WIKIMEDIA, WYGLIFThe European Commission’s (EC) Human Brain Project (HBP) is attracting criticism from leading neuroscientists. More than 250 European researchers have signed an open letter calling on the EC to demand transparency and accountability in the ranks of the project’s governing body, and the signatories threaten to not apply for funding through the project if problems with it aren’t corrected. “We wish to express the view that the HBP is not on course and that the European Commission must take a very careful look at both the science and the management of the HBP before it is renewed,” the letter read.
At issue is the HBP’s goal to create a computer simulation of the brain by developing technologies that enable the sharing and integrating of neuroscience data, rather than funding cognitive research that deals with high-level brain functions such as thought, consciousness, and behavior. “The notion that we know enough about the brain to know what we should simulate is crazy, quite frankly,” Peter Dayan, a computational neuroscientist at University College London, told ScienceInsider.
Henry Markram of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne leads the HBP and told BBC News that opposition to the project is “premature.” He contests that the signatories of the open letter are simply reticent to adopt a new approach to conducting neuroscience research. “We're dealing here with a new ...
