All language subtitles for Through the Wormhole s03e07 Can We Eliminate Evil.eng

Freeman: From the dawn
of recorded history

to the present day,

humankind has struggled
with its darker nature.

We know that psychopaths
can torture and kill

without remorse,

but what compels
seemingly normal people

to commit acts of cruelty
and violence?

Today, researchers are
uncovering the hidden forces

that inflame our inner demons,

looking for ways to neutralize
our deadliest urges

and change human nature.

Can we eliminate evil?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

♪ Through the Wormhole 03x07 ♪
Can we eliminate evil? Original Air Date on July 18, 2012

== sync, corrected by elderman ==

Few people
consider themselves evil,

yet evil seems
an inescapable part of life.

The mystery is -- why?

For millennia,
we blamed the devil --

a creature of darkness that made
us do terrible things.

Today, most Christians believe
Satan is just a symbol.

Psychologists and brain
scientists have shown us

that the evil we fear
comes from within ourselves.

Will it always be there,

or can science find
its roots and destroy it?

When I was about 9 years old,
we moved back to Chicago.

Being new in the neighborhood,
I became the target of a bully.

One day,
I decided enough was enough.

But as I watched him
lying there on the ground,

I found I just couldn't savor
my unexpected victory.

I wondered,
what made this kid so mean?

Are some people just born bad?

[ Cracking ]
[ Grunts ]

Man: And cut!

So, what I need you to do
for the next one

is really curl out a bit more.

I need to see more pain
in there.

Freeman: In Amsterdam,

neuroscientist Christian Keysers

is looking for the source
of human cruelty.

Okay, so I really want to seem
as I'm fighting, where...

Freeman: Christian
investigates empathy --

our ability to identify
and respond

to what someone else
thinks or feels.

Okay, that was good.

To find out how empathy works
in our brains,

Christian makes short films
of painful acts

to screen for test subjects.

We need very controlled stimuli,

where we just see two or three
seconds of pain,

and we need to repeat many
of them,

which is why we need
to make them ourselves.

So our actors are typically our
graduate students and postdocs,

because they know
what they're doing

and they can take some pain.

Freeman: Christian screens
his torture films

in a theater
unlike any on earth.

Magnetic sensors
inside this fMRI machine

will peer deep
into this man's brain,

showing which areas are active
when he experiences empathy.

Okay, so I'll give you
this button box.

What I want you to do is,
each time,

to rate what you felt
in this particular trial.

First, Christian records what
happens in the subject's brain

when he sees someone else
in pain.

[ Cracking ]

Then he measures what happens

when the subject experiences
pain first-hand.

Now he compares the brain scans.

So, the emotional empathy
we've been studying here,

you would mainly see in parts
of your brain

that are not on the surface
of your brain,

but inside of the insula
that's a little bit deeper here,

and, really, in the midline
between your two hemispheres.

Okay, so what you're seeing here
is basically in red --

the brain activity that happened

while we were hitting
the subjects in the scanner.

And then here, you see two of
the emotional-brain regions.

They really add this feeling of
unpleasantness to what you feel.

So, they're telling you, kind
of, "Ouch, I don't like that."

And so what we're seeing here,
in the bottom,

the brain activity that happens

while the subject was watching
somebody else's pain.

All of these more emotional
areas get reactivated,

as if the subject had been
feeling pain himself.

Whenever you see the pain
of somebody else,

you will share it
inside of yourself.

The other person
becomes part of yourself.

The pain of others is not just
something you see out there.

It basically comes
inside of you,

and it becomes your pain,
as well.

Freeman: After screening
hundreds of people,

Christian believes
that empathy is hard-wired

into nearly all of our brains,

but it is not
distributed equally.

There is a curve of empathy.

Some people
are extremely empathetic,

others feel almost nothing.

Think of a romantic movie.

Most of us get caught up
in the emotions on screen.

But -- but why?

This has to be the end.

Goodbye.

[ Sobbing ]

Freeman: But for a few of us,
it plays like this.

[ Ship horn blares ]

People with low empathy
see and hear things differently

because their brains
work differently.

Information flows
through most brains

like boats move along the canals
of Amsterdam.

But in some brains,

that movement is impeded by
narrow, or blocked, channels.

So, if you imagine
that back there,

you would have
the visual-brain areas

that see what happens to others,

and down there, you would have
the emotional areas

that normally feel your pain.

