Today's WSJ has an article on the use of neuroscience technologies to aid political campaigns. You may recall that Martha Farah wrote a guest post for the Neuroethics & Law Blog in which she discussed her skepticism about the ability of this sort of technology to do what some of its advocates say it can already do.
Here's how Martha gets quoted today in the WSJ:
Politics has always lagged behind business in adopting new marketing methods. One reason is cost: A typical brain-scan study costs around $10,000 for a small sample and can run up to $50,000 for multiple demographics. Moreover, candidates may shy away from tactics that could be seen as calculating or manipulative. "Taken to its logical limit," says Martha Farah, director of the neuroethics program at the University of Pennsylvania, "it's a kind of mind reading."
Well, sure, taken to its logical limit, it is a kind of mind reading. But I'm willing to bet that this was not the take home message Martha was trying to send. Granted, journalists have no obligation to quote a person's "take home" message. And, they do have very limited space. And, Liz Phelps has already played the role of the skeptical neuroscientist at this point in the article. But I do think that the quote can leave a very blurry impression of Martha's views. (But how should I know? I'm no mind reader. Unless I have a brain scanner. Then, I am.)
I too am surprised to read that quote from Dr. Farah. I also don't think that fMRI scanning is equivalent -- at a logical limit, whatever that means -- in any sense to "mind-reading" unless brain states are deemed to be equivalent with mind, which more than a few would deny.
Posted by: Daniel Goldberg | 12/17/2007 at 03:03 PM