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But all of this deception begs a deeper question. Why does such fraud occur?
This can be something of a touchy topic, with plenty of motives suggested. Some indicate that stress is a primary culprit behind unethical research behavior. But this does not account for the fact that most researchers--even those under severe stress--are not unethical. Lax supervision has also been suggested, but plenty of researchers are highly ethical whether the supervision is tight or lax.
To better understand the phenomenon of profoundly unethical behavior, I spent six careful years writing Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend. As I describe in the book, there is a raft of hard scientific evidence supporting the idea that a small but non-negligible percentage of everyday people--not just the Hitlers, Idi Amins, and out-and-out psychopaths--are innately of dubious morals.
Building on earlier research that showed a substantial genetic risk for psychopathy in 7-year-olds, researcher Essi Viding and her colleagues at King's College, London found evidence for a range of more subtle effects related to the genes involved in psychopathology. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg and other well-known researchers at NIH have expanded on earlier work by Avshalom Caspi related to the contribution of the X-linked MAOA gene to impulsive aggression. Researchers have also identified genetic links for sadism and narcissism, which can allow for easy justification of almost any amoral activity. Borderline personality disorder, which is often characterized by manipulative and deceitful behavior, has been found to have strong genetic components and is far more prevalent than had previously been thought.
Of course, some decent people without a strong biological push toward bad behavior can still be brought low by an abusive upbringing. Thus, one might think that simply eliminating the abusive upbringing would solve the problem for everyone--but that's not necessarily so. If a person possesses a profound biological predisposition for nastiness, an overly-permissive environment can allow self-esteem to flower, maturing the individual into a full-blown manipulator.
In any case, there appears to be a small percentage of people who are naturally untrustworthy, irrespective of upbringing, culture, religious background (or lack thereof), or education. Innately dubious morals are something we all sense intuitively, or learn about through the hard knocks of life, although psychology and sociology have done their best to train people to think otherwise.
For example, the "science" behind Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison study, which blames social forces and what Zimbardo terms "the System" for the vast majority of malevolent and amoral behavior, is still taught in high schools and universities nationwide. Zimbardo's study, like many such studies in the social sciences, has been shown to contain fundamental problems, including an unorthodox interpretation of the Mach IV test for Machiavellian behavior and a complete disavowal by the ex-convict who attempted to help Zimbardo design the study. The pervasiveness of Zimbardo's promotional efforts regarding his study, which was never published in a peer-reviewed journal, has made it difficult for people to accept sound scientific findings related to people's character and to form coherent theories that actually address the root of unethical behavior.
If a child or adult shows evidence of conduct disorder, our immediate reaction is an old-fashioned, knee-jerk: "What did those parents do to the child?" This resembles the attitude fifty years ago regarding conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, which were blamed on "cold parenting." But the parents of ill-behaved kids may have done nothing at all to hurt the child, instead being at their wits' end trying to find help. Without acknowledgement of the biological as well as the environmental causes of amoral and unethical behavior, how can they possibly find that help? And how can we better understand how to prevent amoral and unethical behavior in the laboratory, the home, politics, business, religion, or society as a whole?
It's time to throw off the shackles of social psychology research with no basis in science, and be honest about the intertwined environmental and neurophysiological causes of unethical behavior. Without this, no real progress can be made.
Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend, by Barbara Oakley, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2008. 473 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59102-665-5. $18.98.
Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., P.E., FAIMBE, is an Associate Professor of Engineering at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. She is currently working on an edited volume as well as a trade book on the neurological, evolutionary, and cultural aspects of pathological altruism.
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[Comment posted 2009-04-14 06:30:19]
While losing favor, the old distinction between normal, neurotic and psychotic emphasized a somewhat rude, but useful, distinction between those that had developed to within what society deemed an acceptable range of behavior, those that were toward the edges due to iherited "dispositions" or unfortunate circumstances, and those whose inherited factors pushed them to "unacceptable" extremes of behavior no matter what their developmental circumstances. It should be realized in the first case that "normal" is relative to the society at hand (warrior cultures valued and rewarded entirely different behaviors than more passive ones etc). The second general category, while outside the norms, was generally amenible to restraint or "correction" to within acceptable norms given the "proper" treatment which occurs often enough to know it's possible but not often or consistently enough to bring all "into" line. The third, variously known as "organic-based" disfunctionals were the neurological dispostions that the best of our modern methods have been able to only partially rehabilitate by supressing the "demons" that resurface without continuous chemo-suppression. Additionally, certain major disfuctions may be caused by just one or a few gene abnormalities while others may require a substantial contellation of such and, until those causative factors are teased out, there will continue to be misjudgments regarding genetic bases.
