Brain scans could detect future criminals

[FarCenter]

Someone makes you a promise that seems too good to be true: they sound persuasive – but if only you could look inside their brain, you would know whether to trust them.

Scientists from universities in Zurich and Konstanz, Germany have uncovered how brains behave in people who make promises they know very well they are going to break.

The researchers, economists and neuroscientists, discovered that although to all outward appearances trustworthy and untrustworthy people behave the same way, the ones who do not keep their word show increased activity in the areas of the brain that play important roles in processes of emotion and control.

More importantly, the research showed that patterns of brain activity make it possible to predict whether a person is likely break a promise.

Applying the results of the research could “in the (distant) future” help prevent fraudulent and criminal intrigues, Zurich University said in a press release.

Their findings are published in the journal Neuron.

<SNIP>http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/index/Brain_scans_could_detect_future_criminals.html?cid=7890714

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Maybe this could replace those completely useless political candidate debates!!!!

[Quantess]

1. Oh, great. This is one more frontier of science that has the capacity to be misused.

Before I got interested in politics, I thought any and all scientific advances were for the common good. But, if only everyone had the "interests of the common good" in mind...

[izquierdista]

2. Science is for the common good

Science advances the understanding, which is always a good thing. Now what people engineer out of that understanding, that has great potential for misuse.

[Quantess]

4. Knowledge is power, and that is true. It's not just a slogan.

The more scientific knowledge, the better. But, there are complications involved in imparting knowledge to people, especially in a country like ours, which makes higher learning an expensive obstacle, and public high schools that are designed to make sure the D students graduate, with little afterthought to the brightest students.

And now, with "Homeland Security".
Well, the Big Brother concept, and all...

(edited to clarify)

[Forkboy]

3. There's a book by the great Philip Kerr about Britain using something like this.

This reminded me of it. :scared:

In a near-future, a British neuroscientist named Professor Burgess Phelan has discovered a portion of the brain, the VMN, that is typically twice the size in men as it is in women. In certain men, however (approximately 1 in 100,000), it is the same size as a woman's, and that abnormality is an exceptionally accurate indicator of violent sociopathy. Professor Phelan developed an imaging device called L.O.M.B.R.O.S.O. (Localisation of Modullar Brain Resonations Obliging Social Orthopraxy)used to help diagnose men with the VMN deficiency.

In the interests of public safety, the Lombroso institute is set up to test all the men in Britain. Males are enticed with ad campaigns to submit for testing; those who are VMN-negative are given confidential treatment, including counselling and drugs, and assigned a code name out of the Penguin book of Great Thinkers (e.g., Shakespeare, Plato, etc.). The police aren't given the names of the VMN-negative, but they are allowed to confirm whether or not a particular person is in the Lombroso Institutes system as VMN-negative.

"Wittgenstein" is the code name of a VMN-negative who, until he was made aware of his status, was living a well-adjusted, if solitary, life, venting his sociopathic tendencies harmlessly through virtual reality entertainment systems. Upon discovering his pathology, though, he undertakes a public service of his own: after hacking into the Lombroso Institute's systems and obtaining a list of all VMN-negative men in Britain, he undertakes to kill them all.

[Quantess]

9. LOMBROSO? Are they an Italian gangster family? LOL.

I apologize. I've been laid up on the couch for over a month with an injury, and I've been watching The Sopranos.


:rofl:

[Turbineguy]

5. So then

they are not far from early detection of republicans.

[Matariki]

6. Criminals? I'm thinking more the end of Politics as we know it...

[cliffordu]

7. We ought to use that thing on Grantcart....

[DBoon]

8. Have they tested Dick Cheney for this? (nt)

[lame54]

10. So can elections