And we think that what makes
the difference, basically,

between a very empathic person
and a less empathic person

is just the size of the canal

that brings the information from
the visual part of your brain

to the emotional part,

in which you will share the pain
of other people.

Freeman: And what of the
monsters of our nightmares --

the psychopathic killers who
look normal on the outside...

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

...but are twisted
on the inside?

It is often said that
psychopaths have no empathy,

and this lack of empathy
makes them evil.

They are able to torture
and kill

because they can't relate
to other people.

Christian disagrees.

Keysers: Well, I think the finding
that surprised us most

was actually the study
on psychopaths.

We went in there
with a simple idea

that evil people,
like psychopaths,

would just lack empathy,

and what we actually
saw in this study

is that what makes them evil
is more complex.

It's not that they lack
the capacity for empathy --

they just don't use it
spontaneously.

But if they want to,
because, for instance,

it serves the purpose

of fooling somebody into giving
them all their money,

then they're quite able
to empathize

and really get in
to people's minds.

[ Gong crashes ]

Freeman: So empathy
is not everything.

To keep from falling into evil,

we also need a moral system
to guide our behavior --

a code of conduct that helps us
fit in to society

and act in
a non-destructive way.

Scientists Karen Wynn and
Paul Bloom of Yale University

believe that moral code may be
written into us at birth.

That is a lot of duck
you're fitting in your mouth.

I've been studying babies now
for just a little over 20 years.

The more that I see of them,

the more complex they become.

There is a lot going on
in there,

and it's far more rich
and complex

of a mental life
than we had ever thought.

Bloom: By studying babies,

you get to see humans before
they're contaminated by culture,

by television, by a lot
of social interactions,

by sex and romance.

You get to see humans, in some
sense, in their purest form,

and you could ask,
"what's our natures?

"Are we kind? Are we cruel?

Are we morally intelligent?
Can we tell good from evil?"

And the work I'm doing here
with my colleague

suggests that very early on

there's some fundamental
moral sense --

some moral instinct
that's present in all of us.

Freeman: How do you pose
moral questions to a baby?

Karen devised a kind
of morality play

for babies to watch and judge.

We show babies
a little puppet show

in which this one puppet
is trying to open a box,

and he's trying and he's trying

and he just can't quite get it
on his own,

and another puppet comes along

and grabs the other side of the
box lid and helps him open it.

They then see the little puppet.

He's trying again
to open the box,

and a different puppet
comes along

and jumps on top of the box lid,
slams it shut.

Oh!

Wynn: And so our question
to the babies is,

"Babies, do you have
any different feelings

"towards these two characters --

"towards the one who helped,
in a nice fashion, open the box,

"and towards this other,
who just really, quite rudely,

"slams it down

and foils this guy's attempts
to get in to the box?"

Which one do you like?

And we find that, very reliably,

babies, even as young
as five and six months of age,

will reach towards and reach
for the helpful puppet.

That one!
[ Laughing ] Okay, good job!

Freeman: Layla has chosen
the good puppet.

Between 80% and 95%
of babies do.

Paul and Karen believe
that this is a sign

that babies are drawn
towards kindness

and away from
antisocial behavior.

But if most of us are born good,

why do some of us
turn out so bad?

Bloom: Well,
there's all sorts of ways

in which our sense of good
could get perverted.

If you're brought up
in a culture

which teaches you
to be dismissive of others,

which rewards selfishness,
which rewards bad behavior,

your sense of empathy
could be blunted.

So we have this built-in
morality, but it's fragile.

Freeman: Once we descend
into darkness --

assault, rape, murder --

are we lost,

or can the impulses that lead
to evil be squelched?

This man thinks so.

He believes we can strengthen
our brains

and crush the evil within.

Deep inside every human being
is an animal --

a creature whose only goal
is survival.

Most of us can contain
the animal within,

but we all know people who yield
to their baser impulses.

Sometimes their actions
have terrible consequences.

We blame these people
for their evil acts,

but do they really have
a choice?

After years of probing
the human mind,

neuroscientist David Eagleman

of the Baylor
College of Medicine

has come to
a startling conclusion --

with a little bad luck,
we could all become monsters.

Along any axis
you measure brains,

whether that's empathy
or intelligence or aggression,

you find a big distribution.

Not all brains are the same.

Freeman:
You are your brain,

and your brain is a delicate,
highly complex apparatus.