That said, we seem to be discussing the second group here - the neurotics who behave "badly", either by genetic predisposition, inadequate nutrition, or learned adaptations to "sick and insane" environments that they were so unlucky to fall into by birth or subsequent happening (ref. James Agee... "As a whole part of psychological education, it needs to be remembered that adaptation to a sick and insane environment is itself not health, but sickness and insanity,"). Two prevailing myths are that the latter - adaptation to an unfavorable environment - since learned, can be "unlearned" as easily and that the former - inherited genetic predispositions - are either beyond correction or are justification for unacceptable behavior. Regarding the former, overwhelming evidence from both non-human and human studies shows that the first things learned are the best learned and the most resistant to extinction, "forgetting", or change. That should give pause to those who assume that only the environment need be changed for acquired bad habits and values to change - apparent exceptions to the rule notwithstanding. It takes concerted consistent effort. Regarding the latter, children with such innate predispositions born to parents unaware of such possibilities, too distracted to notice, or expecting "normal" behavior, often aggravate the situation with their inappropriate "corrective" actions.
[Comment posted 2009-04-14 03:49:23]
I was recently re-reading Marco Polo?s travels; he had difficulty in understanding why the crusades so venerated by Christians were considered to be the black ages by Muslims. Much of colonialism is incomprehensible to us now as a way of life. Whitehead wrote that it took the Civil war since the Greeks for the West realize that slavery and freedom cannot coexist. Eugenics was considered a good thing till Hitler came along. Then there was the argument that Hitler was never forgiven by the West for not what he has done but that he has done so at home what the West reserved only for their colonies. Dangerous ideas?ill considered and prematurely spoken. Even Machiavelli horrified the West by speaking the truth of statecraft?it is alright to do things, but we do not speak about them. There was an Indian version predating Machiavelli by several centuries by a man know as Chanukya. The societal reaction was and is of admiration for the clarity and not denouncement based on hypocrisy!
I was in a meeting where people were discussing altruism and some one argued that the since the pious monks were celibate, altruism got weeded out resulting in Nazism. The argument was shot on the premise that even if the monks were celibate, it is likely that their parents were not!
I can already visualize insurance companies calculating whether something could be made out of this similar to tobacco or blood pressure genes! Then the question will come with those with evil genes could be school teachers or even parents. Eugenics all over again.
Yes, this is supposed to be scientific. ?Scientific? does not mean head counts and correlations. There is supposed to be a thread of mechanism that weaves the phenomenology of things which are really things (of substance) and not creatures of imagination and linguistic parallels. One should not forget that it s precisely the appeal of self-evidence in the arguments that has been the basis of popularity for scientists and Nazis alike. One can never be too careful.
While passing judgements also, one should be judicious. Understanding (once), science (now) are time honoured garbs under which we make judgements. There was more blood shed in the name of religion than any other reason. The Old Testament religions take a Lion?s share. Can we place blame based on numbers?
[Comment posted 2009-04-13 08:16:35]
Tom Thunnell
[Comment posted 2009-04-12 17:55:49]
People are not like this. We choose to be happy or miserable. Some people are given a decent upbringing and decent genetics, and then choose to be either happy or miserable.
Some people are never given an environment or the mind that enables them to choose whether to be happy or miserable.
Some people never choose, and are constantly at the whims of (mis)fortune.
The only thing studies into genetics and environment will show us is how to give people the choice. That is valuable. Even theoretically, no "perfect recipe for humans" exists.
[Comment posted 2009-04-11 19:18:32]
Being a scientist in the behavioral field, I believe I know why most scientists are perfectly honest in their scientific work. For most of them, the experience of having cracked a difficult scientific problem, the discovery of important novelty, the moment of "Eureka", provides the greatest sense of elation they can ever imagine experiencing. All they naturally desire is to achieve that sensation again, and again. And they could not even consider cheating, which is the complete antithesis to ever achieving that elation.
