Description: Minority Report meets Dr. Strangelove in the true story of how neuroscience and related technologies are shaping national defense.
Review Quotes:
"There has been virtually no debate on the ethical questions raised by the brave new brain technologies. . . . The time to speak up is before the genie is out of the bottle." -Wall Street Journal
"Quietly provocative . . . Moreno takes an evenhanded, thorough look at how deeply the intelligence and defense communities are involved in many of those advances and the mindfields that might lie ahead." -Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Even-handed and thought-provoking. [Mind Wars] is very readable, and easily accessible to people without a background in neuroscience." -Neurophilosophy at the Guardian
"An exhilarating and anxiety-provoking whirlwind tour of recent developments in neuroscience that possess defense or national security potential . . . groundbreaking." -American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB)
"More than a serious work of public policy, the volume is a son's quest to understand the work of his psychiatrist father, who pioneered lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) experiments in the 1960s . . . Moreno deserves credit for having the courage to go where no bioethicist has gone before. His philosophical forays into mind-brain questions are learned, and his narrative about the rise of big science and the 'garrison state' represents a provocative historical synthesis. . . . Mind Wars is not the last word on this fascinating, frightening, and potentially transformative corner of neuroscience and neuroethics. But it is the first." -Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
"A fascinating and sometimes unsettling book. . . . Any academic involvement in military research presents an ethical dilemma, and Moreno's exploration of this theme is one of the most interesting aspects of the book." -Nature
"The world we encounter in Mind Wars is like the world in [Philip K.] Dick's A Scanner Darkly." -Conspiracy Times
"Crisply written . . . praiseworthy." -Publishers Weekly
"Renowned bioethics authority Moreno travels to the nexus of brain science, engineering, and national security to explore the connections between neuroscience research and national defense agencies. . . . Given the topic's provocative nature, this is recommended for all science and bioethics collections." -Library Journal
"Raises serious social and policy questions . . . deserves a wide readership." -CHOICE
"This will certainly be the source book on the ways in which neurobiology may rewrite the rules of warfare, spying and intelligence collection in the twenty-first century." -ARTHUR L. CAPLAN, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania
"Few people ever think about brain research as a national security discipline. This intriguing and provocative book lays out how neurotechnologies for brain analysis, repair and enhancement can be multi-purpose and serve both good and nefarious functions." -ALAN I. LESHNER, Ph.D., American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) CEO and Science Executive Publisher
"Fascinating, clear-headed, optimistic, and lucidly written, Mind Wars makes a compelling yet nuanced case for scientific progress in the area of neurology enhancement and for the transparent collaboration of the academy and the military." -SALLY SATEL, M.D., author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine and Resident Scholar at American Enterprise Institute