Comments on: Law and Neuroscience is more than fMRI http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/lawandbiosciences/2009/02/21/law-and-neuroscience-is-more-than-fmri/ Wed, 15 May 2013 21:56:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: ‘Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience’ « The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/lawandbiosciences/2009/02/21/law-and-neuroscience-is-more-than-fmri/comment-page-1/#comment-56 ‘Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience’ « The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:12:59 +0000 http://lawandbiosciences.wordpress.com/?p=437#comment-56 [...] Stanford Centre for Law and the Biosciences Blog article [...] [...] Stanford Centre for Law and the Biosciences Blog article [...]

]]> By: amyknight http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/lawandbiosciences/2009/02/21/law-and-neuroscience-is-more-than-fmri/comment-page-1/#comment-55 amyknight Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:02:11 +0000 http://lawandbiosciences.wordpress.com/?p=437#comment-55 I’m a soon-to-be law student with a degree in cognitive science, and I’m really glad to hear someone calling for us to remember other technologies. EEG is my pet favorite, since that was the medium I worked with, and even when people do shocking things with it (last year’s conviction of the young Indian woman for murder comes to mind) it seems to be in the shadows of fMRI. EEG is simpler and cheaper, not to mention much more precise in its measurement of the timing of impulses, and I agree that it may be more likely to keep popping up as a proposed legal tool. But no matter which technologies grab our attention, doesn't accepting brain-based evidence at all entail a solid belief in reductionism? Can we explain the complex behavior of individuals by looking at brain activity? Can we look at brain activity and extrapolate into actions and motives? The answer is either no, or not yet, depending on where you stand. And last time I checked (though I’m a few years out of my cognitive science program), there was still a debate going on about whether we’d ever be able to reduce human behavior and experience to the merely chemical. You could find an expert witness to tell you it could, and one to tell you it couldn’t. I’m wondering just how reliable or reproducible a neural signature would have to be in order for it to be legally useful. I’m sure this has been considered and talked about – I’d love to hear your thoughts. If the human brain can essentially be wired backwards (as it is in some left-handed people) and still function perfectly well, then can we really claim that the presence or absence of any given brain wave can prove something beyond a reasonable doubt? What do you think? I’m a soon-to-be law student with a degree in cognitive science, and I’m really glad to hear someone calling for us to remember other technologies. EEG is my pet favorite, since that was the medium I worked with, and even when people do shocking things with it (last year’s conviction of the young Indian woman for murder comes to mind) it seems to be in the shadows of fMRI. EEG is simpler and cheaper, not to mention much more precise in its measurement of the timing of impulses, and I agree that it may be more likely to keep popping up as a proposed legal tool.

But no matter which technologies grab our attention, doesn’t accepting brain-based evidence at all entail a solid belief in reductionism? Can we explain the complex behavior of individuals by looking at brain activity? Can we look at brain activity and extrapolate into actions and motives? The answer is either no, or not yet, depending on where you stand. And last time I checked (though I’m a few years out of my cognitive science program), there was still a debate going on about whether we’d ever be able to reduce human behavior and experience to the merely chemical. You could find an expert witness to tell you it could, and one to tell you it couldn’t.

I’m wondering just how reliable or reproducible a neural signature would have to be in order for it to be legally useful. I’m sure this has been considered and talked about – I’d love to hear your thoughts. If the human brain can essentially be wired backwards (as it is in some left-handed people) and still function perfectly well, then can we really claim that the presence or absence of any given brain wave can prove something beyond a reasonable doubt? What do you think?

]]>