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We?re not moving to ?Minority Report? brain scans.. yet

By Blake Boyd

I’m a firm believer that eventually science will find a undeniable way to prove whether or not someone is lying. From everyone I’ve talked to that has any clue about the potential, they say we’re far from proving it scientifically.

Lorne Semrau learned this the hard way in a Tennessee Federal Court this week, when Judge Tu Pham would not let Semrau’s MRI evidence pass the Daubert challenge.

Judge Pham wrote:

?The court notes that potential or known error rates is but one factor under the Daubert analysis,? Pham wrote, ?and that in the future, should fMRI-based lie detection undergo further testing, development, and peer review, improve upon standards controlling the technique?s operation, and gain acceptance by the scientific community for use in the real world, this methodology may be found to be admissible even if the error rate is not able to be quantified in a real world setting.?

It’s only a matter of time before enough research has been completed to allow these types of scans to be admisible. Until that time, I’ll be wearing my tinfoil hat whenever possible.

Read the full story at Wired.com




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Full post as published by The Trial Technologist's View on June 04, 2010 (boomark / email).