Talk:Brain fingerprinting

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replies: text: I agree that this article could be cleaned up. — fnielsen (talk) 14:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia Guidelines for Talk Pages are relevant here

message: Could you identify which studies have shown it is possible to 'fool' this process? Thx Zardiw 03:43, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which studies? 

message: I started doing some basic cleanup to this article, but found it has some significant problems that require some domain knowledge that I don't currently have. First, it uses many terms that are neither explained nor linked to. Second, it references quite a few technical papers that it also fails to provide links for. Third, much of the material is repetitive and seems to be a hodgepodge of excerpts from various sources. Especially confusing are vague references like "some people believe" and "large proportion of the scientific community believe" that have no citations (a frequent sign of an unsourced personal opinion) and the mixture of supportive and critical statements in sections that are supposedly primarily supportive or critical (which might be addressed through reorganization). I don't mean to demean the efforts of the editors to date, but as a new reader of this topic, I don't feel I have any real understanding of the subject after reading the article, which must be the goal of an encyclopedia entry. Therefore, I've added a cleanup tag. Could concerned editors make an attempt to repair these deficiencies? Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup tag 

message: How do you determine the difference between an FBI agent and someone who
just knows a lot about the FBI? --Gbleem 20:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You probably can't.  If the suspect happens to be a rarity that knows a lot about that subject or the victim, then BF will fail.  The subject should be asked if they know anything about the victim, just in case.  It is in their own interest to say so as they might get wrongly convicted.  Similarly, BF may not be useful for appeals and retrials, since the falsely-convicted man would have heard all the evidence and cannot pretend not to know key facts that "only" the real perpetrator can know.  It helps if some key pieces of evidence is kept out of the public view, so that these facts remain untainted by use. Tabletop 06:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  information present 

message: This article lacks an objective discussion of the problems of the method. In my opinion, there is clearly a POV problem. 193.196.193.21 17:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. It currently reads like an advertisement for the technology, with no attempt to weigh evidence for or against its efficacy. Have there been any truly independent double-blind controlled studies of this technique? If so, their results need to be reported in the article; if not, this needs to be mentioned in the article. -- The Anome 11:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: following the links at the bottom of this article, I found this: http://www.psych.northwestern.edu/psych/people/faculty/rosenfeld/publications.html and in particular this: "Brain Fingerprinting": A Critical Analysis, which appears to be quite strongly critical of Farwell's research. None of these concerns are reported in the article. -- The Anome 11:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

text: There is also a program on PBS called Innovation, which dealt with this topic in a 2004 episode. MMetro (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

text: This must be one of the most biased pages on the whole of wikipedia! It's jokes! I'm currently writing my PhD thesis about this kind of stuff and I got plenty of references. I'll probably make the article a little less biased when I'm done with my thesis but if you have more sources post them here. I think the developers of Brain Fingerprinting are editing this page because there's no other explanation for this. Nongrezzo (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The article definitely needs cleaning up.  If I cut out some of the cruft, will you chip in if necessary? Looie496 (talk) 16:23, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias 

message: Attempted to add the needed scientific expertise and reference material and to establish NPOV.  Added about 30 references.  Added more extensive discussion of criticisms of brain fingerprinting, a section on limitations of brain fingerprinting, and a section on future research and applications and the concomitant controversy.  Corrected several factual errors.  Clarified several points.  Eliminated a couple of links that were clear copyright violations and fixed or eliminated several broken links.  Neuroscientist1 (talk) 23:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Substantial additions 

message: Please see this link Sister Abhaya Murder case: Timeline. ManoramaOnline is a leading online and print media in India. -- Sreejith Kumar (talk) 19:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that's very interesting.  Is there any more information?  That is, did brain fingerprinting actually get used, or was this just a direction from the judge?  I think it is worth mentioning in the article in any case, but it would be nice to clarify whether it was actually used. looie496 (talk) 20:14, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is a case that has been making news for more than 16 years. The first arrests in this case did happen only last week. The investigation team hasn't come up with the details as yet. It will take three more weeks before everything is known. But advanced techniques were, in fact used in this case. For the moment, I shall add information on the known bit in the article. -- Sreejith Kumar (talk) 20:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brain fingerprinting in Abhaya murder case 

