Brain scans: The New Phrenology?

The 8/17/08 Sunday Globe had an interesting article in the Ideas section about the value of brain scans. You no doubt have come across pictures of brain scans--those colorful fMRI pictures that show up regularly in the media--with the claim that they have demonstrated that area of the brain that has to do with love, religion, anger, criminality....

As it turns out, there is a lot of bad science involved in this new fad. Interestingly, at the conference I attended in England a couple of weeks ago, I think it was neuropsychologist Malcolm Jeeves who in our seminar on Science and Theology in discussing fMRI scans said that he thought that this was the new phrenology. Phrenology became popular in the nineteenth century and supposedly those well versed in this "field" could tell about your personality and intelligence by locating the bumps on your head. It was very popular for a short time, until it was shown to be the pseudoscience that it is.

The author of the article notes that some eminent scientists in this field are concerned about the misuse and over-interpretation that is occurring in this field and have written a number of papers recently critical of some of the shoddy science that is going on.