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Sebastian Seung<\/a> has a new book out, and to promote it he’s having a debate<\/a> with Tony Movshon<\/a>. The event sold out in less than two hours. So they added a simulcast<\/a> in a nearby room, and are streaming it on the web at radiolab.org<\/a>. It’s Monday, April 2, at 7pm New York time.<\/p>\n Seung’s position (as summarized on the event website)<\/a>: “… research would be radically accelerated by finding and deciphering ‘connectomes,’ maps of connections between neurons. [\u2026] connectomics will be as fundamental to neuroscience as genomics is to molecular biology.”<\/p>\n Movshon’s position (as summarized on the event website<\/a>): “…maps of the brain by themselves cannot offer much insight into how this remarkable organ does its job. Just as a genome by itself is only a blueprint with little power to explain how an organism works, a connectome is at best a framework with little power to explain brain function.”<\/p>\n I doubt anyone would argue that mapping connections isn’t useful. But just how useful? It really comes down to funding priorities: should we spend a billion dollars on connectomics right now? Would that data be really transformative? Or would we get more bang-for-our-buck if we spread that money over several neuroscience research efforts, including connectomics, neurophysiology, genetics, molecular biology, and so on? <\/p>\n There’s an inherent appeal to large, simply-stated projects. And there are great success stories. The advocates of spending big money on connectomics love to draw parallels<\/a> to the human genome project. The space program is another large, expensive, worthwhile project. But not all big projects are worth the price tag. For example, although it’s a clear, attractive goal to have a permanent manned outpost on the Moon, the price probably isn’t worth it right now. In a similar case of wrong price, wrong time, the Superconducting Super Collider<\/a> project was abandoned in 1993 after $2 billion spent, although the science was certainly worthwhile. Perhaps spreading those research dollars to other efforts was the right decision at that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \n Sebastian Seung<\/a> has a new book out, and to promote it he’s having a debate<\/a> with Tony Movshon<\/a>. The event sold out in less than two hours. So they added a…<\/p>\n