Radiolab

RadioLab Critiques
Lesson 6
1. Morality from WYNC. The first two experiments that deal with the train car are very interesting. The fact that most people would pull the lever to only kill one person versus killing five makes sense. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. However, you would still be killing a person, but it doesn’t seem that you have much of a choice. The second experiment where you can push the large man to save five people seems a little different, but in reality it is essentially the same thing. You are killing one person to save the lives of 5 people. The reason it is more difficult for people to push the man is because you feel personally responsible for the large man’s death because you are physically pushing him off the car. When you pull the lever, it is a victimless act because you don’t have the physical act involved with pushing someone. Dr. Joshua Green’s brain scans are interesting but they are not that hard to understand. No one wants to kill someone directly, if they had to choose who to kill, they would want to not have a direct impact on the lives of others. People do not want to kill, because morality says we must not.
2. NPR: Into the Brain of a Liar. Yaling Yang studied many pathological liars against people who do not lie as much. What she found when she scanned their brains was that that pathological liars had more white matter, which is used to transport ideas and thoughts across the brain. Since lying is basically brainstorming a new story, more white matter means faster connections between thoughts and faster lies out of the mouth. I think this study is very fascinating. If this study was taken a step further, or had other researchers working on it, they would be able to determine why some people can bypass their moral codes and come up with excuses easier than others. Does this mean more white matter means more lying or less morals? I think more study on this subject must be done to determine these questions.