Thoughts about Psychopathy and the Moral Law

Hi, everyone, I’m back after a long gap.  Hopefully in this new format the waters will be calmer than they were at the end of last year.

Here are some thoughts I’ve been having recently that surely touches the interface of science and faith, but is not one I’ve seen discussed much as the usual favourites (evolution, climate change, the environment etc).

C.S. Lewis writes in “Mere Christianity” of what he calls the “Moral Law” – the innate sense of right and wrong that we seem to have instilled in us – which gives us a conscience.  Francis Collins, in his book “The Language of God” writes that it was the existence of this Moral Law, and indeed our awareness that we often break this law wantonly, that shattered his atheism and ultimately brought him to faith in Christ.  He argues that it is a pointer towards the existence of God, but warns about falling for the “God of the Gaps” analogy.

I think Paul is writing about the same thing in Romans 2:14-15 thus:

(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

(I find it wonderful that such a large grain of wisdom is contained in a parenthetical comment!)

However my thoughts have been stretched recently into thinking about psychopathy, and how this fits into the picture.  Psychopathy is characterized as an inability to feel remorse, guilt, conscience, empathy towards victims, and also severe emotional detachment.  Many psychopaths are of course in jail – and it is common to hear a judge condemning a serial killer or rapist as not showing any remorse for their crimes, as if this somehow makes them more evil.  Such people are often condemned as “evil” especially by the press, and of course the acts they commit are indeed evil.

But is this all just a symptom of an illness, which they can’t help?  Dr. Kent Kiehl is a cognitive neuroscientist who is researching into psychopathy using fMRI scanning techniques, on prison inmates, to see if one can find specific brain abnormalities that lead to psychopathic behaviour.  It  is hoped eventually that this might lead to possible treatments to reduce psychopathic tendencies.  The work is described in this New Yorker Article.

I am wondering where all this leaves the moral law argument?  If psychopaths are people without a functioning conscience this is a kind of disability – and it points to the idea that not all of us have an innate sense of right and wrong as Lewis suggests.  The problem is perhaps wider than just prison inmates – prisons contain  ”failed psychopaths”, but it is believed there are many more successful psychopaths out there who have succeeded by manipulating and exploiting other people without the normal pangs of conscience and the constraining aspect that most of us feel guilty when we do something wrong.

I don’t have any real answers to this, or indeed any firm conclusion, but I’d be interested to see if anyone else has some interesting insights into this.

Science, Faith, and Public Policy

The 2010 ASA annual meeting is set to begin on Friday July 30. The first plenary talk will feature Congressman Venon Ehlers, an ASA member for many years. Other plenary speakers and contributed papers can be seen in the final program and the abstract book.

Audio files of talks are being posted at
http://www.asa3.org/ASAradio/ASA2008podcast.xml

Attendees and ASA members . . . → Read More: Science, Faith, and Public Policy

ASA Origins Survey with Correction

Recently the ASA sent a poll to its members concerning origins. Roughly half responded. The ASA is a fellowship of professional scientists and technologists who are Christians. The American Geophysical Union did a similar poll concerning global warming and found a huge difference of opinion between climatologists and petroleum engineers with 97% of climatologists affirming anthropogenic . . . → Read More: ASA Origins Survey with Correction

Hamilton’s Rule

A recent poll of ASA members showed some interesting results.

1. 73% of Christian professionals in the sciences affirmed the following: “Plants and animals developed through evolutionary processes” (with natural and/or non-natural causes from ancestral forms)
2. 60% affirmed “Plants and animals developed through evolutionary processes with natural causes from ancestral forms.”
3. 61% affirmed “Biologically, Homo Sapiens evolved . . . → Read More: Hamilton’s Rule

Randomness, Political Polling, and Intelligent Design

Political polling wunderkind, Nate Silver, has done it again. First he saw how Strategic Vision was making up polling data and now his low rating of Research 2000 has lead to a lawsuit of R2K by the Daily Kos for fraud. I would like to look at how the alleged fraud was detected. Namely, physical phenomena . . . → Read More: Randomness, Political Polling, and Intelligent Design

Book review:”Fire, ice and paradise” & My progress

I’d like to call your attention to the above titled book by H. Leighton Steward, which is reviewed on my blog at
http://bricolagia.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-satisfying-view-of-anthropogenic.html. It seems that many geologists take a different view of AGW than climatologists, and their views should be taken into account.

Now about me: I’m making good progress. I am in my third cycle of . . . → Read More: Book review:”Fire, ice and paradise” & My progress

Where’s the Outrage?

Since I’m revisiting the BP spill disaster, you might assume from my title I’m talking about the President. I’m not. Rather, I’m talking about evangelicals in general and global warming skeptics in particular.

I’ve been debating global warming here for years because I believe that evangelicals have been manipulated by the energy companies and their political and . . . → Read More: Where’s the Outrage?

Thoughts on Craig Venter’s Synthetic Cell

On May 10 ScienceExpress published on-line Craig Venter’s Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome. A talk by Venter given last year at TED.com is a good introduction to the work.

Venter’s achievement is remarkable and embodies two critical accomplishments–first, the use of a chemically (vs. biologically) synthesized chromosome. Venter’s chromosome had never . . . → Read More: Thoughts on Craig Venter’s Synthetic Cell

Building a Bridge Between Faith and Science

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, astronomer and currently president of the ASA Executive Council, is the featured guest May 11 and May 12, 2010, on the radio show “Afternoons with Dr. David Anderson” from 3pm to 4pm EDT on WAVA 105.1 FM in Washington, DC. The program can be heard on the internet. Listen to the show and . . . → Read More: Building a Bridge Between Faith and Science

Is Inerrancy the Defining Feature of Evangelicalism?

The response of ASA members to the resignation of Bruce Waltke from RTS prompts me to write this. Perhaps I am mis-reading my fellow ASAers, but it seems that there is little grasp of a divide that occurred in evangelicalism over forty years ago–a divide that continues to this day as I see it. This is . . . → Read More: Is Inerrancy the Defining Feature of Evangelicalism?

 

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