Brave New World

I'm not sure what to say about this other than, "Stop. Now."

The political consultants discreetly observed from the next room as their subject watched the campaign commercials. But in this political experiment, unlike the usual ones, the subject did not respond by turning a dial or discussing his reactions with a focus group.

He lay inside an M.R.I. machine, watching commercials playing on the inside of his goggles as neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, measured the blood flow in his brain. Instead of asking the subject, John Graham, a Democratic voter, what he thought of the use of Sept. 11 images in a Bush campaign commercial, the researchers noted which parts of Mr. Graham's brain were active as he watched. The active parts, they also noted, were different from the parts that had lighted up in earlier tests with Republican brains.

-snip

Mr. Freedman and William Knapp, a strategist with both Clinton presidential campaigns and the Gore campaign in 2000, turned to this technology after consulting with Mr. Freedman's brother, Dr. Joshua Freedman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at U.C.L.A., who was less than impressed by the methodology of political consultants.

Yes, unfortunately you read that last part right. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and build a bunker.