Law and Magic Blog

More On Law and Neuroscience

Yet another piece on law and neuroscience. This area is becoming a cottage industry.

Oliver R. Goodenough, Vermont Law School & Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Micaela Tucker, Vermont Law School, have published Law and Cognitive Neuroscience at 6 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 61 (2010). Here is the abstract.

Law and neuroscience (sometimes neurolaw) has become a recognized field of study. The advances of neuroscience are proving useful in solving some perennial challenges of legal scholarship and are leading to applications in law and policy. While caution is appropriate in considering neurolaw approaches, the new knowledge should - and will - be put to use. Areas of special attention in current neurolaw scholarship include (a) techniques for the objective investigation of subjective states such as pain, memory, and truth-telling; (b) evidentiary issues for admitting neuroscience facts and approaches into a court proceeding; (c) free will, responsibility, moral judgment, and punishment; (d) juvenile offenders; (e) addiction; (f) mental health; (g) bias; (h) emotion; and (i) the neuroeconomics of decision making and cooperation. The future of neurolaw will be more productive if challenges to collaboration between lawyers and scientists can be resolved.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

Check Out This Blog

Deceptology. Lots of really interesting posts on illusions and how they have an impact on our thinking and actions. I like this one, on a lawsuit against the county of San Diego. I've actually driven on this particular stretch of road, and yes, it's confusing.

The Situationist Blog

The Situationist, a blog run by Harvard Law School's The Project on Law and Mind Sciences, occasionally has posts of interest to us here at the Law and Magic Blog. Check out the "Illusions" category, for example. Here you'll find a post on that famous fleeting gorilla (not the 800 pound gorilla in the room, but the one who passes through, unnoticed except for those few folks who seem to be able to focus on just about everything), neuroscience and illusion, and "brain magic." Under the "law" category, you can check out Ian Herbert's post on the psychology and power of false confessions. Once made, they take on a frightening life of their own, and can tip the balance for jurors.

From Down Under, a Useful Guide On the 'Net

If you haven't discovered the Caslon Analytics guides to various areas of law and culture, I highly recommend the Caslon site. It offers a number of pages devoted to various areas of interest, including privacy, IP, publishing, and for our purposes, the most interesting--afterlives. I'm still not certain how to find this particular area using the table of contents so when I'm looking for it I use the search engine provided.

The Caslon Afterlives area has pages on spirits, scams, wiccans, and other subjects, and follows a set pattern. The writer provides an introduction to the subject, then discusses the law and culture of the issue, including specific topics of interest, and finally provides a short and select bibliography. I've found some gems there already. While the tilt is definitely Australian (since the writer(s) is(are) Australian, he (they) also provide a look at the subject's treatment throughout the world. Actuallly, since I know relatively little about these subjects in Australia, I find that particular information really interesting and helpful.

This site is rich in information. I could spend hours prowling through it.  It has a related blog, which I note lists the Law and Magic Blog in its blogroll. This post is not payment for the listing, however. (Just wanted to point that out).

A "Magic Words" Blog

A blog devoted to magic words: Craig Conley's Magic Words. He posts occasionally on legal phrases, often on magical ones, and on the creation and history of such phrases.

A New Skeptical Blog

The Skeptics Society has launched a new blog, Skeptics Blog, with a permanent list of bloggers, which includes Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, and Brian Dunning. Check out the introductory post and mention of a lot of interesting stuff, including a link to an article about our tendency to believe in the paranormal that features one of the bloggers, Steven Novella.

 

A New Blog To Visit

Check out PodBlack Blog: some great posts, including this one on Friday the 13th.

Fun Physics

Jennifer Ouellette, a science writer who has published the kind of science meets television books that appeal to me (The Physics of the Buffyverse (Penguin, 2007), for example)) has an interesting blog: science for the rest of us: Cocktail Party Physics. In a recent post, she discusses zombies, the theories of Wade Davis, and the case of John Darwin, the Englishman presumed dead, who turned up after five years claiming amnesia (won't wash, IMHO). He and his wife are now facing trial for fraud.

The ABA Journal BLAWG 100

The current issue of the ABA Journal (see page 35) lists this blog as one of the ABA Journal Blawg 100. Thanks for all your interest and support!