In this Battle of Ideas festival taster, a panel discusses the fashion for neuroscience and recommends a critical response. Despite the tremendous potential of breakthroughs in neuroscience, there is now increasing disquiet at the exaggerations made in its name. The supposed unlocking of the human mind has attracted fashionable enthusiasm far beyond science. Policy makers, pollsters, artists and lawyers now see neuroscience as the key to unlocking everything from why consumers make certain choices to crime. Dr. Bill Durodie points out that the language of neuroscience has even been hijacked by the military. But he reminds us neuroscience is not corrupting society, it’s the other way around, scientists are not immune from dismal contemporary culture he explains, they are a product of it too. We now have to reveal the limits of neuro-determinism he concludes. Filmed at the Battle of Ideas festival this debate will fire more than a few neurons.
