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arcticpenguin
11th February 2003, 07:14 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20030211/sc_nm/science_brainwaves_dc

Brain fingerprinting works by measuring and analyzing split-second spikes in electrical activity in the brain when it responds to something it recognizes.

For example, if a suspected murderer was shown a detail of the crime scene that only he would know, his brain would involuntarily register that knowledge. Under Farwell's system, that brain activity is picked up through electrodes attached to the suspect's scalp and measured by an electroencephalograph (EEG) as a waveform.
...
It's pure snake oil. There's no evidence you can determine evil intent or anything else from brain fingerprinting. It's the 21st century version of the lie detector test, which also doesn't work very well," said Barry Steinhardt, who directs a technology program for the American Civil Liberties Union

Brilliant or Bogus? Even supposing that the theory is sound, I think it could be abused by prosecutors. They could show a suspect pictures of a crime scene before they did the testing, and then, surprise surprise, he would recognize the scences during the test.

arcticpenguin
11th February 2003, 07:15 AM
What if a suspect was in fact guilty, but had no memory of the crime scene because for some reason (drugs) his mind did not form permanent memories during the crime?

Skeptical Greg
11th February 2003, 07:43 AM
Originally posted by arcticpenguin
What if a suspect was in fact guilty, but had no memory of the crime scene because for some reason (drugs) his mind did not form permanent memories during the crime?

Guilty suspects go free all the time due to lack of evidence..

DrMatt
11th February 2003, 08:24 AM
Originally posted by Diogenes


Guilty suspects go free all the time due to lack of evidence..

False positives could be caused by epilepsy, Tourette's, all sorts of things.

tcwolf
11th February 2003, 10:45 AM
Not only that, but think of the ways you could fake it. They show a picture to a prisoner, and he blurs his eyes or looks at something behind the picture. They take the picture down and he's passed.

On the flip side, say someone was innocent. Say there was a picture on the wall that looked exactly like one that their mother had ... opps ... sorry, that brief thought just sent you to jail.

I vote snake oil.

xouper
11th February 2004, 12:26 PM
bump