[lostmyoldone]

Well, that's not entirely fair. Identifying a difference between an experienced surgeon an inexperienced is not at all the same as assessing skill in some meaningful manner, but could end up being used as such.

While phrenology ended up really far into, or even outside the fringes of science, one could argue that it was "based" on a true fact. A zero volume brain is going to be less useful than a brain with non zero volume. Then some rather brutal extrapolations happened, and the results were both terrible, and disastrous.

I fully believe the risk for a similar repeat of history is very real. Not because science fails us, but because society still posses many of its old weaknesses as clearly shown during the last year or so. As the performance improves, it is becoming more and more likely that we'll have to outlaw functional brain scanning for any non-medical purposes, or it will be somehow co-opted by actors wanting money or power at any price.

I don't think I'm either malignant, or creative enough to figure out how, but someone will, because the tech will become endlessly abusable when it becomes - or seems to be - sofisticated enough.