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Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

nature.com

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Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#31

Post by haberman »

SilasX wrote: post #15
nickff wrote: post #6

My question to anyone who believes this article to be correct is whether they would have found the same sources and type of evidence credible if it had produced the contrary result. If the answer is no, it shows that you should not expect this article to convince any of your intellectual opponents. For the record, I am not sure whether torture works or is morally justified in the circumstances where it has been appli…

Exactly. You should also raise your guard whenever someone is trying to convince you that reality never presents you with hard choices: "So I never have to weigh my aversion to torture against my aversion to the loss of thousands of lives? Hooray!"

Agreed. My skepticism about a claim is proportional to how much the person arguing it wants it to be true.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#32

Post by vacri »

nickff wrote: post #17
vacri wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other thing to remember in discussions around torture is that the "ticking bomb" situation simply doesn't happen, as reported by professional interrogators. This means that "ticking bomb" is an outlier scenario and the base moral discussions should not start from there.

It has actually happened in at least one case (, at least there was believed to be a 'ticking time bomb').[1] In addition, thought experiments are meant to shed light on the limits (if there are such limits) of certain moral principles, or problems with paradigms, much like reductio ad absurdum is a useful tool for reasoning.[2][3] This is not to say that the torture is justified in the case of a 'ticking time bomb',…

Making decisions on whether torture is moral based on extreme outliers is the same as arguing about the morals of abortion based on third-trimester abortions, which in the US comprise 0.4% of abortions. It's not the main event. Yes, it is useful to discuss these items, as long as it is clearly understood that these are outliers.

It's also significant to note that even though police thought it was a 'ticking bomb' situation, it actually wasn't. "But the police honestly believed X" is a real example of the 'slippery slope', that we see violated time and time again. There have been sting operations to expose the misuse of "honestly believed X" - my favourite being the guys (in Texas, from memory) who put high power heat lamps in an empty house, pointed at a christmas tree. Police helicopters illegally using FLIR noted the heat, and had an officer walk past and "smell cannabis" coming from the house, which lead to a SWAT raid. All caught on cameras positioned inside the empty house.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#33

Post by chroma »

angelbob wrote: post #28
chroma wrote: post #10

I think torture should be illegal and I think the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used at Guantanamo are abhorrent. But I also think there are real-world scenarios in which torture is not only moral, but where it would be immoral not to torture. This sounds absurd, but consider this real-life case given in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1]: A woman's car is stolen. Unknown to the thief, her child is slee…

Okay. Now do you trust the US Government to decide which ones are their one-off situations?

Of course not. From my comment:

> I think torture should be illegal…

> …I think the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used at Guantanamo are abhorrent.

> Again, that doesn't mean [torture] should be legal or systematized.

I'm not sure how many more ways I can say it. I despise the US policy on torture.

Moreover, I don't trust any government to implement a formal policy on torture. Not even something as simple as, "If you torture someone for really good reasons and it saves lives, you might not be charged with a crime." Even that would create too much of a temptation to torture.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#34

Post by dror »

rjtobin wrote: post #7

About 4 years ago I went to a talk given by the author of the book, the subject was along the same lines as the book: how torture is ineffective because it damages the subject's ability to recall information. Afterwards someone asked a question that a lot of us had been thinking: that in a lot of situations where torture might be used, the information being asked for is very well known to the subject, so unless serio…

Here's the reason that it doesn't work. Imagine that your village has a 1000 people and someone is torturing you to find out "who is your cell leader." At first you are resisting, and so you name random people in the village. After you've named 50 people or more, you break and name the real person. The torturers though don't know that this is the real person, so they'll keep torturing you, and you'll just go through every name in the village to make the torture stop. How can they separate the real person from the ones you lied about either out of resistance or to make the pain go away?

