Religion From An Evolutionary Perspective

[Mr.Cat]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1307554403' post='2251313']Mr.CatholicCat, were you catholic?[/quote]Yes, Dust won't change my name.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Mr.CatholicCat' timestamp='1307554457' post='2251314']
You most likely made some obscure vague comment, that was interpreted to be both offensive and deceptive, that is now going to be misconstrued against you. Because you're clarification about you isn't good enough here. [/quote]

I've often had others tell me what my beliefs are and how I see the world, I've gotten used to it.

[quote]Yes, Dust won't change my name.[/quote]

Cool

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1307479882' post='2250953']
Right, I can criticise something the Christian Faith is about without looking like I'm attacking straw men that are not even part of the ideology. Atheism is not an ideology.



That's how I see it. You're attacking the label 'atheist' as if it's supposed to mean anything other than lack of belief in gods. If you're tired of beating that dead horse, just as I'm tired of hearing you kicking and punching that poor thing ( ), you can shift your focus toward actually proving that being an atheist is conducive to Communist Russia and mass murder based on the fact that one is an atheist. Or you could bury it. [/quote]
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Moving along . . .


[quote]I'm a fan of secularism, so I don't promote the extinction of religion from the private lives of individuals and religious institutions. But when their beliefs that I don't hold start to affect how I see I should live my life and my ideals of right and wrong, then I will challenge them, just as you would if you saw your rights being infringed on. That's all. [/quote]
How exactly do you define "public" and "private" life?

You still have yet to explain just how exactly Christians are infringing on your rights.

And you claim that Christian beliefs are "affecting how you see you should live your life and your ideals of right and wrong"? Interesting.

Of course this begs the question, if you are so afraid of Christian beliefs influencing your moral thought, then why are you spending so much time on an explicitly Christian Catholic website?


[quote]I'd have to read the bible to see which passages could be cherry-picked and interpreted to justify mass murder, but just because not all Christians live as the bible would have them, doesn't mean that they would find other justification outside the bible. Didn't Bush Jr. give a slightly religious twist to the invasion of Afghanistan? What was the general acceptance of his ideas like? What do you think about him?[/quote]
I'm sure someone could selectively cherry-pick from just about anything to justify just about anything - but you still have yet to prove that Christian faith itself [i]causes[/i] mass murder. Of course an atheist that decided to commit mass murder wouldn't feel obligated to justify his actions with the Bible.

As I don't know what you are talking about with President Bush, you'll have to give me a specific quote and a source. And general acceptance of whose ideas? Bush's? What ideas?
The war in Afghanistan isn't a religious war (except in as far as it involves fighting Islamic radicals who had attacked the US). I know many Christians (including the Pope and many bishops) who were/are strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and there are also outspoken atheists (such as Christopher Hitchens) and non-Christians who strongly support(ed) the war on terror. I don't see the war as being a Christian vs. atheist issue.


[quote]Prove that it is indeed objective and comes from a true source before you dismiss other frameworks as subjective.

Morality is a complicated subject, but that doesn't mean that most people who see themselves as wanting to do good and reasonable don't have a good moral framework, even if they differ from person to person. [/quote]
If there is no objective morality, then [i]all[/i] moral frameworks are by definition subjective.

There's no reason for me to accept yours over mine.

[quote]
That's not actually what I meant by when I said that our morality is hardwired and explained by evolution of social animals. It says nothing about what we see as moral (and certainly not objectively) but rather that the capacity to be moral (have empathy, be selfless, altruistic) have evolutionary explanations for their origins. I'm certainly not saying that that gives people a free pass to act like wild animals with only their small family tribes to look out for.

Primitive small tribes of humans act like a raiding group of male chimps who raid other groups sometimes randomly and unprovoked. Cannibalism also happened in human history (just so you know cannibals, native south American at least, believed that they are internalizing the characteristics of the person they ate...it was desirable to them.)[/quote]
Exactly, a certain behavior being common in either human beings or non-human animals says nothing about whether or not it is moral.

