How to Make a Terrorist Talk

Americans have for centuries been willing to sacrifice our comforts and even our lives for our principles and morals. We believe that freedom, dignity, and human rights are important enough to fight for, and even to die for.

One of the greatest embarrassments of my lifetime is that my country used torture in the name of freedom and safety for Americans. The men (and a few women) who carried this out believed that possibly saving American lives was more important than saving America itself. For what is America, if we've forgotten our principles? Being an American means being willing to take risks and make sacrifices to protect our principles. These torturers are not true American patriots – they're nothing more than cowards who have turned tail at the first sign of danger. Only they're not running from battle, they're running from what it means to be an American.

That's why I was so moved by How to Make a Terrorist Talk in Time Magazine. Normally I write about topics related to religion, irrationality, atheism and related topics, but today I was so impressed by in Time magazine I had to share it.

It turns out that not only is torture un-American, it's also ineffective. Some of the strongest, and now most respected, critics of torture are the CIA and FBI's senior interrogators, the very men who have gotten real, useful information without resorting to torture. The Time article quotes Eric Maddox:

"There is nothing intelligent about torture. If you have to inflict pain, then you've lost control of the situation, the subject and yourself."

And Maddox should know: he is the Army staff sergeant whose interrogations led to the capture of Saddam Hussein himself.

According to the Time article, and many other articles I've read, torture has not led to one documented case of preventing a terrorist attack, whereas traditional interrogation, which employs psychology, not cruelty, has resulted in many, many critical pieces of intelligence that led to the capture of terrorists. It may be that torture worked in a few cases that are still classified; maybe we'll know some day.

But at what price? The use of torture has weakened America itself. We're reviled around the world, and we've lost the very principles that make us Americans. It will take a long time to get that back.

Is Evolution only for Smart People?

To Evolutionists, the tenacity of Creationism is baffling: Why do people continue to believe ideas that are thousands of years old, at best unsupported by any facts, and at worst plainly wrong? And as a corollary, why is education (especially in science) inversely correlated with religious beliefs?

Is it possible that only smart people can understand evolution? Is the problem simply that Evolution Science is too complex, too intricate, for a person with an average education to understand? (This is one of those unpleasant questions that you may secretly wonder about, but not want say out loud, for fear of being labeled an elitist.)

Happily, the answer is "No!" And the insight that shows why, ironically, comes from evolution itself: Memetic evolution.

Religion is a highly-evolved memeplex, one that is perfectly tuned to the human psyche. Religion memes appeal to our deepest emotions: fear (hell), hope (heaven and the afterlife), egotism and xenophobia (we're special in God's eyes), and our desire for love (God/Jesus the father). The religion memeplex has been evolving for many thousands of years; at any particular point in history, dozens and hundreds of religions, each with uncountable minor "mutations" (different opinions, interpretations, and misunderstandings) have been competing for survival. The ones that survived are the best of the best.

By contrast, we evolutionists are just children, babes in the woods, compared to our Creationist counterparts. Darwin's ideas, and the memeplex we call the "Theory of Evolution," have only been around for 150 years, a mere eyeblink compared to religion.

And worse, the Evolution Science memeplex evolved in a scientific ecosphere. The memeplex that we call the "Theory of Evolution" spread because it appealed to scientists, who are trained in logical, deductive thinking. Scientists are trained to ignore their emotions, and only accept theories that are based on observable facts and logical deductions from those facts.

Unfortunately, human emotions are far more powerful and persuasive than human logic.

A polar bear is well suited to the Arctic, and a camel to the desert; neither can travel to the other's part of the world and live for long. Each is adapted to the ecology in which its species evolved. If the Evolution Science memeplex is going to spread outside of its evolutionary niche, it too will have to evolve, to be better suited to the needs of non scientists. It will have to develop memes that appeal to human emotions and desires, rather than merely to logic.

To those of us who study culture and history from a Darwinistic perspective, that is, using memes, there is no mystery at all. The answer to our question – Is evolution only for smart people? – is in the memes. It's not evolution itself that is only for smart people, it's just the current memeplex, the one that evolved in an "ecosphere of smart people."

If the Evolution Memeplex is ever going to truly competative with Creationism, it has to evolve.

Tags: evolution memes memeplex darwin science intelligence religion ecosphere ideosphere science scientists