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Merry Christmas, Richard Dawkins
December 25, 2010 | 1,287 comments
A Further Perspective
Science Could Solve the Torture Debate
With no apologies to Jonathan Swift.
Does torture work? Can we get reliable, actionable intelligence by torturing people?
That ugly debate has raised its head again after the death of Osama bin Laden. Some are claiming that waterboarding provided vital information that led to his whereabouts and ultimate demise. But are these claims accurate?
With the information available currently, there is no way of knowing for sure. It is entirely possible that other methods could have extracted the same information. The more important objection, however, is that the accuracy of the information obtained from waterboarding is not known. Maybe waterboarding led the U.S. to Osama. Good. But, it is only one data point. What if waterboarding also gave us 99 false leads? That would make enhanced interrogation methods only 1% accurate.
Without more data, it is simply not possible to declare waterboarding to be more successful at gathering authentic information than any other method. Thankfully, science can help.
A very straightforward experiment could provide a nearly definitive answer to the torture question. Critically, if you are willing to suspend ethics and morality, I would like to offer a modest proposal: a randomized controlled trial (RCT).
Normally, biomedical researchers conduct RCTs to determine the effectiveness of new treatments or experimental drugs. In our experiment, we will substitute potential life-saving therapies with waterboarding. Patients in need will be replaced with terrorists indeed.
Start with 100 terrorists. (If concerns about statistical significance arise, that number could easily be bumped up to 200 terrorists.) Finding voluntary participants could be challenging, but several potential enrollees are already waiting at Guantanamo Bay. Then, split them into two interrogation groups. The first group will constitute the “control” group. They will receive cookies and milk. The second group will be the “experimental group.” They also will receive cookies and milk, but a regularly scheduled daily waterboarding will be added, as well.
After five or ten years, all the information gathered from the two interrogation groups would be analyzed and assessed for accuracy. If the control group was more accurate, then waterboarding does not work. But, if the experimental group was more accurate, then the CIA may want to consider ordering more buckets.
Using this technique, there is no limit on the torture methods that could be tested. Sleep deprivation, constant tickling, and forced watching of Justin Bieber music videos could constitute follow-up experiments.
Of course, this project does pose some moral hazards. However, science is not in the business of dealing with pesky issues like ethics. Just ask the U.S. Public Health Service about all the African Americans they let die from syphilis in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Science could settle the torture question. How badly do you want to know the answer?
Letter to the Editor View all comments (42) | Leave a comment
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Robert Pinkerton| 5.6.11 @ 6:15AM
The problem with irony, is that someone could take it literally.
Patrick| 5.7.11 @ 1:35AM
The problem with torture/Gitmo is that you get better information with one Viagra and a free ride in the local whorehouse for informants.
Seriously, this gets the intel faster and more reliably than anything else when dealing with Muslims.
oldfart| 5.6.11 @ 6:39AM
For torture - how about watching Obama and Joe Biden speaches for seven days followed by two years of Seinfield re-runs?
cuban pete| 5.6.11 @ 8:55AM
Listening to Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac & Cher.
Eric Cartman| 5.6.11 @ 1:26PM
The Ed Show
Nunya| 5.6.11 @ 1:28PM
Or Madonna and Lady Gaga.
Dee See| 5.6.11 @ 8:51AM
---UH, let's let science first solve its Fukishima
catastrophe------and then its toxic CHEM-trail farce
---and then the Gulf spill ----and then its estrogen seeping plastic saturation strerilant problem ---and then the enviornmental microwave
problem --and then the
CJohnson| 5.6.11 @ 10:53AM
Please define torture before the debate. The repetitious misuse of words is very disturbing.
John Navratil| 5.6.11 @ 11:00AM
There is no end to the usefulness of this technique. We could, for example, determine is the left really believes what they say, of it the environmentalists are really in it for the environment or the world domination, of it American Idol is really rigged.
In the latter case, we probably would not have a statistically significant sample size, but the torture comes free (oh wait, those guys don't thinks it's torture). Sigh, I guess there are limits.
Occam's Tool| 5.6.11 @ 11:02AM
Interesting experiment. Do we put naltrexone in the cookies?