In some cases this could work. They want to find out where you hid the guns, and every time, they go and dig till you break and give them the right place, and then they do find the guns.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#35

Post by SCAQTony »

rjtobin wrote: post #7

About 4 years ago I went to a talk given by the author of the book, the subject was along the same lines as the book: how torture is ineffective because it damages the subject's ability to recall information. Afterwards someone asked a question that a lot of us had been thinking: that in a lot of situations where torture might be used, the information being asked for is very well known to the subject, so unless serio…

Taking it from a more political point of view rather than neurological, Shakespeare did a political play on this subject which was summarily all about blow-back or stone cold revenge — "Titus Andronicus." (A movie by Julie Taymor of the play "Titus" is quite powerful)

In politics and war The dirtiest fighter makes the rules and now that the United States tortures people, I suspect we will be "one-upped" in the next war.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#36

Post by rdtsc »

Even if it is working, would that make it ok?

What about rape? Should it be criminalized? Is that worth a scientific study from nature?

Why is torture in a civilized society not considered like rape. Anyone who suggests, does it, debates about its merrits, should be considered a crazy idiot, ostracized and laughed at. But notice how we as a a society are debating its merits. We have already lost so speak. We lost first when our government engaged in it in large scale. But we lost again when we start excusing and explaining, even if we reach the conclusion "ok, it is not quite working as well".

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#37

Post by rdtsc »

sirrocco wrote: post #27
littletimmy wrote: post #20

Why is this a topic of conversation? Even if torture worked it would not be ethical and the people doing it would be immoral.

If your daughter and wife were kidnapped by 2 people and you catch one of them, would you torture him to save them? What if you learned that they are being raped every day? Would you torture him then ? What if you knew they do this every two weeks to another family, would you do it then? What if you caught someone that has a habit of planting bombs in schools, would you do it then ? I don't know if torture works or i…

What if the aliens landed? What if lizards are controlling the earth? What if....

> If your daughter and wife were kidnapped by 2 people and you catch one of them

Does this happen often to your wife and daughter? Did it happen to anyone you personally know? Or is it a movie plot you are remembering.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#38

Post by venomsnake »

littletimmy wrote: post #20

Why is this a topic of conversation? Even if torture worked it would not be ethical and the people doing it would be immoral.

Just categorizing something does not make a defeating argument. People have always been very good to twist and circumvent ethics and morality when their own gain is involved. And ethics and morality themselves change every 50 years or so.

The option to torture is always present. We must have a good reasons and framework not to do it. Ineffective is way better deterrent than immoral.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#39

Post by XorNot »

rjtobin wrote: post #7

About 4 years ago I went to a talk given by the author of the book, the subject was along the same lines as the book: how torture is ineffective because it damages the subject's ability to recall information. Afterwards someone asked a question that a lot of us had been thinking: that in a lot of situations where torture might be used, the information being asked for is very well known to the subject, so unless serio…

I would argue your audience is failing to understand what torture is. Most people are deathly afraid of any pain. But they're also not agents/operatives/soldiers for their government. They're not at war with an enemy they think worth fighting and killing.

So they don't have a particular strong desire to conceal information from anyone who threatens them. This means, in an actual scenario of torture interrogation, you're pretty likely to initially withhold whatever you can. But by the time you reach an actual breaking point...well it's called that for a reason. You are in fact very unlikely to remember much of anything because of pain, shock etc. You're pretty likely to say whatever the torturer is asking to hear.

Waterboarding is torture because once water gets into your oesophagus your rational mind shuts down completely - this post (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=448717) pretty much summarizes it and the experience has been confirmed by everyone else who has had it done to them.

That's the point about torture being ineffective. By the time it's effective, you're dealing with someone who is pretty much going to confabulate whatever you want to hear.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#40

Post by venomsnake »

larrysalibra wrote: post #8

Torture isn't conducted to improve the ability of the victim to recall information but as a negotiating tactic. I'll give you what you want: to stop being tortured, if you tell me what I want to know.

There is a problem with that - even true facts could be deceiving. The only way to verify outside of checking is to continue torturing which defeats the reasons for the person surrendering the information in the first place.
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