viz.

Nate, I think the idea of "practically meaningless" photos is the place to begin with these images. These images, which as you note need a trained professional for interpretation, unravel Sontag's assertion that we need to know what a picture is of before we can evaluate it. Scientific images, which are finding their way into numerous channels of public circulation (see particularly procedural crime dramas), have a particular kind of authorization in their very display. Whether or not you can tell what is different about your knee isn't really what the images are meant to accomplish. In their very reception, they me be the confirmation of scientific authority over the body. Even if we can't tell what is different or what is being shown, we can see it is science, and that we are, as viewers, encouraged to particpate in the positivist discovery of science.