Injury or disease can alter
its chemical balance

and physical integrity,

which can alter
your personality.

If you were to damage your thumb
in an accident,

that wouldn't change you
as a person,

but if you damage
an equivalently sized

chunk of brain tissue,

that can change
your risk taking,

your decision making,

and even, perhaps,
whether you become a murderer.

In 1966,

Charles Whitman climbed
to the top of the tower

on the U.T. Austin campus,

and he indiscriminantly
shot 48 people.

The only thing that matched
the horror of this event

was the unexpected nature of it.

There was nothing in his history

that would have predicted
this sort of behavior.

He was an engineering student.
He worked as a bank teller.

He lived with his wife
and his mother-in-law.

So what could explain this?

Well, in his suicide note,
he said, "When this is all over,

I want an autopsy
to be performed."

And what they found in his brain

was a tumor about the size
of a walnut,

and it was pressing on a region
of the brain

called the amygdala,

which is involved
in fear and aggression.

Freeman: The amygdala
is the center of emotion --

the source of
our primal desires.

It is held in check
by the frontal lobes

and the temporal lobes --
the centers of self-control.

We all have subconscious demons
that we keep in check,

but when the frontal or
temporal lobes are compromised,

startling behaviors
can emerge --

behaviors we call evil.

This is what probably happened
to Charles Whitman.

He sensed that something
was wrong with his brain.

He could no longer control
his violent impulses.

And one of the battles
that humans have to fight

is short-term versus
long-term decision making.

We have impulses
that we want to gratify,

and we have longer-term thinking

that try to squelch
those impulses.

Let's say that I'm considering

throwing this brick
through this window --

part of me maybe wants to do it,

part of me feels
it's an illegal act

and I'll get caught
and I'll get in trouble.

And it's an arm wrestle between
these different things.

Some people are better
at this than others.

[ Glass shatters, static ]

Freeman: David believes we can
strengthen our willpower

with a little workout.

Together with neuroscientist
Stephen Laconte,

he is testing something called
"the prefrontal gym."

There are no treadmills here,

just a scanner that lets people
see how their brains respond

when they flex
the mental muscles

that govern self-control.

You're going to hear
some buzzing.

Today, David and Steven are
conducting their first-ever test

on a criminal offender,

a man whose cocaine addiction

led him to steal
from his friends and family.

Right now,
what this gentleman is doing

is he's looking at images
of drug-use cues,

and we're asking him to
either enhance his craving

to these cues
or suppress them.

[ Beeping ]

When the addict sees images
of drug use,

his own craving
for drugs spikes.

The fMRI scanner sees this
increased activity in the brain

and displays it
as a measurement on a bar.

When the craving networks
in his brain are revving high,

the bar moves to the red,

but when he fights
his dangerous urges,

he can push the bar back
toward the blue.

With this bio-feedback,

he's able to train his brain
to resist his impulses.

He's doing great.
I mean, he's actually...

Eventually, David and Steven

hope to take this technology
to prisons

to try to help criminals
not repeat their mistakes.

The beauty about
the prefrontal gym

is that people
are helping themselves.

If they choose to strengthen
their long-term decision making,

this is the way
they can do that.

It doesn't change anything
about the person,

it just gives them
a better opportunity

to make good
long-term decisions.

Freeman: But there are some

for whom this technique
may never work -- psychopaths.

They can pass for normal,

but they are capable of
terrifying acts of evil.

Soon, a revolution in brain
science may give us the tools

to spot evil brains before
they ever commit a crime.

Psychopaths can inflict physical

and psychological harm on others

without feeling a shred
of remorse.

They are the people
most of us consider evil,

and there are more of them
than you might suspect --

up to 3% of the population.

That's a lot of dangerous minds.

What if one of them was yours?

If something was wrong
with your brain,

how would you know?

If Jim Fallon got a look
inside your head,

he could tell you.

He has spent his career studying
the anatomy of the brain,

with an emphasis
on psychopathic killers.

Fallon: Six years ago,

two of my colleagues
in psychiatry

brought me a whole bunch
of these scans.

So we're doing PET scans
but also some fMRI's,

and about 3/4
of the way through,

I notice
a very definite pattern.

And it turns out that these were
scans of really bad killers --

serial killers,
and very violent killers.

Freeman: Jim has identified
the unique brain structure

of psychopathic murderers.

