study will be no different.