THE news that the US army is studying how neuroscience can “improve” its soldiers will once again raise the spectre of amoral scientists using any means at their disposal – drugs, genetic profiling, brain stimulation, cybernetic implants, brainwashing – to vault ethical boundaries in the pursuit of military aims.
The army-backed report from the US National Academies of Sciences anticipates a day when troops will be monitored by biosensors, selected by gene tests, stimulated with magnetic tweaks to the brain and enhanced with pills (see “Soldiers of the future”). This will inevitably spark discussions about the rise of cold-eyed super-soldiers who…