Occam's Tool| 5.6.11 @ 11:04AM
Incidentally, terrorist scum are not in the same category as innocent black guys given syphilis and not treated, and should not be mentioned in the same sentence. There could be a compelling reason to actually do THIS experiment; there was none for Tuskegee.I am aware that this is "A Modest Proposal" wannabe, but I have noted this tendency in you before, Doctor.
JSB| 5.6.11 @ 5:37PM
The PESKY ISSUE OF ETHICS was the issue, NOT the comparison of the proposed terrorist experiment with Tuskegee.
Occam's Tool| 5.6.11 @ 6:11PM
Yes. Ethically, the two experiments are Mercury and Pluto. Berezow has a habit of doing this. Review his other articles first before bloviating. There is no ethical problem with torturing enemy combatants who, by the way they have attacked us, have fofeited all rights under the Geneva Conventions. They are, in essence, the equivalent of spies in an active war. Spies have no rights when caught.
Dai Alanye | 5.6.11 @ 11:11AM
The design of the experiment has merit, although for improved validation I'd suggest an additional control group of leftist propagandists.
The Tuskegee syphilis analogy is false, however, since that was essentially an observation of terminal patients who had no hope of survival. They weren't "allowed" to die but were properly cared for while in the process of dying.
Occam's Tool| 5.6.11 @ 11:22AM
Actually, they were improperly cared for, and denied Penicillin even when available.
With regards to the tortured Gitmo guys experiment---these were enemy combatants not in uniform. My understanding is that under the law of war, they can be killed, and have no rights.
I would limit this to shmoes found on battlefields in 3rd world hellholes, and situations where we have no doubt that the fellow was a terrorist (the underwear bomber comes to mind, so does Richard Reid).
I fail to see the connection between this and innocent civilians in Tuskegee. I see no ethical barriers to this experiment proceeding, with careful choice of subjects to make sure they meet the criterion for enemy combatants.
Eric Cartman| 5.6.11 @ 1:25PM
Good points, OT. And may I add the thought that there has to be some professor in the Mid East or Russia or China - take your pick - who wants the answers to this pesky questions. And we wouldn't have to put up with Liberals complaining about it. Just a thought.
Wayne | 5.6.11 @ 11:32AM
Frankly I am willing to bet dollars to donuts, that the CIA uses hypnosis. It is quite simple to do and it is repeatable. I think the whole torture debate is a rouse.
Karl | 5.6.11 @ 11:46AM
Whenever someone on the right asserts something like, "men and women are not basically te same" or "the optimum family structure is built around a mother and a father", opponents on the left will ask "where are your studies?"
OK, to those who say torture doesn't work -- "where are your studies?"
Jeff| 5.6.11 @ 12:21PM
everyone knows in their heart that enhanced interrogation can get real answers ...
Here is a test for everyone who thinks it yields nothing real ...
I've got you tied up in a chair in my basement way out in the woods ...
I ask you for your pin code to go with the ATM card I pulled from your wallet ...
You tell me to go to hell ...
Without touching you I submit you to some of the softer enhanced interrogation techniques ... until finally you relent and give me a pin code ...
I leave you tied up and go to the nearest ATM ...
I return to notify you that in fact the pin code you gave me was false ...
We continue talking, for days if need be and everytime you give me a code I go out and check it out ...
Eventually you will give me the real code that I CAN VERIFY works ...
Its the same for these clowns ... of course they give up false info, which we verify or falsify and then we return to asking ...
We are not trying to get a confession out of them ...
Occam's Tool| 5.6.11 @ 2:05PM
There's a real point I'm making here (thanks Eric, as you know, you're one of the best guys), and let me elaborate a bit: there's a good case to be made that the biggest military mistake of the 20th Century was the Armistance of 1918. Had the Allies taken a relatively small number of casualties (the Germans were broken and unable to put up much more resistance at the time of the Armistace) and pushed the point to complete surrender, grinding the Germans savagely beneath their boots, no "stab in the back" myth could have gained traction, and thus the world would have been spared the European suicide of 1939-1945. In short, it was a false kindness.
We are dealing with people very much like the Nazis of WWII. The point is to hit them so badly that they know, without doubt, that they've lost. Carpet bombings of cities may have been inhumane, but the Germans and Jaspanese definitely got the point.
