BRAINOCENTRISM

At the beginning of the 19th century, a new cutting edge science, phrenology, claimed to be able to judge people's propensities and abilities by feeling the bumps on the surface of their skulls. Two centuries later, another cutting edge technology, functional MRI (fMRI), with its ability to reach through the skull and into the depths of the brain itself, offers, by way of a sort of internal phrenology, to read the mind itself. There can be few—neuroscientists and lay public alike—who do not find the glowing false colour images of sections through the brain purporting to show the “sites” of chess playing skills, love, or moral feelings seductively compelling.