Morality is not about what people do, but what they [i]ought[/i] to do.

[quote]The good thing about change is that it can change for the better. What was the Church's position on slavery? Is it true that they said that black people didn't have actual human souls and so could be enslaved?[/quote]
No, that is not true.

The Church in fact condemned the slave trade multiple times, and certainly never taught that black people do not have human souls.

Good article on the Church and slavery here: [url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9907fea2.asp"]"Let My People Go: The Catholic Church and Slavery"[/url]

In the bull [i]Sublimus Dei[/i] Pope Paul III condemned the enslavement of American Indians and blacks, calling slavers "allies of the Devil." An excerpt[quote]:...The exalted God loved the human race so much that He created man in such a condition that he was not only a sharer in good as are other creatures, but also that he would be able to reach and see face to face the inaccessible and invisible Supreme Good... Seeing this and envying it, the enemy of the human race, who always opposes all good men so that the race may perish, has thought up a way, unheard of before now, by which he might impede the saving word of God from being preached to the nations. He (Satan) has stirred up some of his allies who, desiring to satisfy their own avarice, are presuming to assert far and wide that the Indians...be reduced to our service like brute animals, under the pretext that they are lacking the Catholic faith. And they reduce them to slavery, treating them with afflictions they would scarcely use with brute animals... by our Apostolic Authority decree and declare by these present letters that the same Indians and all other peoples - even though they are outside the faith - ...should not be deprived of their liberty... Rather they are to be able to use and enjoy this liberty and this ownership of property freely and licitly, and are not to be reduced to slavery...[/quote]



[quote]I don't base my moral framework on society, I base it on what I think is right.[/quote]

Problem is everyone has their own idea of what is right.

Morality has to be based on more than subjective individual opinion to be meaningful.

[quote]Probably.



Yes, I can't claim a divine power and the creator of the universe to back me up. I know that makes my side look just a little weak. especially when competing with so many other groups that do.[/quote]
Okay.

Edited June 8, 2011 by Socrates

[Socrates]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1307492370' post='2251074']
Okay, speaking for myself, I publicly acknowledge that there are many Christians that do a great deal of good in the world. The good side of Christianity shows in those cases. I also assume that you are against the criminalization of homosexuality in countries such as Uganda, even if you think it's immoral, and with your scriptures which say that they should be killed (a simple yes/no answer should suffice if you're tired of the topic).[/quote]
Yes, I'm against the stoning of people. Following the words of Christ regarding those about to stone the woman caught in adultery: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." (None of us are without sin.)

Again, you need to actually read "our" Scriptures before you start condemning them. Christians obey the New Law, and follow the example of Christ himself here.




[quote]I'm using parallels in nature to to show that they exist in nature, and are not a unique product of humans. Though not supporting a case on its own (since just because animals do something then it's okay for humans), that fi lt er s out a lot of bad arguments. [/quote]
Maybe try sticking to what I've actually argued.



[quote]Okay, just for the record, I think it isn't wrong, but I'll stop there.




Just to let you know, there are certain groups in Africa who believe that the cure for AIDS is to have sex with a virgen. Children suffer because of this.

Some desperate people will listen to people who offer hope, such as witch doctors, not priests.[/quote]
And none of that has anything to do with the Christian Faith - which strongly opposes witchcraft and other such practices.

[stevil]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1307553176' post='2251298']
Outside your personal opinion, that's Agnosticism. You are not an atheist. An Agnostic doesn't know and doesn't believe.
[/quote]
You hang on very strongly to your own perceptions
Can you please provide some links to the source of your definition of the words

[stevil]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1307540898' post='2251232']
I don't believe you're being logical at all. But since you are a angotic atheist such a illogical conclusion is understandable [/quote]

So by your logic all people in the distant past that thought the world was flat actually had a mental disorder?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1307556544' post='2251330']
How exactly do you define "public" and "private" life?

You still have yet to explain just how exactly Christians are infringing on your rights.