Here are the areas
of the brain --

amygdala,
anterior temporal lobe,

orbital cortex,
medial prefrontal cortex,

cingulate,
back here to the hippocampus,

back down --
see, it makes a big loop.

These are the areas that are
turned off in psychopaths.

Freeman: Our brain anatomy radically
affects how we see the world.

How a normal person
would see the world,

it would be like driving around
in this car.

A normal person would be
watching their speed.

They would be putting themselves
in other people's shoes.

How fast would you go?
What if you had kids here?

And you'd be looking at people,

they'd be looking at you,
nothing to hide.

The world of the psychopathic
mind is just quite different.

It's like driving around
in this dark car at night.

Now I'm protected from people
seeing who I really am.

As a psychopath,

one would look out and you'd see
these forms walking around,

and they're no longer people.

And so, in this way, you know,

the psychopath
is able to use the night.

That is, the night
of not connecting

with empathy and emotion
with other people,

but seeing them
as objects to use

and to, if they get in the way,
just run them over.

Freeman: Jim estimates
that at least 40 genes

contribute to anti-social
personality disorders

and psychopathic brain patterns.

These genes influence
whether you're violent,

narcissistic, or homicidal.

So, if you have the genetics
of a killer

and the brain anatomy
of a killer,

are you destined
to become a killer?

For Jim Fallon,

this question was about to
become uncomfortably personal.

Worried about
Alzheimer's disease,

he decided to run brain scans
on his entire family.

All of the tests came back
fine -- except for one.

So I was comparing at that time
all these brains of killers,

and I had these sheets that
I was analyzing on my desk,

and I thought they had
gotten mixed up.

That is, I thought one of
our family's patterns

was mixed up
with the murderers',

'cause it looked just like
the murderers' brains.

And, of course,
it turned out to be my brain.

Freeman: Jim's brain showed the
telltale psychopathic coldness

around the amygdala
and the orbital cortex.

Fallon: When I first saw this,
I actually just kind of laughed.

You know, I took it
as like it was funny --

a little bit in denial.

And it was a little confusing,

but I thought I took it
pretty well.

Freeman: Next,

Jim analyzed his genetic profile
and family history.

He found that he had inherited
dozens of high-risk genes

and had ancestors who had been
convicted of murder.

Then he asked his family
and friends

if he showed
psychopathic traits.

Fallon: They said, "Well, Jim,
we've known all along

"you're a psychopath -- you just
don't really hurt anybody.

"You play with everybody's head,
you manipulate people,

you're too competitive,
you got to win everything."

You know, all this stuff.

They said, "but, you know,
but you're funny,

"and, you know,
you don't swing at people,

"you don't do any of that,
so we just let it go,

but everybody knows
you're a psychopath."

Freeman:
So which is the real Jim?

The esteemed scientist
and life of the party,

or the dangerous man revealed
by the brain scans?

Fallon: I kind of thought
I really knew myself,

and so I became
very confident --

that I was interested
in the brain,

I was studying it,
I felt confident in myself.

When this happened, you know,
when I was 60,

that was a shock, actually,

when I finally accepted that
I wasn't who I thought I was.

Freeman: Jim discovered
an unsettling truth,

but he was left with a mystery.

If he has the brain and genes
of a killer,

why isn't he a killer?

But given all the, you know,
the genetic risk factors

and how my brain is, you know,
where it's kind of stuck,

as it were,

I look like
I really dodged a bullet.

And it was because my parents

and my aunts and my uncles
and my grandparents

are the people who really kept
me happy, that's for sure.

Talk about nature/nurture --

that's when nature/nurture
was really happening,

in a very positive way.

Freeman: High-risk genes
and unusual brain architecture

do not automatically
create killers.

Childhood abuse seems to be
a critical ingredient.

A loving home helped Jim Fallon

become a boisterous
overachiever,

not a dangerous psychopath.

Not all psychopaths
are violent criminals,

but what do we do
with the ones who are?

Do we simply remove them
from society

and throw away the key?

Perhaps not.

Researchers are not pioneering a
radical way to eliminate evil --

by literally zapping it
out of your brain.

Some religions hold that man
is a creature of evil.

We may struggle to follow
the righteous path,

but ultimately, we will fail.

We are all sinners.

But what if we could
make people good?

In Zurich, Switzerland,

Dr. Christian Ruff
is blazing a trail

on a controversial frontier
of neuroscience --

changing the way people think
and behave.

Huff: Human behavior is quite
unique in the animal world.

