transparency and technology

[ian s]

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/...ful_worlds.php

Apologies if this has been on here before ........

In the United States, MRI is socially constructed as a sacred technology--one that represents progress, certainty, and good health care. The technique's sacred status is achieved in part because cultural ideas link anatomical pictures and mechanical reproduction to transparency and truth. But, it is also achieved because information about contexts and actors is often missing from popular discussions of MRI. In Magnetic Appeal, I bring those contexts and actors back in to examine why MRI is perceived the way it is, how technologists and physicians make sense of and use the technology in clinical work, and how advertising, fear of litigation, reimbursement policies, and research funding all contribute to MRI in practice.

Just been writing about this in relation to placebo ...sacred belief in technology rings true ....ignore the confusion , fear and social problems -reduce it all down to an image and you have the 'truth', same goes for brain scanning and fmri and pain if you ask me .This is why Ray Tallis has a much clearer overview , and why David Whyte and his dense smoke analogies won't be understood by science (not for a while).

ian

[nari]

My first reaction was how very young Lehrer looks - or maybe that is just my perception.
MRIs are useful for saving lives - they don't provide anything else of value, and keep adding to the blow-out in health budgets world-wide because of the conviction they show where pain hides.

Nari