I have never been tempted. I can, however, imagine an excellent, fully consienscious scientist, who becomes convinced he is on the very verge of making a new and very important scientific discovery, but does not have the funds needed to pursue his research, being tempted to cheat, just in an attempt to obtain the necessary funds.
I can also imagine that what causes the deepest, utmost sense of elation to a scientist, might not impress persons who lack scientific training, but find the deepest sense of elation & fulfillment, in very different types of experience, like saving a human life, raising children, being the first person to reach the summit of mount Everest, or land on the moon, or what have you, including being the greatest Casanova, or cheat on earth!
I am well aware that I have dealt here with only a very few, limited kind of people. I have not even mentioned the poor Senegalese pirates, who are probably convinced that justice is done when they extract ransom from citizens of rich countries, as well as many others, who are motivated by very different causes.
[Comment posted 2009-04-11 11:51:55]
[Comment posted 2009-04-10 17:26:07]
All Good, "If" I limited all the possible actions, interactions and reactions of my environment and have something to keep my brain stimulated ( like folding protein via www.fold.it ) I can actually do many more positive things for our society, than worry about who's(someone who doesn't know me) going to throw into my world something they "believe" is moral and or neutral to everyone/thing around us and include me in it without asking me or giving the full picture. Something always ends up Positive, Negative or Neutral from every experience... some take, some give and some share... (MOST TAKE)
I don't suffer the social delusions many others do, but while I have to try and embrace it with an open mind, our Own Institutions are teaching selfish material corruption, plus the dictatorship and slavery of those citizens who are not of an eliteist makeup(genetically smart), or oldboy back patters and those who can never rise above the crowns police state or hierarchy set by "people" in their self dictated positions, who cannot or are not able to share anything because of those DELUSIONS set in their minds, by the above mentioned "states", then we are told it's CULTURE and accepting it will keep you in good health and spirits... So yea, i'll "fight" you and anyone who "believes" their selfrightious ideology IS the only way forward for mankind and universal harmony.
I don't know one Person i've met in the last 10 years whom actually knows what their true ROLE in our society is. Gender or Otherwise; and how that effects the international peace, planet and so on.
Their is a big Gap in our social education and belief support system.
Science is the way forward, objective facts, not subjective beliefs.
Who's going to stand up and make it possible to live in the real world > ?
[Comment posted 2009-04-10 16:16:43]
Like aggression, schizophrenia and autism, these traits have value to the species. How could we have benefited from Vasco de Gama's shattering horrors otherwise? How else could the Stalin's USSR have defeated the Nazi war machine?
I think the evolutionary positive selection for such traits must be discussed openly also. We are all collectively teetering on the brink of ruin due to the criminal acts of a horde of such people who ate the guts out of our banking system.
[Comment posted 2009-04-10 14:32:07]
Because, invariably, there is always a single family member or two that seemed to break the mold.
BUT, speaking about psychiatric conditions, I can say from experience that people with these issues tend to gravitate to each other and in doing so, pretty much seal their (future, yet unborn) childs fate (if they reproduce).
While I also think these predispositions can be overcomed as well, sometimes childhood happeneings/abuse and parents with mental disorders (and genes) cannot be ignored.
I have many family members who have BPD and Bipolar and I did not know this until AFTER I was diagnosed. Since then there have been many family members on both sides that I found out had one psychiatric disorder or another.
It seems as though my disorder manifested itself after a series of a very traumatic experiences.
But not ALL family members are affected, so the genes do not seem to hit everyone in the same family (as we already know everyones genes are not the same).
So pretty much it's a roll of the dice, but we must be careful to use this sort of thing as an excuse for bad behavior.
People need to take responsibility for their actions regardless of their genes or upbringing.
[Comment posted 2009-04-10 13:20:34]
Zimbardo at least did an experiment. Fortunately or unfortunately, the subsequent development of robust standards of research ethics preclude anyone from repeating it, or doing a better one.
(Nice book-jacket copy, though.)