This article is glib. It begins with a tragic anecdote that would soften anyone up - it certainly did me, no doubt triggering a brain reaction that caused me to read on. The author raises matters of great moral and social gravity. But what are his actual points?

1. That the biology of brain function affects behavior. Well, duh. 2. That this has legal implications. Double duh. 3. That our present legal system is one-size-fits-all. No it isn't. It may in aggregate be crude and stupid, but not that crude and stupid, as everybody knows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extenuating_circumstances) and as the article itself shows (cf the Parks story). 4. That society's concepts of guilt change over time. 5. That scientific findings are relevant here. Who is arguing against any of this?

How about particular scientific findings with particular legal consequences? Well, "This research is just beginning"... "but if it works well, it will be a game changer." Today, "neuroimaging is a crude technology", but "within the coming decades" we "will be better able to say why people are predisposed to act the way they do". And that's it. The grandeur-to-substance ratio approaches that of strong AI.

Yes, the brain is important and people are not ideal atoms of free will. It does not follow that brain imaging has turned centuries of jurisprudence on their head.