message: Due to the lack of quality of prose, I've pasted it below. If anyone wants to improve the prose and place it back on the page, feel free.Wzrd1 (talk) 22:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed poor prose section 

message: There are multiple portions that look like this:
:JB Grinder, whose 15-year string of serial rapes and murders was cut short after Farwell's brain fingerprinting test detected the record of the murder of Julie Helton stored in his brain, would have strongly preferred that applications of the technique in criminal investigations be delayed indefinitely (KTVO-TV 1999)
Writing what appears to be hearsay, and citing an unreachable local news report from sometime in 1999 does not add anything to the article.
--98.150.246.242 (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weasel words/vague citations 

message: Guy said: "Everything I do or say could be wrong. I try always to be open to that possibility. If you think I am wrong, please just talk to me nicely, and it can all be sorted out like grown-ups."
I'll take you up on that.  I am . I appreciate your commitment to valid, proven science and to accurate information.  I hope that after checking the facts more thoroughly you will realize that I have the same commitment, as do the other major authors of scientific articles on brain fingerprinting.
You said: "Bluntly, this article reads as blatant advertising. I am fairly sure it is an unrecognised and questionable technique."
These are two separate and independent statements.  Let's assume for the sake of argument that the first statement is true, or as true as a subjective opinion can be.  That does not mean that the conclusion you are "fairly sure" of in the second statement is true. I think that when you look more closely and comprehensively at the demonstrable facts, you will reach a different conclusion, or at least be open to equal representation for a different point of view. 
Please consider the following facts. The most definitive and comprehensive peer-reviewed scientific articles on brain fingerprinting are on five studies conducted at the FBI, the CIA, the US Navy, and elsewhere. These are reported in 2013 and 2014 in two excellent and well-respected peer-reviewed journals. 

 

 
Brain fingerprinting is also described in the Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences. Farwell, L. (2014). "Brain Fingerprinting: Detection of Concealed Information" in Wiley Encyclopedia of Forensic Science, A. Jamieson and A.A. Moenssens, eds. Chichester: John Wiley. DOI: 10.1002/9780470061589.fsa1013. Published 16th June 2014
The editors of these scientific journals and the encyclopedia found the brain fingerprinting science worthy of publication.  The whole purpose of the peer-review process is to distinguish between valid science and an "unproven" or "unrecognised and questionable technique." The editors of these journals and encyclopedia reached the opposite conclusion from the one you are "pretty sure" of.  I respectfully submit that they are more qualified than you are to make that decision.  They are also more qualified than the reporter you quoted. (Incidentally, of the hundreds of lay articles published on brain fingerprinting, only a handful are negative.  You chose one of these to quote.)
If somehow the editors of these three prestigious and authoritative publications had been mistaken, scientists would have undoubtedly pointed it out by now.  No scientist in any peer-reviewed publication has found any fault with the science of brain fingerprinting published in these articles.
I respectfully submit that your conclusion that brain fingerprinting science is "unproven" and "unrecognised and questionable" is incorrect.  At best, it is one opinion, which is the opposite of what many others think, including the experts who have published the major peer-reviewed papers in the field and the editors of those journals.
Regarding your ad hominem comments, and jps's statement that "This is just another example of the rank pseudoscience of polygraphy, but it is only promoted by a single snake oil salesperson,"  I think that both of you have missed the mark, albeit in good faith. The authors of the above cited articles are Lawrence Farwell, Drew Richardson, John Furedy, and Graham Richardson.  (Drew Richardson and Furedy died in 2016.)  Drew Richardson was an extremely well respected FBI forensic scientist and former chief of the FBI's chem-bio-nuclear counterterrorism response force.  Furedy was one of the most well published and well respected scientists in the field of  psychophysiology. Both of them were major forces in the fight against pseudoscience of all kinds, but particularly with reference to polygraphy.  Richardson was co-founder of antipolygraph.org, the flagship of the forces exposing pseudoscience in the form of polygraphy.  Richardson and Furedy wrote one of the most definitive peer-reviewed scientific articles against polygraphy, entitled "The Polygrapher's Dilemma." 
Another scientist who has conducted some of the leading peer-reviewed research on brain fingerprinting is William Iacono, a scientist unaffiliated with Farwell who testified as an expert witness along with Farwell in the Harrington case in which brain fingerprinting was ruled admissible in court. (Yes, brain fingerprinting was ruled admissible in court, as noted in the court decision Harrington v. State, Case No. PCCV 073247. Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, March 5, 2001 and in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.