And you claim that Christian beliefs are "affecting how you see you should live your life and your ideals of right and wrong"? Interesting.

Of course this begs the question, if you are so afraid of Christian beliefs influencing your moral thought, then why are you spending so much time on an explicitly Christian Catholic website?[/quote]

I can't do that without sounding like a whiny persecuted self made victim (which I don't like). Some of religious ideals go against my ideals and are in the public sphere, meaning that they influence political decision that in turn influence every private individual or at risk of doing do. The interference of religious doctrine (even if not yours specifically, but still Christian) in education which is a step backwards. The interference in scientific research too. Though ethics is necessary, sometimes they just don't seem right. The treatment of homosexuals and denying them rights which I feel do not infringe on the rights of others. It makes no moral sense, unless intrinsically wrong, which I and many others don't feel to be the case though the Church disagrees (I see it as mere opinion). I think that in a few years those rights will be achieved, though and society will change to accommodate them.

I think the greatest wrong is the propagation of ignorance, though not exclusive to religious groups.

If something that any religious group says about morality seems reasonable to me, I have no problem accepting it. I won't dismiss something I see to be a truth, or wisdom because it comes from a religious source. I just don't accept the whole bulk and certainly don't think that they come from an objective source.

[quote]I'm sure someone could selectively cherry-pick from just about anything to justify just about anything - but you still have yet to prove that Christian faith itself [i]causes[/i] mass murder. Of course an atheist that decided to commit mass murder wouldn't feel obligated to justify his actions with the Bible.[/quote]

It's not the faith that leads people to murder, but people do use it as a justification (in my personal experience, in smaller scales. I've yet to come across someone who used it to justify killing someone without sounding crazy). It's more a question of numbers, if there are way many more people using the bible to justify what they do, then the bible is going to be more noticed as a source of justifying bad behaviour and so will spend more time under the spotlight of criticism, whether the religious like it or not.

[quote]As I don't know what you are talking about with President Bush, you'll have to give me a specific quote and a source. And general acceptance of whose ideas? Bush's? What ideas?
The war in Afghanistan isn't a religious war (except in as far as it involves fighting Islamic radicals who had attacked the US). I know many Christians (including the Pope and many bishops) who were/are strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and there are also outspoken atheists (such as Christopher Hitchens) and non-Christians who strongly support(ed) the war on terror. I don't see the war as being a Christian vs. atheist issue.[/quote]

You know what, never mind. I see this as another dead horse on the horizon.

[quote]If there is no objective morality, then [i]all[/i] moral frameworks are by definition subjective.

There's no reason for me to accept yours over mine.[/quote]

That's your right. But do you understand why I see yours as subjective too?


[quote]No, that is not true.

The Church in fact condemned the slave trade multiple times, and certainly never taught that black people do not have human souls.

Good article on the Church and slavery here: [url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9907fea2.asp"]"Let My People Go: The Catholic Church and Slavery"[/url]

In the bull [i]Sublimus Dei[/i] Pope Paul III condemned the enslavement of American Indians and blacks, calling slavers "allies of the Devil." An excerpt[/quote]

After a quick read it's interesting to note that within the Church the ones who actually wanted the abolition of slavery were non conforming believers. The Church spoke against the slave trade, but there's no reference to them actually wanting to abolish it in that period. Some Popes even had their slaves.

Is objective morality unchanging?


[quote]Problem is everyone has their own idea of what is right.

Morality has to be based on more than subjective individual opinion to be meaningful.[/quote]

Yes, because without more than an individual morality is meaningless. What would be the point of telling someone who has no contact and never comes into contact with another person that killing is wrong? Also, this person has had no upbringing in a cultural context which taught him that killing is wrong.

Supposing this person did come into contact with another, what reasons might he find to not kill? Or to kill?

I think it's a social construct. It's more complicated to pin down what some of the premises are and how much is nature/nurture.

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1307557297' post='2251335']
And none of that has anything to do with the Christian Faith - which strongly opposes witchcraft and other such practices.
[/quote]

I take the consequentialist approach to this. In the context of banning condom use, Christianity is not making things any better in Africa. In fact, it may be responsible for future colapse.

