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Hey, mind reading just happens—be afraid and happy2010 November 19, 15:11 by David Gruber Is fMRI brain-prediction research sexy or scary? Is it pursuing the ultimate invasion of privacy, an extension of Gilles Deleuze’s (1990) “society of control,” or is it forging a practical line of defense that protects the public from criminal minds intent on mass destruction? Is it handing big marketing firms a decoding key to our inner desires, or is it developing an incredible way to diagnose disease? I consider how and why a specific pattern of mass media communication can lead to a deterministic discourse that rhetorically forecloses, in advance, participatory conversation about the future of brain-prediction. Read moreThe brain is what we do with it2010 October 12, 5:10 by Jan Slaby Catherine Malabou dares to articulate powerfully an inchoate feeling that many share, but few have so far given sufficient expression: the sense that, despite all the exciting advances and insights into the functioning of the brain, the predominant narratives that are routinely spun, the stories that are being told about neuronal organization are remarkable lacking in spirit, creativity, possibility. Instead, what we are presented with, over and over again, are variations of the same sad tales of rigidity and determination, of stable traits and hard-wired routines, of dumb mechanisms programmed in stone age by the unrelenting imperatives of natural selection. Read moreCritical Neuroscience – outspoken or subtle?2010 May 05, 14:05 by Stephan Schleim Is it appropriate to critique scientists in a provocative manner? During the third Critical Neuroscience workshop in Marburg (22nd-23rd of April) we discussed the public presentation and scope of new findings in neuroscience. Read moreOn being critical in a young scientific culture2010 March 31, 10:03 by Olavo Amaral It’s always harder to be critical when you’re young. And, from most points of view, although its history dates in centuries, science in Brazil these days still feels very much like a child – or at least like a fast-growing adolescent. Surely, the scientific legacy of the country traces back to illustrious precursors of the late 19th and early 20th century such as Alberto Santos Dumont, Oswaldo Cruz and Carlos Chagas. But after many decades of being largely overlooked in most fields of knowledge, Brazilian science seems to be crashing into the international scene over the last two decades (at least in quantity, if not always in quality), rising from around 0,7% of the world’s indexed scientific publications in the early 1990s to 2,12% in 2008, according to data from the Institute for Scientific Information. Read more |
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