) In addition to peer-reviewed publications on his research results, he wrote a review article entitled "The Forensic Application of Brain Fingerprinting: Why Scientists Should Encourage the Use of P300 Memory Detection Methods."   Iacono is also a leading critic of the polygraph, and has written peer-reviewed articles exposing and opposing pseudoscience in polygraphy.  He has also testified as an expert witness against the polygraph in court. (Since this is a talk page and not an article, I'll forego citing absolutely everything I mention.  If you are interested, I can provide citations for anything I say.)  Iacono is one of the most respected and decorated scientists in the entire field of psychophysiology.
In short, brain fingerprinting has more than one scientific contributor, and they are not snake-oil salesmen.
Regarding Farwell, in the collective opinion of his fellow scientists who have published peer-reviewed papers in the field, brain fingerprinting is not actually Farwell's most substantial scientific contribution. He also invented the first  brain-computer interface (BCI) and published it in a leading peer-reviewed journal. 


Farwell and Donchin's original publication on the BCI has been cited over a thousand of times in subsequent peer-reviewed publications since 1988 (2,339 citations [not all peer-reviewed] according to Google Scholar, as compared with 484 for his original brain fingerprinting paper, Farwell and Donchin 1991, and 274 for a technical mathematics paper published in a leading physics journal).  To my knowledge, not a single one of those 2,339 BCI-related articles has found fault with, or even questioned, Farwell's science.  Time magazine selected Farwell to the  Time 100: The Next Wave, who they  concluded were the  world's top innovators who may be "the Picassos or Einsteins of the 21st Century."  Farwell also invented and patented a novel brainwave-based method for early detection of Alzheimer's disease, 
Farwell, L.A., inventor. U.S. Patent # 7,689,272: Method and Apparatus for Brain Fingerprinting, Measurement, Assessment and Analysis of Brain Function. Issued 3/30/2010.
 and published multiple peer-reviewed articles in the psychophysiology, neuroscience, forensic science, and physics scientific literature on EEG in aging, EEG analysis techniques such as digital filtering and statistical bootstrapping, and mathematical techniques such as chaotic attractors.  You are entitled to your opinion about Farwell, but others who frankly know much more about his science than you do have opposite opinions.  Presenting your opinion as fact in Wikipedia without equal representation for the opinions of those who have reached an opposite conclusion about him and his inventions (plural) would be a gross violation of Wikipedia's POV guidelines (as I understand them).  Brain fingerprinting is not Farwell's most major scientific contribution (albeit it is the one that has gotten the most popular press).  With all due respect, redirecting Farwell's page to brain fingerprinting is inappropriate, particularly when you have eliminated the entire brain fingerprinting page and substituted a short paragraph containing only your own opinions and a few cherry-picked non-authoritative lay publications that support them.
While we're in the ad hominem space, regarding who Farwell is and what he stands for, you might find it interesting to know  that Farwell testified against the polygraph before the Senate Intelligence Committee in reference to the Aldrich Ames CIA-double-agent case.  No one before, least of all the polygraph people, has ever accused Farwell of being an advocate of "the rank pseudoscience of polygraphy." Whether you like Farwell or not, that shoe does not fit.
Regarding  and , I have no idea who they are or whom they are affiliated with.  Judging by their writings, however, I think it is extremely unlikely that they are scientists with any knowledge of the field. 
There is also some confusion regarding the term "brain fingerprinting" in the article as it now stands.  The  article quotes findings by the government in India that "brain fingerprinting" is unscientific, unproven, and invalid. The situation is that an Indian named C. R. Mukundan developed a system (usually referred to as BEOS) that he falsely claimed was similar to and/or based on Farwell's brain fingerprinting invention.  Farwell was one of the experts who went to India and helped the government to debunk Mukundan's system (as well as other pseudoscience including "narcoanalysis" or using purported truth serums). The quoted decisions were against Mukundan's system, not against Farwell's brain fingerprinting, but unfortunately Mukundan's use of the term "brain fingerprinting" also crept into some of the language used by the Indian government in rejecting his system.  The details of the various written statements from the Indian government, however, make it clear that what is being debunked and rejected is Mukundan's system, and not Farwell's brain fingerprinting.  The statements about India and brain fingerprinting belong not in the brain fingerprinting page but on a disambiguation page, if they are to appear at all.  Or at least there should be an explanation that in that context the term "brain fingerprinting" was erroneously used to describe Mukundan's technique rather than Farwell's brain fingerprinting as described in the Wikipedia brain fingerprinting article.
