The 21st Century Brain by Steven Rose

Jonathan Cape

Reviewed by RITA CARTER

This review first appeared in The Daily Mail

STEVEN ROSE is worried. He’s worried that neuroscientists are getting above themselves, that brain technology will get out of control,  and that sinister forces will try to meddle with our minds. What will happen, he asks, if we really do get effective smart drugs, mind-reading machines and mood manipulators? "What will become of our self- conception as human beings with the freedom to shape our own lives? What new powers will accrue to the state, the military, the corporations?"

The first half of  "21st Century Brain" is a clear, thorough and up to date account of current brain science. The second half, though, is perilously close to a rant. Rose is a vociferous critic of evolutionary psychology – the idea that human behaviour is biologically determined – and here he tries to convince us that our genes and neurochemistry have far less influence than we have been led to believe.

To this end he minimises, ignores or pooh-poohs practically all the evidence for biological causation in human affairs and opponents’ views are scorned or simply dismissed. Rose also plays shamelessly on the “yuk” factor. Writing about ECT, for example (under the sub-heading "Thought Control") he first reminds readers of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and then describes the treatment as "a blast of electricity . . . inserting a large, clumsy spanner into the brain's machinery". Actually modern ECT uses tiny pulses of carefully localised electricity and is nothing like the horrible treatment immortalised in Cuckoo's Nest. He also cherry-picks his  evidence. He claims, for example, that an (unreferenced) study showed Prozac worked in only about 30% of cases. No doubt one survey did, but Prozac has been subjected to thousands of trials, and meta-analyses of them show it  benefits at least twice that proportion.
 
Having rubbished the idea that we are products of our neurochemistry Rose then, rather confusingly, tries to scare us silly about the risks of technology based on that idea. Brainscan lie detectors, neural "fingerprinting" and cognitive enhancers are, he says, largely snake oil. Yet still they should make you very, very scared. There follows his vision of a future with "an entire population drifting through life in a drug-induced haze of contentment  . . .  with the neurotechnology to erase such tremor of dissent that may remain added to the already formidable existing armoury of state control".

This book will delight technophobes and conspiracy theorists and (I would guess) exasperate many of Steven Rose's colleagues. Rose’s own contributions to neuroscience are substantial, and his work on Alzheimers disease may well help future researchers find a cure for that cruel and dignity-stripping condition. Such benefits are a much more likely result of the 21st century neuroscientific revolution than state-sponsored mind control, and it will be very sad if their advent is delayed by sensationalist doom-mongering.

© Rita Carter 2007 - www.ritacarter.co.uk