In contrast to us animals,

we don't just follow
our self interest,

but we're able to actually
control our behavior

in line with social norms
and rules --

pretty much like the rules
of this card game

that we're playing here.

People are always tempted
to break rules,

to break laws,

and the problem really is that
if some people start doing this,

if some people start
breaking out of social norms,

then very soon, chaos ensues.

[ Crowd screaming, siren wails ]

So it's quite important
for society

to put in place
strong-punishment threats --

to basically instill in
people's heads the knowledge

that if they violate
certain norms, certain laws,

then they will get punished.

Freeman: What do we do with
people who cannot or will not

follow the rules of the game?

Christian's solution is to zap
their brains with electricity.

These players
are linked together

in an interactive video game.

They all wear headbands

designed to pass
electrical current

into the parts of their brains
that control altruism,

or concern for the well-being
of others.

With a targeted
electrical pulse,

Christian has found that he can
make people, including himself,

much more considerate.

Ruff: In the beginning,

there's a slight tingling
underneath the electrodes

at the scalp for
about 30 seconds or so,

but afterwards I can't
really feel it anymore,

whether I'm being stimulated
or not.

Freeman: Today, Christian
and the volunteers

are going to play a simple
profit-sharing game.

Each player is allotted
a sum of money

and decides how much to give
an anonymous partner.

You have to decide on every
trial what your opponent --

the other person --
will consider to be fair.

Here in this example,
for instance,

I can decide now the white
is what I keep

and the black is what I give
to the other person.

So I keep a lot -- 70%.

And, in this condition,

the other player
can now punish me.

Oh, and that's what they did.

They took everything away
from me for being so selfish.

Freeman: At first, most of
the players act selfishly,

but then the electricity
begins to flow.

After five minutes
of brain stimulation,

Christian and the other players

are now much more willing
to compromise.

[ Beep ]

This is another punishment
trial, actually,

so I'm going to give a bit more
now, actually,

to the other person.

And let's see whether
they punish me or not.

Oh, no, okay.

So I get to keep what I
basically chose for myself.

Freeman: The headbands have coerced
the players into being nice.

These behavioral changes
are temporary.

They persist
for about 20 minutes

after the stimulation stops,

but Christian believes
that repeated treatment

will condition people
to act kindly.

Could this technology be used
in jails and mental hospitals

to suppress evil thoughts

and turn criminals
back into good people?

Ruff: I think we're definitely
not at the point yet

where we can employ
these methods

to make people
who commit very selfish acts

that harm others
not commit them.

But by understanding
these brain processes

and how we can affect them
with brain stimulation,

we might be getting there
one day.

It's definitely
not too far away.

Freeman: Neuroscientist
Jim Fallon agrees.

In fact, he believes
we already have the means

to do it with drugs.

The big question is,
can we control those behaviors

that we consider evil
in people?

And the answer's probably "yes."

It depends on how far
you want to go.

What one could do is just simply
snort, intranasally --

up the nose --
different compounds.

And so let's say one has
a problem with impulse control.

Well, impulse control
happens to be that area --

orbital cortex -- right above
where the smell receptors are,

so it's the first thing
that's hit.

So one could simply put in
pieces of DNA

that will be snorted in
and concentrate

at the orbital cortex

that will increase those
neurotransmitter systems

that increase the function
of the area

and, therefore, inhibition.

We could decide to do it so that
everybody has their own cocktail

of behavioral modification.

It will only last
a certain amount of time.

This is something
that society could do.

It sounds a little wild,
but it's completely doable.

Freeman: We may soon have the
means to reshape damaged brains

and stop violent behavior
before it starts.

But this neuroscientist thinks
eliminating evil

will take more than peering
into the heads of criminals.

We must also probe the minds
of those who judge them.

Today, we tend
to punish criminals

more for the harm they inflict
than for their evil intent.

That's understandable.

It is much easier to count
bodies and bullet holes

than determine what was going on
in someone else's brain.

But what if we could
peer into criminal minds

and judge them on the evil
we find there?

That day may be coming soon,

when the true motives
of not just criminals,

but also the people who judge
them, are laid bare.

As one of the few people
in the world

who is both a biologist
and a lawyer,

Owen Jones has a unique view
of criminal justice.

Objection, Your Honor.

This mock courtroom is part
of Owen's laboratory,

a place where he explores
what goes on

in the minds of criminals,
judges, and juries.