The brain fingerprinting article now contains exclusively highly negative content, with no representation of the other point of view. You have deleted all of the peer-reviewed scientific research and the information and citations from other encyclopedias, with the sole exception of one highly negative article that was published over 10 years ago and has no bearing on any of the scientific articles I mentioned above.  Moreover, you fail to cite a reply and corrections to that article by Farwell and Richardson that were published in the same journal.
  You cite only a few of the many lay articles on brain fingerprinting, cherry picking those few that are negative, and ignoring hundreds of positive articles. This, in my humble and admittedly not expert opinion, is not in accord with Wikipedia's POV guidelines.  It certainly is not in accord with the practice of accurately and comprehensively representing science.
I'm all for going after the bad guys -- pseudoscientists, criminals, and baddies of all stripes -- and blowing them out of the water, but before doing that I have learned that one must be much more than "pretty sure" that the targets actually are the bad guys.  Having had the experience of being simultaneously sure and wrong, I have learned to keep an open mind.  I hope you will do the same.
On initially reading your edits, I thought that you must be someone with an axe to grind -- maybe a representative of the polygraph industry, or a failed academic competitor whose scientific or mathematical errors have been exposed by Farwell. I was mistaken, and frankly I underestimated you. Upon looking into who you are more carefully, I realize that you are as committed to the truth as I am.  I respectfully suggest, however, that you have not yet done enough research to know that the truth is in this situation. Just as I did initially with respect to you, I think you leaped to a conclusion that was incorrect, without first thoroughly examining the evidence.  In reality we are on the same side here.  Our mutual duty is to present the readers of Wikipedia with accurate, balanced information about the science involved. I, too, have a sense of humor (not to be confused with a sense of humour -- quite different actually). I only went to a 380-year-old (American) university. Nevertheless I, too, am a middle-aged parent who has shared your experience of "oh no, not this shit again," with respect to both parenting and science. So, as you suggest, let's talk nicely and sort this whole thing out like grown-ups.  
- Neuroscientist1 (talk) 00:58, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: tl/dr - nobody is going to read all that, and per WP:TPG this page is solely for discussing concrete improvements to this article, not the subject in general. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I would encourage you to read this. I do not think your claim that Farwell is doing something other than polygraphy (or better than, for example) is at all well-grounded. jps (talk) 01:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brain fingerprinting: A meaningful dialogue about the science 

message: User:Roguesimulant your edits here and here added unsourced content and content based on sources that are not independent of the inventor of this technique, and the content fails WP:NPOV. If you don't understand the problem, please reply here. Jytdog (talk) 05:31, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV comes from [[WP:INDY|independent]] sourcing 

message: While the first version sounded like some commercial, this is absolute dilettante research.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.175.6.30 (talk) 10:21, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Less than 100 percent accuracy does not mean unproven, and then sources from 2005 

message: Its clear that this article has been the subject of frequent changes, and I think we need to definitively establish a few things.
This article does not meet quality standards, Neuroscientist1 (and Lawrence Farwell) are too close to the article itself, and the subsequent information provided should be scrutinized before being left in the article. However, the current revisions made to Neuroscientist1's edits have gutted this article, making it a stub since Dec. 28th 2016.
However, the fact remains; if the FBI, and other official public figures have viewed this technology, then to say it is outright false, may not be true. It may be fair to say that this concept is in its early stages, and as stated in the title "controversial", I would argue there is not enough counterarguments that I have seen to suggest that it is outright pseudoscience, as secretive as Farwell's fingerprinting methods are.
TLDR:
This article needs to be fixed.
The verdict is still out on brain fingerprinting.
Bias AND overly critical information has been included as of the Feb. 24th Edition of this article.
I'd be happy to help organize this article if there is anybody else interested in collaborating in a neutrally review of this article.
J4l0rz (talk) 18:29, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clear revision requirements 

