EDIT: I’m still trying to figure out how WordPress works, but this post should appear after the one directly above, “How not to write about the brain.” It will make more sense that way.
I hadn’t seen this before, but the Stanford Law School Center for Law and Biosciences Blog had previously written about an NPR segment featuring Martin Lindstrom making many of the same mistakes as he did in his Times Op-ed. It’s a good piece–it touches on some of the points I made about the ridiculousness of reverse inference from nucleus accumbens activation and then says much more about the implications of his publicity.
Curious, I decided to check out his website: http://www.martinlindstrom.com/
It’s pretty frightening. He seems to have built a new industry revolving around sticking people in an fMRI bore and seeing what “lights up” when they look at various products. Perhaps I’ll do a longer post in the future evaluating his various claims about cognitive neuroscience (from the graphic on the front page, the notion that neuroscientists have located the part of the brain that detects what products are “cool”, and that it is BA 10–the frontopolar cortex–is really too laughable to discuss seriously). Suffice it to say that the overlap between fMRI hype and the buzz-word/trendy-concept obsessed marketing industry is a zone of pain for anyone interested in the responsible application of brain research.
Still, I find it hard to get too bothered about Lindstrom peddling schlock to oblivious corporate clients. It certainly isn’t the first time companies have wasted money on pointless marketing fads, and it won’t be the last. (It reminds me of the scene in the Pilot episode of Mad Men and makes me wonder how much money Sterling Cooper spent to produce a report on how cigarette advertising should exploit the consumer’s Freudian “death wish”).
It’s disappointing that the Times and NPR are as easily swindled, but we’ll just have to hope that anyone in charge of actual policy decisions is a little bit more discerning.