Edited June 8, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1307554294' post='2251310']
Where did I say that true atheism is purely negative? All atheism is, is a lack of belief in god.
[/quote]

The way you rejected and objected to the idea that the Communists of Atheists lead me to believe that was your argument. Atheism is a rejection of God, it is not only a lack of belief but belief that no God exist. Once there is doubt in that disbelief of God's nonexistence and there is also doubt in belief in God's existence it's rightly called Agnosticism. Agnostic Atheist is a contradictory term. It is saying that something is not, but maybe what is not is. Atheism is a definite belief or logical reasoning that there is no such thing as God or gods. Agnosticism is not knowing for sure either way.

Edited June 8, 2011 by KnightofChrist

[xSilverPhinx]

Double post

Edited June 8, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[KnightofChrist]

In any event to define oneself as [i]Agnostic Atheist[/i] is to say quite clearly they doubt atheism. Which leads me to believe I was correct in my belief you and other [i]Agnostic Atheists[/i] are here and seek the company of Christians and question them about God because you either doubt atheism and need validation, or doubt atheism because you long for Truth and God.

[Mr.Cat]

Maybe religious confront atheists because their unsure of their beliefs and need reaffirmation.

Atheism is about a lack of belief in regards to theism. Agnosticism is about a lack of knowledge in regards to theism. Agnosticism can involve skepticism and doubt, but but it does not somehow invalidate atheism, since its the difference between knowledge and belief. By saying agnostic atheist, one is simply saying they lack knowledge and belief.

Edited June 8, 2011 by Mr.CatholicCat

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1307560562' post='2251363']
The way you rejected and objected to the idea that the Communists of Atheists lead me to believe that was your argument. Atheism is a rejection of God, it is not only a lack of belief but belief that no God exist. Once there is doubt in that disbelief of God and there is also doubt in belief in God it's rightly called Agnosticism. Agnostic Atheist is a contradictory term. It is saying that something is not, but maybe what is not is. Atheism is a definite belief or logical reasoning that there is no such thing as God or gods. Agnosticism is not knowing for sure either way.
[/quote]

I think that the Communists removed religion from the public sphere of influence so that they could implement themselves in its place, and so was atheistic (had to be, in order to be perfectly compatible). Totalitarian dictatorships (cult of personalities) would have to compete with other authorities such as the Pope in the case of Catholicism and the Patriarch in the case of the Orthodox Church. It makes perfect sense to me.

Atheism doesn't give people ideologies, it's just a word to describe a person who holds ideologies and beliefs about the world that do not include god. I live my life as if there were no god, which is why I'm an atheist. If I truly believed, then that would affect my life somehow.

Based on my knowledge I can't reject any version of god, since I'm agnostic, but doesn't mean that I believe or have doubts about any of them.

[quote]In any event to define oneself as [i]Agnostic Atheist[/i] is to say quite clearly they doubt atheism. Which leads me to believe I was correct in my belief you and other [i]Agnostic Atheists[/i] are here and seek the company of Christians and question them about God because you either doubt atheism and need validation, or doubt atheism because you long for Truth and God.[/quote]

I'm looking for knowedge and understanding. If I don't believe that knowedge on god is attainable, then I'm not here because I'm looking for that sort of truth.

I'm also here to clear up misconceptions on athiesm and athiests, as much as I can. I think that such conversations can be productive in the long run.