message: I just came across this peer reviewed paper by Farwell. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311838/
I understand critical papers being posted in the article, but why are peer reviewed ones by Farwell not included as well? Is there some way that introducing them would disrupt neutrality? Just curious. Thanks.
Update: I added the above reference to the article so that people could see the peer reviewed literature on both sides of the debate and understand that there is a scientific debate regarding this issue in the literature. I think I've kept neutrality by explaining that the technique remains unproven due to there being literature and evidence going in both directions on this technique. Hope this helps.
:It's not a good source (not MEDLINE indexed) and doesn't add anything of worth. Alexbrn (talk) 06:38, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Why no papers by Farwell?

message: The sole reference for the erroneous statement in the first sentence of the article that brain fingerprinting is "unproven" is a primary-source article in an obscure and now defunct publication.  The editors checked the facts, recognized that the article contained multiple false statements of fact, and published corrections. The author of that article also made false and defamatory statements about brain fingerprinting and Farwell to the AP and the Discovery Channel.  Both of these sources later checked the facts, discovered that his statements were false, and published/broadcast corrections.  It's hard to imagine a more inaccurate, unreliable, biased, illegitimate, and unauthoritative source or one more in violation of NPOV.  That source is less authoritative, accurate, and reliable than any of the 32 sources that were deleted from the Wikipedia article.  
In addition to all of that, however, that source has yet another fatal flaw with respect to the issue of "unproven."  It was published in 2005. A lot has happened in the world of forensic neuroscience in the last 13 years. 
Among many other things, top scientific journals have published brain fingerprinting research conducted at the FBI, the CIA, the US Navy, in the laboratory, and in real-world criminal investigations.  Authors, in addition to Farwell, include Drew Richardson, who was the top forensic neuroscientist in the FBI Laboratory and one of the top experts in counterterrorism in the world. Another author is John Furedy, by any measure one of the most prolific, established, and well respected forensic scientists in the world. (Both are now deceased.)
The Wiley Encyclopedia of Forensic Science has published the definitive meta-analysis and review of brain fingerprinting research<link, which cites and reviews all scientific publications on brain fingerprinting published in English to date. The article in the other major forensic science encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences, is less comprehensive but reaches the same conclusion that brain fingerprinting is well established science.   
No expert has found fault with any of these articles or the brain fingerprinting science presented therein.  No expert has publised a shred of scientific evidence that is not in accord with the findings of these authoritative references.
No professional encyclopedia would cite the one vastly outdated, biased, and false article and fail to cite those legitimate and current articles written by the most established experts in the field and published in the best scientific journals and secondary sources (e.g., encyclopedias). 
There is only one imaginable argument against citing the above authoritative sources and meaningfully discussing their contents.  That is the fundamental argument of the anti-intellectual movement that unfortunately has gained some popularity in recent years.  The fundamental anti-intellectual premise is that expertise + knowledge = bias.  Experts, by virtue of their expertise, knowledge, and experience in their field of expertise, are biased, suspect, and not to be trusted.  The corollary, which is not often stated so bluntly, is that ignorant people are the only ones with an unbiased opinion and the only sources of information you can trust.  
By that argument, the fact that the definitive professional encyclopedia article on brain fingerprinting was written by someone who is the inventor, the author of the seminal scientific paper on the subject, the most experienced and successful scientist in applying this science in the field, and the most famous forensic scientist in the world -- is a weakness and not a strength. Outside of Wikipedia, professional encyclopedias seek out, rather than exclude, the top experts in every field.  Some Wikipedians unfortunately apparently subscribe to the fundamental anti-intellectual premise that such experts should be excluded.  If that argument prevails, Wikipedia is doomed to mediocrity at best, and at worst to the propagation of ignorance.  The current state of the brain fingerprinting article is a case in point. 
Please do not raise that anti-intellectual, black-is-white, up-is-down premise as an excuse for excluding from the brain fingerprinting article the above articles and other authoritative sources written by those who know most about the subject.   
Please take an open-minded look at the current Wikipedia article, the 18:16 28 the comprehensive article before it was stubbed, and the relevant references, in particular the 31 references that were deleted -- or at least the definitive professional encyclopedia article on brain fingerprinting, and act accordingly as scholars, purveyors of truth, and editors who desire to improve Wikipedia. 
Lawrence A. Farwell, PhD  / “Neuroscientist1” / “Lawrence Farwell” (Please see disclosures regarding who I am in my previous post.)
Neuroscientist1 (talk) 01:40, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you please reply above? Jytdog (talk) 01:46, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