Jones: So, we're seeing a lot
of increasing effort

to bring neuroscience
into the courtroom,

for better or for worse.

Sometimes, for example,
criminal defendants

may be bringing evidence
of their own brain scans

to try to avoid
conviction altogether --

to say "I should not be held
responsible."

Freeman: But Owen's focus is not
so much on criminal brains

as on the brains of the people
who determine their guilt.

And he's finding that the ways
we judge evil behavior

are severely flawed.

Jones: Our legal system
requires jurors

to be amateur mind readers.

They're supposed to figure out
not just who did it,

but what was the mental state
of the person who did it?

Do you remember the police
coming to your house

later that night?

Yeah. They woke me up
about 3:00 a.m.

Freeman: Owen has found
that jurors are not good

at distinguishing the gray areas
of criminal intent.

Emotional circumstances
will bias their decisions.

Say two men drive home drunk
from the bar.

[ Tires squealing ]

One hits a tree.

The other hits a tree...

and the little girl in front
of the tree.

The first man
will get a light sentence.

The man who killed the girl
will go to prison.

The question is, for how long?

Owen has found that jurors
are likely

to give this man the stiffest
possible sentence.

Jones: Jurors have a tendency
to think

that the driver had
a higher level of intent --

a knowing level of intent,

instead of a reckless
level of intent, for example --

than he actually did.

Freeman: In other words,

even though the two drivers

had exactly the same level
of intent,

jurors will believe the driver
who hit the girl

was more evil
than the other driver.

When emotions dominate,
judgments are harsh.

At other times, jurors will shut
off their emotions completely

and inexplicably excuse
murderous intent.

Jones:
Suppose, for example,

that I want to poison
my friend Amy,

causing her death --

and I believe her to be
very allergic to poppy seeds.

I sprinkle poppy seeds
liberally,

and I serve it to her.

Unbeknownst to me,

Amy's not allergic
to poppy seeds,

and so she does not die.

But let's vary the circumstances
a little bit.

Suppose that, although she's not
allergic to poppy seeds,

Amy is very allergic to peanuts,

and unbeknownst to me,
who wants to kill her,

the chef in the kitchen
puts peanuts on her salad.

If she dies as a consequence,

a lot of people will start
to think, "Wait a second,

"I shouldn't be punished
for attempting to murder her

because I didn't actually cause
the harm that befell her."

So in a way, the fact that
somebody else caused her death

operates as a shield to
my liability and punishment.

Freeman: Once again,

the criminal has been judged
on results,

not on his intentions.

Owen suspects there is

a neurological explanation
for this.

To find out what happens
in the brain

when we try to gauge
levels of evil,

Owen has put judges and jurors
into brain scanners

and presented them with
criminal scenarios like these.

He first discovered
significant activity

in a region called the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

It governs analysis
and cognition.

This part of the brain

seems to be doing a lot
of the heavy lifting

in deciding whether or not
to punish someone at all.

Freeman: But once the prefrontal
cortex decides to punish,

another part of the brain
decides how much --

the amygdala,
which governs our emotions.

The punishment decision
is a product

of two very different regions --

one highly analytic,

one more emotional that is
setting a punishment amount --

that are separately deployed
but yet jointly involved

in yielding
the punishment decision.

Freeman: Balancing the emotional
and analytic parts of the brain

is the magic trick required
of every judge and jury.

If jurors have reduced function
in either area,

their punishment decisions
could be flawed.

Jones: Research like this
may enable us

to de-bias decisions

really focused on those aspects
of a person's behavior

that we want to take
most into account

when setting degrees
of culpability.

Freeman:
Owen hopes his findings

will eventually lead
to fairer sentencing --

that we will eventually
have a legal system

that only imprisons people

who truly want to do harm
to others...

rather than those who simply
made tragic errors.

But even if we improve the way
we judge criminals,

it will not be the endgame in
the struggle to eliminate evil.

Because,
as history bears witness,

sometimes entire societies
lose their moral compass.

How do we stop the evil
that poisons whole nations?

We know that evil can twist
and bend solitary minds,

but there's another form of evil
that infects whole societies.

It compels ordinary people
to support genocidal regimes

and economies based on slavery.

What makes societies turn bad?

Can we stop it from happening?

Karen Wynn's experiments
at Yale

show that even babies have
a sense of good and evil

and seem to prefer goodness.

But Karen runs
another experiment

that is far less comforting.

