The US TV investigative journalism programme _60 Minutes_ tonight did a report on a technique called "Brain fingerprinting" which purports to identify criminals by analyzing their brain waves. It sounded like classic neuroquackery to me, especially when they claimed that the brain records everything and that they've developed a method for detecting information that it contains. I kept waiting for 60 Minutes to expose this fraud for what it was, but it never came. They used the word "scientific" about every 30 seconds together with phoney-looking graphs and the kind of neurobabble that you'd expect. They also claimed major support by the CIA and FBI (now there's proof), and that they'd been able to use their method to tell FBI agents from non-agents. More ominously, they claimed that they'd examined the contents of the brain of a convicted killer, and declared that he was innocent, a claim that apparently is being taken seriously. I discovered their website without too much trouble (http://brainwavescience.com/), and it had all the usual signs of quackery: grandiose claims, association with Harvard University, commercial interest. Out of the hundreds of validating studies I believe they claimed during the programme, I found _one_ on their web site, which they said will be published shortly in the _Journal of Forensic Science_. It's a long meandering article, apparently of six subjects correctly identified as having special information using their method. But if you read far enough, it turns out they mean only 3 subjects, who were paired with three controls. I couldn't figure out from all the nattering whether their experiment had any face validity or not. However, I didn't notice the word "blind" in there (as in "analysis of the brain wave data was carried out without knowledge of which subject it came from"), which is definitely not a good sign. What is particularly worrisome is that a respected programme like 60 Minutes and the legal profession (judging from their web site) seems to be taking their claims seriously. -Stephen ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