Edited June 8, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[stevil]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1307560825' post='2251365']
In any event to define oneself as [i]Agnostic Atheist[/i] is to say quite clearly they doubt atheism. Which leads me to believe I was correct in my belief you and other [i]Agnostic Atheists[/i] are here and seek the company of Christians and question them about God because you either doubt atheism and need validation, or doubt atheism because you long for Truth and God.
[/quote]
You are very good at talking but listening seems to be somewhat of a challenge

[xSilverPhinx]

I subscribe to [url="http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-06-08/"]Skeptic Magazine's weekly newsletter[/url] and this was today's topic:



[b] A Skeptic Among the Cadavers [/b]
a book review by Stephen Beckner

[size=2] C[/size]onsidering that the human brain is tricked out for pattern recognition, it might be surprising that Joseph Vacher’s pattern of stabbing, raping, and mutilating French shepherds went unrecognized for so long. Between 1893 and 1897, Vacher stalked the French countryside, butchering at least eleven people with a predation that was said to surpass the “werewolf of legends.” Although his murder-fest riveted the public and stoked the Penny Dreadfuls of his time, today it is largely forgotten. But for those of us with more than a passing interest in the struggle between good science and bad science, Douglas Starr’s [url="http://thunder.lyris.net/t/4414851/6767004/4346/0/"][i]Killer of Little Shepherds[/i][/url] takes us into the trenches of a rousing, blood-flecked battle in that ongoing war, and reminds us that the stakes of the game have always been nothing less than life and death.

“Society has the criminals it deserves.”
—Alexandre Lacassagne

In Starr’s attentive hands, Vacher’s case is retold as a bellwether of the nascent field of forensic science. Like the Scopes trial a quarter of a century later, the prosecution of Vacher provided plenty of tabloid drama as rival ideologies sought to turn the accused into a poster child for their cause. Was Vacher insane? Is there such a thing as a born criminal? Is society ultimately responsible for its wayward souls?

All of this held me enthralled for a particular reason. I’ve been nursing a hypothesis about the nature of evil for years. The idea is straightforward: evil doesn’t exist. There are only behaviors with good or bad consequences, and even those are highly subjective—bad for whom? Evil is what we invoke when we don’t understand something that has particularly nasty consequences. Mostly, criminals are motivated by standard-issue desires and aspirations; they’re just willing to overlook a rule or two to achieve them. But when bad behavior falls outside the parameters of normal self-interest, when the motivation escapes even our wildest projections, we retreat to that stand-in for everything and nothing—evil.

[url="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307266192/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217153&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0307266192"][img]http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/2011/images/11-06-08/the-killer-of-little-shepherds-cover.jpg[/img][/url] [url="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307266192/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217153&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0307266192"]Order the book from Amazon[/url]

Vacher is such a case. “Evil incarnate” is one of the clichés that springs to mind when stories like Vacher’s are recounted, but as Starr’s book suggests, such moral epithets have hindered the advancement of criminology. If you want to learn what makes bad guys/gals tick, there are better ways than calling them names. But you might have to dig around in a corpse or two to get some answers.


[b] The Pattern [/b]
If Joseph Vacher ever had a shot at a normal life, he blew it when he aimed a gun at his own head and pulled the trigger—twice—after attempting the same with Louise Barant, the pretty young object of his unrequited [i]amour fou[/i]. Vacher’s wounds left his face disfigured, and a bullet permanently camped out behind one ear. Curiously, after regaining his strength he was remanded, not to prison to await trial as one might expect, but to an asylum. More curious still, his history of violence failed to make the journey with him, and within a few months his doctors pronounced him cured and released him—though “unleashed him” might be the more appropriate phrase.

Over the next few months, a pattern began to emerge, one that would eventually be repeated throughout France: a lone boy or girl near the edge of a forest or guarding livestock in an isolated pasture was approached from behind. Choked. Throat cut. Dragged away. Skirts hiked. Trousers ankled. Defiled. Mutilated. Body hidden. And almost always, another pattern in its wake: villagers angry, authorities dumbfounded, mobs formed, local scapegoats accused and vilified, the real killer never found. In four years, Vacher had dotted the map of France with his bucolic horrors. And those dots were itching to be connected.


