5 ms·

Phrenology 2.0

by valarauca1 8y ago

Phrenology 2.0

21 8y ago
Right, like Astronomy is Astrology 2.0 and Chemistry is Alchemy 2.0.
- mahesh_rm 8y ago
  No, this is phrenology 2.0. (Have PhD in Neuroscience)
- lostmyoldone 8y ago
  Well, that's not entirely fair. Identifying a difference between an experienced surgeon an inexperienced is not at all the same as assessing skill in some meaningful manner, but could end up being used as such. While phrenology ended up really far into, or even outside the fringes of science, one could argue that it was "based" on a true fact. A zero volume brain is going to be less useful than a brain with non zero volume. Then some rather brutal extrapolations happened, and the results were both terrible, and disastrous. I fully believe the risk for a similar repeat of history is very real. Not because science fails us, but because society still posses many of its old weaknesses as clearly shown during the last year or so. As the performance improves, it is becoming more and more likely that we'll have to outlaw functional brain scanning for any non-medical purposes, or it will be somehow co-opted by actors wanting money or power at any price. I don't think I'm either malignant, or creative enough to figure out how, but someone will, because the tech will become endlessly abusable when it becomes - or seems to be - sofisticated enough.
- valarauca1 8y ago
  You are very literally an idiot. You are ignoring the characteristics that sounded the emergence Astronomy, and Chemistry. That while it battled authorities it supplied mathematical proofs (supplied by Newton), and (at least with European astronomy) a century of data collect by well respected scientists to back up its claims. This article provides neither. In fact most the academic work underpinning is very shooty. You are ironically defending phrenology which was a really racist theory used to justify slavery. Or at least I hope you are ironically defending it because then you at least have a bad sense of humor and are not just a racist idiot. Seriously, a bad p-hacked article gets push to the front page and you just blindly attack people who call it out?
  - buboard 8y ago
    > literally an idiot literally, idiot is someone who minds exclusively their own business. I don't see how the parent exhibited that trait.
  - 21 8y ago
    You didn't called it out as being p-hacked. You called it out as not being possible in principle, that we will never be able to predict skills/whatever from a brain scan.
  - sctb 8y ago
    We need to ask you to do a much better job at posting civilly. We've asked before, and we ban accounts that won't, so please do! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
buboard 8y ago
code name "fMRI Neuroscience"

Phrenology 2.0

21 8y ago

Right, like Astronomy is Astrology 2.0 and Chemistry is Alchemy 2.0.

mahesh_rm 8y ago
No, this is phrenology 2.0. (Have PhD in Neuroscience)
lostmyoldone 8y ago
Well, that's not entirely fair. Identifying a difference between an experienced surgeon an inexperienced is not at all the same as assessing skill in some meaningful manner, but could end up being used as such. While phrenology ended up really far into, or even outside the fringes of science, one could argue that it was "based" on a true fact. A zero volume brain is going to be less useful than a brain with non zero volume. Then some rather brutal extrapolations happened, and the results were both terrible, and disastrous. I fully believe the risk for a similar repeat of history is very real. Not because science fails us, but because society still posses many of its old weaknesses as clearly shown during the last year or so. As the performance improves, it is becoming more and more likely that we'll have to outlaw functional brain scanning for any non-medical purposes, or it will be somehow co-opted by actors wanting money or power at any price. I don't think I'm either malignant, or creative enough to figure out how, but someone will, because the tech will become endlessly abusable when it becomes - or seems to be - sofisticated enough.
valarauca1 8y ago
You are very literally an idiot. You are ignoring the characteristics that sounded the emergence Astronomy, and Chemistry. That while it battled authorities it supplied mathematical proofs (supplied by Newton), and (at least with European astronomy) a century of data collect by well respected scientists to back up its claims. This article provides neither. In fact most the academic work underpinning is very shooty. You are ironically defending phrenology which was a really racist theory used to justify slavery. Or at least I hope you are ironically defending it because then you at least have a bad sense of humor and are not just a racist idiot. Seriously, a bad p-hacked article gets push to the front page and you just blindly attack people who call it out?
- buboard 8y ago
  > literally an idiot literally, idiot is someone who minds exclusively their own business. I don't see how the parent exhibited that trait.
- 21 8y ago
  You didn't called it out as being p-hacked. You called it out as not being possible in principle, that we will never be able to predict skills/whatever from a brain scan.
- sctb 8y ago
  We need to ask you to do a much better job at posting civilly. We've asked before, and we ban accounts that won't, so please do! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

buboard 8y ago

code name "fMRI Neuroscience"