Real life mad scientist

[MrPopo]

I've gone on a bit of a tangent, but my point is simply to say that brain surgery requires a high degree of caution because the brain is a delicate organ that isn't entirely understood. Neurosurgery is mostly reserved for patients who are in an otherwise hopeless situation and have major brain hemorrhage, a stroke, blunt force damage, hydroencephalus, or some other issue where things are going to get mortally worse without some sort of intervention. The idea that it would be used to treat more minor problems like feeling unsettled about your Dad's new wife or non-problems like being gay, is just horrific.

I'd argue that's only true today. At some point in the future we should have developed our understanding of the brain sufficiently that it could be done for dealing with routine problems like anxiety. The problem is that because of the aforementioned delicate nature means that it's going to take a long time before we get to that level of understanding. Or a properly dispassionate horrible dictatorship that goes for farming lab humans but somehow manages to get proper dispassionate scientists who perform rigorous studies rather than the "let's see what happens" from World War II.

[J T]

I also think the future is bright for neuroscience. It's not even my primary area and the changes I've seen in just the last 25 years have been amazing. I certainly hope we never see these horrible dictatorship and ethics-free scientists you are imagining, but I think as computer models, imaging technology, and neurosurgical tools and techniques all continue to improve, we will get an even more detailed picture of how the brain works.