[b] The Scientists [/b]
Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne was a collector. He collected the skulls and tattoos of criminals from all around France. He recorded blood spatter from crime scenes and collected them in his highly regarded [i]Archives of Criminal Anthropology[/i]. He was always looking for patterns in those collections. A pioneer in crime-scene analysis, Lacassagne developed techniques to match bullets to guns and determine time of death. He standardized autopsy procedures across France. His interests took him beyond the crimes themselves, and into criminal culture. He spent hours interviewing noted criminals, and convinced many to write confessional autobiographies for scientific study. His postmortems were literally attempts to get into the heads of criminals. His was a career devoted to understanding why some people break bad. And it’s here, on the subject of the breaking bad that Starr’s book takes flight, because the real drama of the story comes from the battle between Lacassagne and the superstitions posing as science in the field of criminology at the time.

Broadly speaking, theories of criminogenesis can be said to have moved from the notion of crime as sin toward the notion of crime as disease. Early societies believed that the forces of evil, such as demonic possession, gave rise to criminal behavior. Judeo-Christian traditions hold that since God is the source of morality, sin—in the form of crime—must have satanic origins.

These ideas were little more than superstitions, but they went largely unchallenged until the mid 17th century, when social philosophers began to think of the criminal in a social context. To men like Jeremy Bentham, man was a rational, calculating being, constantly weighing the utility of one potential action against another. Only when the negative consequences of criminal behavior outweigh the benefits do human beings opt for the straight and narrow. But this description seemed insufficient for fiends like Vacher. By what standard could his gory enterprise be interpreted as rational?

Cesare Lombroso did not trouble himself with such questions. According to the Italian criminologist, some people were born criminals. These “atavistic” creatures were a genetic throwback, a subspecies of human beings that could be identified by certain physical “stigmata,” such as a jutting jaw, a broad flat skull cap, asymmetry, long arms, and sloping shoulders. By the 1890s Lombroso’s “Italian School” of criminal anthropology had gained worldwide acceptance. Lacassagne bitterly opposed Lombroso’s conclusion that biology was destiny. He insisted that environment played a critical role in determining criminal behavior. The criminal was a “germ” that could only thrive in the “broth” of society. Between Lacassagne and Lombroso, the stage was set for perhaps the earliest skirmish in the modern nature/nurture debate.


[b] The Mind of a Murderer [/b]
Starr dedicates a good portion of his book to Vacher’s trial. Shortly after his arrest, Vacher claimed insanity and began a surprisingly clever campaign for another, hopefully short, stay in an asylum. He would be the first serial killer to claim no legal responsibility for his crimes. This is what worried Lacassagne. At that time, there were no prisons for the insane, and asylums were not set up to contain dangerous criminals.

The key point of inquiry during the proceedings was Vacher’s state of mind. Vacher blamed everything but himself; a rabid dog once bit him, he had a bullet in his head, his doctors never should have let him out of the asylum. Lacassagne found himself torn between his conviction that society has the criminals it deserves, and his obligations as a public official to serve what he said was society’s “right to defend itself.” He knew that Vacher could not be allowed back into society, but if he truly believed that society was partly responsible for criminals like Vacher, how could he then argue for his death? He needed another option, and he found it in the relatively new field of psychology. Taking the stand, he claimed that Vacher suffered from Sadistic Personality Disorder. No, he was not insane, Lacassagne explained, merely unable to separate his anger from his sexual urges. Crucially, the “systematic nature” of the crimes demonstrated to Lacassagne that reasoning was involved. It was the pattern of the crimes that proved Vacher’s responsibility, a pattern that, as far as Lacassagne was concerned, should end with Vacher’s neck in a guillotine.

Criminologists debated Vacher’s sanity long after his death. But in the days when so little was known about the workings of the mind, what did the term insanity really mean? I would argue that it amounted to a secularized version of evil, another shelf to hide away the things we do not understand. With his testimony, Lacassagne gave the judge a way to understand the mind of Vacher. Before his [i]guillotinage[/i], competing ideological camps staked out claims on Vacher’s brain for dissection. Vacher even cut a deal attempting to prevent Lacassagne from any postmortem access, but in the end everyone with a dog in the hunt got their piece of Vacher. Nothing was ever found to establish a biological cause for the killer’s urges.