It shows that the human tendency
to identify with groups

and discriminate against those
not in "our" group

starts very young.

In this study,

we present the baby
with two food choices --

graham crackers
and, say, green beans.

Then, we bring babies
into our experimental room,

and they're introduced
to two puppets.

And each of the puppets
gets a choice

between graham crackers
and green beans.

Mmm! Yum!
I like graham crackers!

The other puppet shows
the opposite preferences.

Ew! Yuck!
I don't like graham crackers.

What we find, quite reliably,

is that babies tend to choose
the puppet

who expressed the same tastes
as they themselves did.

Which one do you like?

That one!

Okay, good job!
Does he get a hug? [ Laughs ]

Freeman: Babies not only prefer
puppets that agree with them,

they also like to see puppets
that don't agree with them

get punished.

Hi.

The puppet who doesn't like
graham crackers

has become an outsider --

not part of the baby's group.

My heart felt sad
when I got that result

because it did tell me that
this preference for similarity

that we're observing

in babies under a year of age

isn't just a trivial,
superficial, fleeting thing,

but it is having consequences

across their
psychological terrain,

in terms of how they think
about these characters,

what they expect of them,
their perceptions of them,

and also how they want them to
be treated in the social world.

Freeman: Karen believes our
brains are built to care more

about people close to us,
in our group,

than those further away.

And we segregate ourselves
along lines drawn as simply

as whether or not you like
graham crackers

or have the same color skin.

Sometimes this can have
very bad consequences.

[ Shouting in German ]

[ Crowd cheers ]

Freeman: Steve Pinker is
an experimental psychologist

and cognitive scientist
at Harvard.

Pinker: A lot of the worst
atrocities in history

came about when one group

dehumanized
or demonized another.

They may have thought
that they were subhuman,

that they were like vermin,
like rats or cockroaches.

A lot of moral progress
might come

when we change our mind-set,

and instead of dividing people
into groups,

think of the species as a group.

Think of the world
as being one big village

and everyone is part
of our tribe.

Freeman: Steve thinks
this change in thinking,

from identifying
with small groups

to belonging to one inclusive
society, is slowly happening.

The most obvious effect has been
a dramatic decline in violence.

Pinker: When I tell people that
violence has been in decline

for long stretches of time

and that we're probably living
in the most peaceful era

in the history of our species,
they think I'm nuts.

So I had to make the case with
a book that was 800 pages long,

with graph after graph
and statistic after statistic,

just to prove the point
to people.

For example,
not far from where I'm standing,

there's an area of Boston

that used to be called
the "Combat Zone"

because there were
so many murders

and stabbings and muggings.

Now it's being re-colonized
by young urban professionals.

Or a few hundred years ago,
there were wars going on,

not far from here,

that involved enemies like
Canada and Britain and France.

Now the idea of a war
with those countries

would seem like a bad joke.

300 years ago,

I might have been burned
at the stake

for beliefs that I hold today,

and a hundred years before that,

I might have had my head cut off
with a hatchet

in the Indian wars.

Freeman:
It is difficult to overstate

just how violent and cruel
the world was

for much of the history
of the human race.

Once, slavery was legal
everywhere in the world.

Now it is officially illegal
everywhere in the world.

War and murder
were daily facts of life.

Now, for most people,
they are exceptional events.

Steve attributes
most of this change

to the increased role of
government and the rule of law.

But he also thinks

people today are sharper
than their ancestors.

Pinker: You might wonder,

are people getting nicer
because they're getting smarter?

And, believe it or not,
the answer is, maybe yes.

I.Q. scores have been increasing
throughout the 20th Century

and all over the world.

No one knows exactly why,

but it's probably a combination
of increased schooling

and a trickle down
of technological

and analytic concepts from
science into everyday life.

But, as a result,
it's not farfetched to think

that people could see
the benefits of cooperation

and see the downsides
of violence more

as they start to intellectualize
their lives.

Freeman: Mass communication
and mass transportation

are breaking down the barriers
between us,

and so is
our increasing knowledge

of how the human mind works.

The more we learn, the more we
see the humanity within us all,

even those we think of as evil.

A world without a trace of evil
will remain a fantasy,

but the better we understand
the brain,

the better able
we are to identify

the most dangerous among us

and stop them
before they do serious harm.

We may never eliminate evil,

but perhaps we can contain it

and reduce the damage it does
to our lives.

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