What if the search for a single canonical cortical microcircuit is leading neuroscience in the wrong direction? Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus argues that the brain's apparent uniformity masks functionally critical variations , and that understanding higher cognition requires computational primitives we have barely begun to identify. Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series. Gary Marcus joins Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott at the BCBT summer school to challenge the dominant idea that a single repeated circuit underlies all cortical computation. Drawing on evolutionary biology's principle of duplication and divergence, Marcus argues that cortical areas may share a common template but differ in ways that are functionally decisive , much like a hand and a foot share most of their genes yet serve very different purpose ...