We are trying to run a very brutal war with very soft methods. As a result, we are now in a war that is about to enter its second decade, with no end in sight. WWII, which consumed much more manpower with oodles of US casualties (One Million total) was nonetheless brought to a conclusion in less than 4 years. This war, if fought with severe violence, would actually cost us fewer casualties and end much sooner. But it is our concern for the feelings and lives of people who would LITERALLY cut the heads of our babies that is costing us severely, in time, casualties, safety, and money.
Therefore, torture of captured scum bothers me not at all---it won't make their treatment of our captured guys worse, as they already are horribly barbaric. And it may reveal information. But, most importantly, it sends the message we sent the Germans and Japanese in World War II, and with the probable same result.
PattyMor| 5.6.11 @ 2:11PM
I agree that we need to define the terms first. In my view harsh interrogation methods (loud music, sleep deprivation, or water boarding) and torture (pulling out fingernails, eletrodes attached to genitals, or buring with cigarettes).
PattyMor| 5.6.11 @ 2:11PM
I agree that we need to define the terms first. In my view harsh interrogation methods (loud music, sleep deprivation, or water boarding) and torture (pulling out fingernails, eletrodes attached to genitals, or buring with cigarettes).
PattyMor| 5.6.11 @ 2:11PM
I agree that we need to define the terms first. In my view harsh interrogation methods (loud music, sleep deprivation, or water boarding) and torture (pulling out fingernails, eletrodes attached to genitals, or buring with cigarettes).
PattyMor| 5.6.11 @ 2:11PM
I agree that we need to define the terms first. In my view harsh interrogation methods (loud music, sleep deprivation, or water boarding) and torture (pulling out fingernails, eletrodes attached to genitals, or buring with cigarettes).
Harry the Horrible| 5.6.11 @ 2:39PM
Can we add some chemically enhanced interrogation to this as well? Say a shot of scopolamine or sodium thiopental every day?
science news | 5.6.11 @ 2:44PM
A 2009 study suggested that evangelicals were the most likely religious group to justify torture. Around 60 percent of evangelicals said use of torture against suspected terrorists can often or sometimes be justified. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey found that 50 percent of Catholics 46 percent of white mainline Protestants said the same thing.
Grzmlyk| 5.6.11 @ 4:04PM
Hey, the Pew Forum found something?
That IS news!
Aren't they the ones who look for their car keys under the streetlamp not because that's where they dropped them, but because that's where the light is good?
ACynic| 5.6.11 @ 3:00PM
Regardless of the method of interrogation the veracity of the info received must be verified; it makes zero difference how the info was obtained.
Any idiot can see that torture will indeed make perps talk; that is why it has been used for 2000 years. As far as the muslim terrorists are concerned, they should all be tortured with branding irons, chain saws, pliers and screwdrivers until they talk. After the info is verified, they should all be placed in pig pens, with very very hungry pigs and boars. The boars and pigs will kill them and eat them.
Grzmlyk| 5.6.11 @ 3:24PM
I don't see what all the fuss is about. I thought Paul Krugman settled the whole issue of what works and what doesn't work with his Definitive Rule of Keynesian Quantitative Easing:
If something doesn't work, it's not because it doesn't work; it's because we simply haven't done enough of it yet.
For example, if bleeding a patient of two liters of blood doesn't cure him of acne, it's not because bloodletting is ineffectual in the treatment of acne, it's because, clearly, four liters was required. And if four liters doesn't work, the patient of all of his blood.
I guarantee you, the acne will cease to be a problem.
Similarly, if 99 weeks of unemployment has created employment, obviously we need to double that number.
But by all means, we ought to test Mr. Krugman's theory with respect to torture.
I suggest we start with Democrats in Congress.
Big Jim| 5.6.11 @ 3:29PM
I think that means no virgins!
Ken| 5.6.11 @ 5:25PM
Enhanced interrogation techniques (which don't qualify as torture under any legal defintion and which the interrogators personally experienced to know the effects) were not used to elicit actionable information. They were used to render the detainee compliant, assessed by verifying information already known to the interrogators, after which a fresh team of debriefers, not associated with the original enhanced interrogations, would gather any actionable intelligence.
The actual methodology is at considerable variance with the cartoon view of torturers extracting questionable information under extreme pain and completely undercuts this faux-Swiftian proposal.
