"Reading Minds" with fMRI

Some of you, I suspect, have read in Time, Slate, NPR, Popular Science, Wired, or dozens of other news outlets that scientists have figured out how to read minds. I hate to always be the neuro-tech downer, but that claim is just false. Laughably false.That's not to say that the study behind all of the commotion, published late last month in Current Biology, isn't impressive and worth talking about. But, as happens all too often with brain imaging studies, this one was hyped, big time. Few reporters* bothered to look for critical, or even thoughtful, comments from experts outside the research team. And so their stories wound up with headlines like, "Scientists Can (Almost) Read Your Mind," and "Soon Enough, You May Be Able to DVR Your Dreams."Read more at...The Last Word on Nothing, October 2011.