text: I have again redacted the WP:COPYLINK and am putting a warning on your talk page. If you do that again you will probably be blocked. Jytdog (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

text: My mistake. I posted this second piece with the same apparent copyright violations as the first piece before I was alerted to the issue when I read your comments that you had redacted the copyright violations in my first comment.  I am away from the office and could not get back to a computer immediately to fix this. You saw this and fixed it before I could fix it.  I have now gone through and replaced all of the links I could find that appear to violate copyrights (or that were redacted for that reason) with links that do not violate copyrights, when such links were available. In particular, the Wiley Encyclopedia article is publicly available in abstract form from the Encyclopedia's website.  A secondary report from 'CNN' regarding the 'TIME' article is available on YouTube.  I'm acting in good faith here, but with limited knowledge about Wikipedia.  Please inform me if I have made any errors.  Neuroscientist1 (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

text: Please explain your request, "Would you please reply above?" I'm happy to comply, but I do not understand what you want. Neuroscientist1 (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You did already reply in the section above, and I have now replied to you. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 21:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccurate, outdated, and unauthoritative reference resulting in a false conclusion 

message: Keeping in mind that this talk page is about improving the Wikipedia article, and not about debating the science or the people involved, the following discussion regarding what independent sources have published is relevant because it documents that independent sources have corrected some of the false statements in the key reference in the current article, one of the only two references that were retained when the article was stubbed and 31 references were deleted.
I think that by any standard the SRMHP primary-source opinion piece cited as #2, which is the sole reference cited to support the editor's opinion that brain fingerprinting is "unproven," is unworthy of inclusion in any encyclopedia article.  This is discussed in detail in the corrections published in the same journal  Farwell, L.A. (2011a). "Brain fingerprinting: Corrections to Rosenfeld." Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, 8(2), 56-68, and discussed above in my previous comments.
 
With respect to independent and authoritative sources, the same false statements by the author of reference #2 were corrected by AP and the Discovery Channel.  He had previously made some of the same false statements he made the SRMHP article to these other sources.  These publications did not check the facts before publishing his false statements. After first publishing his false statements and then discovering the actual facts, the publishers have published corrections.  Two examples follow.
In a story by the Associated Press (AP), published in the Fairfield (Iowa) Ledger Dalbey, B. (2003, June 9). "Fairfield company offers to test brain fingerprinting technology on suspects, but method has critics." Fairfield (Iowa) Ledger (Associated Press), p. 1., he made the following misstatement of fact:
"Rosenfeld said...Farwell hasn't published his MERMER findings or made them available for peer review." 
 