[b] Of Science and Moral Prejudice [/b]
[indent] But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers.

[/indent] That could be Cesare Lombroso talking about Vacher. It’s actually Sherlock Holmes on the subject of Professor Moriarty. The quote reflects the popular appeal of Lombroso’s ideas at that time. But Lombroso was wrong. There is no reliable link between physiognomy and criminality, or between criminality and heredity. By all accounts, there was more confirmation bias in Lombroso’s methods than there were Spiritualists on the guest lists for dinner at the Conan-Doyle’s, but then as now, logic is no match for an idea that’s really dialed- in to our fears and prejudices.

Starr, a veteran science reporter, is almost painfully generous with Lombroso, however, insisting that he was sincerely trying to understand criminality in the context of the then new science of evolution. A less kind, but possibly more accurate antecedent to Lombroso’s theories is phrenology. Why Starr relegates it to a footnote isn’t clear, but the omission is unfortunate. If evolution is the father of criminal anthropology, then phrenology is its midwife. It’s also a missed opportunity to explore how even terrible science can sometimes be useful as a stepping-stone to better science. Both Lombroso and Lacassagne accepted, and then eventually rejected phrenology, each taking a piece of it into their own theories.

To my way of thinking, the anthropological otherness Lombroso ascribes to the criminal type is the successor of that age-old notion of evil, now decked out in the authoritative language of science. This tendency persists today. Even the psychiatrist M. Scott Peck—whose book [url="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684848597/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=skepticcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217153&creative=399349&creativeASIN=0684848597"][i]People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil[/i][/url] attempted to methodically break down the “evil person” into its working parts—struggled to describe evil outside the framework of Christian sin. I would like to think that the work of researchers such as Stanley Milgram (of shock experiment fame) and Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford prison experiment fame) would have slammed the door on our superstitions and prejudices about lawless behavior—showing as they did how easy it is to get ordinary people to commit extraordinary acts of “evil” just by obedience to authority and other social psychological factors—but even now scientists busily scan the amygdales of prisoners for the ultimate mark of the beast, and Lombroso’s totemic “born criminal” remains a chart-topper in the popular imagination.

Starr does more than dabble with these complex ideas, but he never lets you forget that this is a book about forensics. Covering the territory between Grand Guignol and CSI, Starr lingers on the forensic details of the story, and no detail is too gruesome. The reader’s morbid curiosity will be amply satisfied with such delicacies as the discovery of a signature progression of voracious insect varieties that tag-team a corpse and date the death by their specific presence (a warning: blowflies are at the top of that food chain); or the art of autopsy before the age of refrigeration, when doctors made pinpricks in cadavers and lit them in order to burn off the gases of putrefaction.

Although the Lacassagne School of criminality had its moment in the spotlight, it was eventually overshadowed by broader theories of social determinism popular in the early 20th century. Lacassagne’s contributions to forensics have enjoyed a more lasting influence, and above all, Starr makes a convincing case that Lacassagne should be regarded as the father of modern forensic science. Our forensic toolbox may have more bells and whistles than before, but forensic methodology is fundamentally unchanged since Lacassagne’s day. So the next time you’re looking for clues at the scene of a crime, don’t think Holmes or Poirot, think Alexandre Lacassagne.








Just thought it was interesting.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1307561277' post='2251372']
You are very good at talking but listening seems to be somewhat of a challenge
[/quote]

I don't deny the possibility that you and Silver are here just for knowledge. I just have doubts about that claim, based on level of atheists coming to Christian boards. Sometimes we gain knowledge just to gain it other times however we want to know more about a subject either to validate our disbelief in that subject or to learn more about it because we believe it could be true. and we are drawn to that truth. Anyway I believe it would be an act subconscious.

In any event labeling one's self as an "Agnostic Atheist" is proof there is in fact doubt of the doubt of God. Still it is a contradictory term again It is saying that something is not, but maybe what is not is.

Edited June 9, 2011 by KnightofChrist