Roshan Cools turns things around: her topic is not the science of trust, but trusting science. Science only works if it is trusted fundamentally, and she uses brain science to illustrate this.

Cools shows a Parkinson’s patient trembling heavily. After turning on deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes, the patient shows absolutely no sign of trembling anymore. These amazing results came about from a few brain scientists, just being interested in the workings of the brain. We see an increasing interest in the brain and the brain science.

But there is neuroscepticism as well. People are asking if we need to know all this stuff on the brain. They ask “What use is it?” This scepticism helps us to be critical of ‘neuromyths’, for example regarding lie detection. In this sense, scepticism is good. But there is a flip side as well.

There is the danger that this scepticism lets us focus too much on the usefulness of (neuro)science. Cools states that there is already a tendency of framing scientific research in terms of what it can do for society, not in terms of scientific curiosity.

Were the DBS researchers aware of their radical impact? No. Application comes after innovation, not before. If we want society to benefit from science, we’d better have faith in fundamental science and give it freedom to explore.

 

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