LFOD| 5.6.11 @ 7:01PM
Does torture work? Yes. That's plain and simple truth. If, when and how you can debate. I like to put this little scenario to the anti-torture libs and watch them squirm.
Bad guys break into your house and kidnap your daughter and you manage to get a hold of the last one before he could get out of the house. Would you not attempt to force him to tell you where they were taking your daughter by torturing him when he refused to talk? Watch the look on their conflicted, ignorant faces as their brain malfunctions.
Most people, even libtards, would go to the ends of the earth for their children and that would include torturing the bad guy to save your child. The difference between conservatives and liberals is conservatives care about other peoples children as well as their own.
Vance DeGuard| 5.6.11 @ 7:28PM
You must be really bad at math not to understand that 1% is much, much better than 0%.
BunchofHooey| 5.6.11 @ 8:06PM
There is another element that needs to be added to this debate. Enhanced interrogation must be the measure of last resort used only when significant loss is at stake. We should not appear hasty or anxious to use such techniques. I appreciate the restraint of the Bush administration, and the fact that they used enhanced interrogation on only three detainees. There should be levels of interrogation and the prisoner himself can decide, by his cooperation or lack of cooperation, how much force he is willing to undergo before volunteering what he knows.
Jeamar37| 5.6.11 @ 8:27PM
How badly do I want to know? Not very badly. This seemed like an article from a high school science class.
Dee See| 5.7.11 @ 2:39AM
REAL TORTURE come 2025.
Your grandchild is doing a High School assignment
in a hopefully restored republic, and asks you ---
"Grand pa, what did you do to STOP the capstone
EUGENICS and RED China sellout op.?"
You avoid his eyes, remembering your years
of sports/porn and wampum 'culture' and sloth.
You wince as you recall your life as a meds saturated sucker.
You gag at the revelation ---'I sold God and
country out to the globalists (ie slavers and
dopers of yore FACT) ---for some armfuls
of Wal-Mart slave goods.
"---Uh, well son, see, I uh followed FOX News
and Glenn Beck. I voted for Sarah Palin and
Donald Trump. See, back then, people didn't
understand the meaning of casino gulag, or franchise slum. It was another time."
------------HOW WILL THAT MAKE YOU FEEL GRAMPS?
HOW---------------------?
Of course you'll be lucky indeed to even have that
moment as the Fukishima world nuclear disaster
unfolds ignored by our 'EUGENICS friendly'
capstone 'press'.
Richard Baker| 5.7.11 @ 2:42PM
Obviously, most of you folks haven't been waterboarded or water tortured. Had it done in training years ago and it is physically harmless. What it does is scare the bejesus out of you and make you give up what they want. If your info is phony then a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear occurs later. Remember, the subjects of this treatment are cowards at heart, similar to the Mafioso with their code of Omerta, and so far their intel has yielded a trove of information. What drives some of you nuts is that the military ignores your demands to prove it. So Solly.
WhiteBikerTrash| 5.7.11 @ 4:44PM
Torture is not cutting off the first thumb. It is telling them that the second thumb always hurts worse.
WickedDickie--Virginia| 5.7.11 @ 7:26PM
Occam, I believe you are looking for hostis humani generis (enemy of the human race) which was defined about 2,000 years ago by Tullius. Essentially, they (pirates/terrorists) have absolutely no rights and may/should be executed out of hand or tortured for that matter for any information of use to the captors. No rights whatsoever. They are completely outside the Geneva Conventions and should be treated without mercy. Promise them anything. Use them. Destroy them when finished. Oops, I didn't mean to bring up the attitude of the Democrat Party of Death. I'm referring to pirate/terrorist scum. Grzmlyk: Using Krugman as a means of torture is really below the belt. I'm shocked.
Jeamar37| 5.8.11 @ 12:53PM
There is a big difference between using harsh interrogation techniques against captured enemies and the "most proposal"--without a nod by the author to Johnathan Swift, a scientific experiment carried out by those the author says are both unethical and immoral. Not the kind of science I'm in favor of!
Dacron Mather| 5.9.11 @ 12:17AM
What if , under duress, the 200 terrorists confess al Qaeda only has 100 members?
Dacron Mather| 5.9.11 @ 12:17AM
What if , under duress, the 200 terrorists confess al Qaeda only has 100 members?