On June 23, 2003 AP ran the following corrective Associated Press (Fairfield (Iowa) Ledger). (2003, June 23). "Corrective: Fairfield company offers to test brain fingerprinting technology on suspects, but method has critics.":
"In a June 9 story about brain fingerprinting technology, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Lawrence Farwell, inventor of the system, had not published his findings. Farwell wrote about his MERMER testing technology in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in 2001.”  
Note that the Journal of Forensic Sciences is one of the leading peer-reviewed journals in the field of forensic science.  
This is the same misstatement of fact that, as published in reference #2, apparently misled the Wikipedia administrator who stubbed the article to the erroneous conclusion that brain fingerprinting is "unproven."  Numerous additional scientific papers, as well as independent reviews, have been published since reference #2 was published in 2005, thoroughly documenting the fact that brain fingerprinting is far from "unproven."
A similar series of events took place at the Discovery Channel.  The author of reference #2 made a false statement regarding brain fingerprinting technology and Farwell which Discovery Channel broadcast. The Discovery Channel later checked the facts, determined that his statement was false, and broadcast appropriate corrections.
In a story aired by Discovery Channel Canada on March 14, 2004 Gilbert, J.  (Senior  Producer)  & McKeown, K.  (Senior  Producer).  (2004a, March  14).  "Daily  Planet," Toronto: Discovery Channel Canada and The Science Channel,  the author of reference #2 made another demonstrably false statement that he also made in reference #2.  Referring to brain fingerprinting, he stated that he can teach people to "beat the test" and that his countermeasures "cut the test accuracy in half." Rosenfeld was introduced as a "leading expert." 
The truth is that he showed only that his countermeasures are effective against his technique, which according to his own published research has accuracy rates in some studies as low as chance even without countermeasures.  He did not show that his countermeasures, or any countermeasures, might be effective against brain fingerprinting.  (This is discussed in detail with reference to the relevant scientific literature in several of the references that were deleted when the article was stubbed.)
The Discovery Channel corrected the false statement by the author of reference #2 and broadcast a revised script in the US and in their subsequent Canadian broadcasts, as follows.  Discovery Channel revised the script to make it clear that Rosenfeld’s attempts to beat the test are effective against his methods but not against brain fingerprinting.  They also removed the phrase in which they referred to him as a “leading expert.” The revised script was first broadcast on The Science Channel in the US on March 26, 2004 Gilbert, J. (Senior Producer) & McKeown, K. (Senior Producer). (2004b, March 26). "Discoveries this Week." Silver Spring, MD: The Science Channel..  The relevant segments of the revised script are as follows:
VOICE OVER:
Could Slaughter (a death-row convict tested by Farwell) have outsmarted the technology?
Brainwave researcher Peter Rosenfeld thinks it is possible.
He’s testing his own version of the test at Northwestern University.
ROSENFELD:
“We have done research in which we taught just ordinary kids at the university here to beat this test…”
VOICE OVER:
"In other words, Rosenfeld says he can train people to generate P-300 brainwaves…,
This cuts HIS test’s accuracy by half.
But Farwell says his brain fingerprinting technology is different, and FAR more accurate.
Farwell has tested all of these cheating methods, and they don’t change his results" (emphasis in original script).
Why is this relevant to the quality of the Wikipedia article?  Out of 33 sources in the original Wikipedia article, 31 were deleted on December 28, 2016.  One of the two that were retained, #2 in the current article, is the sole reference supporting the editor's opinion that brain fingerprinting is "unproven."  In a previous comment above I discussed the shortcomings of the SRMHP article, and noted that SRMHP had published corrections to false statements in that article.  In this comment I have shown that authoritative independent sources published some of the same false statements published in reference #2, discovered that the statements were false, and corrected them. It is these same false statements in reference #2 that the Wikipedia administrator who stubbed the article apparently relied upon when he erroneously characterized brain fingerprinting as "unproven" in the current version of the article.  This is independent verification that the reference #2 is false and that the characterization of brain fingerprinting as "unproven" and "questionable" that relied on reference #2 is erroneous.  It also tells us something about the reliability of the author of reference #2 and therefore about the reliability of that reference.
Please take a look at reference #2 and the 31 deleted references in light of Wikipedia's policies on weight.  It seems clear to me that reference #2 fails the standard, and at least some of the 31 deleted references meet the standard.
Another reference, which is now included in the article as #3, the Harrington court ruling, also contradicts the misstatements of fact in reference #2 as well as the incorrect statement in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article that brain fingerprinting is "unproven." After extensive testimony and documentation on both sides of the issue, the court ruling stated the following conclusions:
"In the spring of 2000, Harrington was given a test by Dr. Lawrence Farwell. The test is based on a P300 effect."
"The P-300 effect has been recognized for nearly twenty years."
"The P-300 effect has been subject to testing and peer review in the scientific community." 
"The consensus in the community of psycho-physiologists is that the P300 effect is valid."
This is yet another independent source that contradicts the opinion stated in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article that brain fingerprinting is "unproven."
Also, it appears to me that the stubbing of the article on December 28, 2016, and in particular the deletion of 31 of 33 sources, is in clear violation of the first paragraph on "Achieving Neutrality" under WP:ACHIEVE NPOV, in light of what has been brought to light about reference #2 on the basis of which the stubbing occurred. I understand how the administrator who did this may reasonably have thought it appropriate based on reliance on the false information in reference #2.  Now that it has been proven that reference #2 was false as well as unauthoritative, however, a different course of action is in order: rewriting the 18:16 December 2016 article to genuinely reflect NPOV, rather than eliminating the entire article and replacing it with a stub that reflects the extremely biased POV in reference #2 and the false information therein.
Please see above comments for full disclosure about who I am.
Neuroscientist1 (talk) 23:04, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Independent sources expose that the key reference in the article is false 

