Brain Fingerprinting Essay -- Science Crime Scientific Essays

Brain Fingerprinting Murders', rapists, robbers, con artists, terrorist, kidnappers, and the list could go on. They bring fear and disgrace to a town. They are a part of society that we would like to get rid of. Even though the number of crimes has been declining in the past few years, ideally we as a society would like it to continue to decline to zero, but realistically we would be happy with a low crime rate. There are a number of technologies that facilitate the conviction of suspects such as DNA testing, lie detector testing, fingerprinting, hypnosis, forensic study, etc. Of course, there is always a bit of discrepancy with the accuracy of each of these technologies. However, a very recent development called Brain fingerprinting, is taking a big step towards eliminating that margin of error. Dr. Lawrence Farwell, a Director and Chief Scientist at the Human Brain Research Laboratory in Fairfield, Iowa first introduced brain fingerprinting. Brain fingerprinting serves a similar purpose as that of the lie detector testing device, but claims to be 100% accurate unlike the lie detector, which is nearly 100% accurate. Brain fingerprinting determines whether the crime was committed or not and the results are not affected by anxiety, nervousness, or lying, since it simply measures if the information is stored in the brain (2). Since the brain is the archive to a human's life story, storing all of the memories, the brain cannot lie, whereas the person can verbally lie. Taking images and words that are irrelevant and relevant to the crime are shown to the suspect by flashing them on a computer screen. Electrical brain responses are measured non-invasively through a patented headband equipped with sensors (1).... ...that "With great powers comes a great responsibility," as best put by Spiderman's uncle. References 1)Brain Fingerprinting, A Brief Study of the Technology http://www.forensic-evidence.com/site/Behv_Evid/Farewll_sum6_00.html 2)Health Watch- A View of the Criminal Mind http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/health/print_health_030102_mind.html 3) Brainwave Sensor Touted as Tool in Counter-Terrorism http://www.neurotechreports.com/pages/brainfingerprinting.html 4)A truth Machine http://reason.com/rb/rb111401.shtml 5) Brain Fingerprinting: A New Paradigm in Counter terrorism http://www.brainwavescience.com/counter-terrorism/ 6) The Neuropsychology of CRP, Dreams, and REM http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Chaosophy3/neuropsych.html 7)Brain Fingerprinting Fails First Court Test in Iowa http://www.forensic-evidence.com/site/Behv_Evid/brainfp_Iowa.html