message: The author of the major source relied upon and cited in the current article has a major, documented financial conflict of interest.  Erroneous, good-faith reliance on this source led to the stubbing of the article and the deletion of 31 other, legitimate sources on December 28, 2016.
The fact that the author of reference #2 in the current article (the first of the two SRMHP articles) has a major, documented financial conflict of interest is in addition to the other reasons that this reference is not valid, reliable, or appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia, as summarized below and described in detail with appropriate references in the three preceding comments above.
The author of reference #2 is the inventor of US Patent #4,932,416, an alternative method based on and designed to compete with Farwell's original brain fingerprinting invention.  This alternative method has more than 10 times higher error rate than brain fingerprinting, according to all peer-reviewed publications including those of its inventor (the author of reference #2).  The author of reference #2 has used the false statements in reference #2 about brain fingerprinting and its inventor as the foundation of his efforts to market his invention, as documented in the corrections published in the same journal where reference #2 was published, "Brain Fingerprinting: Corrections to Rosenfeld."  Farwell, L.A. (2011a). "Brain fingerprinting: Corrections to Rosenfeld." Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice, 8(2), 56-68
and further described here, along with references to independent third-party sources where the information can be verified. (Note: This link is not a copyright violation because the document is open source and self-published and the link is to the author's/copyright holder's website where the document is published and publicly available.)  
Also, when Farwell obtained $1 million in funding from the CIA, the author of reference #2 was an unsuccessful competitor for that funding.
The additional shortcomings of reference #2, the SRMHP article, are described in detail in the two preceding comments above, along with thorough documentation with reference to independent third-party sources where the information can be verified.  
The reasons that reference #2 is not a valid, reliable, or appropriate source are summarized as follows:
1. The author of reference #2 has a major, documented financial conflict of interest.
2. Reference #2 comprises demonstrably and unequivocally false and defamatory statements about brain fingerprinting and its inventor. The editors of the journal later checked the facts, discovered that the statements are false, and published corrections.
3. The author of reference #2 made the same false statements to the AP and the Discovery Channel, who published/broadcast them, later checked the facts and discovered his statements to be false, and published/broadcast corrections.
4. Reference #2 was published in an obscure and now defunct journal.
5. Reference #2 is a primary source and not a secondary source.
6. Reference #2 is an opinion piece expressing the author's opinion about a particular individual and his work; it is neither a contribution of original research nor a scholarly review of the literature. 
7. Reference #2 is extremely biased.
Neuroscientist1 (talk) 00:41, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The author of the major source relied upon and cited in the current article has a documented financial conflict of interest; other faults with that source. 

message: This is not the same technology, but clearly related: https://www.fastcompany.com/90257174/the-future-of-passwords-your-brain Λυδαcιτγ 03:37, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this is indeed related.  One could use some of the same well-established neuroscience phenomena currently used in brain fingerprinting for this additional purpose.  My colleagues and I (Lawrence Farwell -- see disclosures above) have been working on this as well. Several related scientific articles are discussed and referenced on my website here and hereNeuroscientist1 (talk) 21:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fast Company article on brain passwords 

message: Newsweek published a new article on brain fingerprinting that is considerably more authoritative, accurate, and unbiased than any of the sources currently cited, and as accurate, authoritative, and unbiased as many of the references that have been deleted.  Does anyone propose a rationale that has consensus for excluding this reference and/or for retaining all of the current ones?
Neuroscientist1 (talk) 20:53, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  New reference from Newsweek 

message: I propose that this page be merged with and subsumed by the article on Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling. Nangaf (talk) 15:55, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge with Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling