From charges friends to law has argued that there is no Supreme Force that makes it good or bad but there are her own rules that we by by fostering by the evolutionary need to survive ask if we follow the argument that being. Evolutionary beneficial are so her to say that 2nd chimp cripps placed in these why pop a branch in crepes so that they sound the territory. As we see from the war than any 15 years ago humans are just like humans in this regard so if evolution is responsible for norms of good do to others is it also responsible for acts of evil of as. Years old who after a while when you study this words like good and evil begin to seem irrelevant. Unscientific we we are we are nothing more. Unless there are biology and biology of behavior does not have a for a lot of room for concepts like evil or soul or. Sanctity your any any such thing. About us thats most striking is yes we can be exactly like chimps chimps have now been shown to have organized violence creme meditated violence something resembling warfare or territorial disputes something resembling genocide which is sort of the formal world court definition is being willing to kill somebody not for who they are but simply for what group they belong to and chimps do this and its enormously familiar and its just like us and they are physically violent they make weapons as do we but then we have something that no chimp could ever make sense of we can press a button and kill someone on the other side of the planet we kill so monk whose face we have never seen we can kill someone where we dont even know for certain if weve even had an interaction with them if we have had any effect on them and at the same time whats also clear is lots of other primates have altruism has mo have moments of compassion have moments of self sacrificial compassion and then we do something utterly bizarre there in that we can press a different button on her computer and send money to help her refugee on the other side of the planet we can feel pain and lose sleep over the misfortune of someone we have never met whose face we have never seen and in those regards we are a very very strange primates. So loud easts plain that i mean youre saying were so much like charles and. Anything that is good or evil our soul doesnt make sense in a scientific way its irrelevant. What is it that makes us to france france as a lot of new your our scientists would argue that what makes us different from anyone else is the conscious the one thing that we cant see we cant pinpoint but its obviously there would you agree with that when you look at the human genome and compare it to say the chimpanzee or the bonneau bocce whom there is more than 98 percent similar. So theyve been sequenced and you can then sit down and have this incredibly exciting thing if asking so one and a half percent differences in the d. N. A. Where are the differences and what is it that makes us humans as opposed to the chimps and for the most part the list is really boring its not half of the genes have to do with olfaction others have to do with amused function oh theres have to do with reproductive isolation others have to do with how much hairier growing on your strollers these are not very exciting cynics and as neurobiologists you sit there and say where are the genes that have something to do with granny who is going to be dramatically different asks what makes us who we are. And when you look closely theres a very few genes related to neural function and the ones that are or do something very simple they have to do with the rounds of Cell Division basically if you want to turn a chimpanzee brain and she was human brain just let it go through 34 more rounds of soul division so youve got 4 times as many neurons as you would have had as a chip. And thats all youve got to do its the same dirt transmitters its the same and the same Everything Else but if you put enough neurons together all sorts of stuff will serve emerging including consciousness and a wonderful way of describing it the people who doing merchants Complexity Science they say things like with enough quantity you invent quality just stick a nuff neurons in somebodies brain and consciousness is going to pop out the other side not because any given neuron is anything else here than it would be in a chimpanzee or a fruit fly but simply with enough of them Emergent Properties come out and so room there is consciousness and is static sense theology then all these other things the chimps could never make sense of well which they could if they really had 4 terms as many neurons its really all thats needed very well to contradict your assertion just killer magic notion of consciousness that made a specialist human faeces but i think very clearly that to me so many of the back to what you are saying he said that he wants tend to draw a line between the socalled right kind of violence and the wrong kind of balance. How do you explain that what he what exactly i mean by that well thats that she huge puzzle of us like every single culture on earth has prohibitions against killing. At the same time virtually every culture on earth will reward you enormously if you have killed the right person if you have children any of the states if you have you know do the exact same thing with your brain and the exact same thing with your muscles where you pull the trigger on a weapon and in one setting it is the most horrendous damaging thing imaginable and in another setting is it a wondrous thing that they will give you a medal for the people who vote for you because of the people who will mate with you because youre good at doing that sort of say and its the exact same behavior its just in a different context and thats not just the case for damaging behaviors its the same for our affiliate of ones as well ok so a wonderful moment somebody is troubled theyre emotionally distressed and you put your hand on there and depending on the context thats a moment of deep compassion a wonderful moment or in another setting you were doing the 1st step of betraying the loved one by straying into a direction you shouldnt be and his exact same muscles its the exact same behavior in other words understanding the biology of our behaviors the mechanical basic is not very interesting is not very challenging the challenge is understand it a context for it because they need to leave Different Things in different set of facts has read a break right now when were back well continue talking to robinson professor of neurology at stanford university. Capable of extreme statement as. Long as. I am. God no team no crowd. No shots no. Actions felt speak. Well struck both of those 12. Points your thirst for action. The. Problem drugs dont always come from unscrupulous dealers but from pharmacies to in every state in the United States we see me very sharp increase in the number of people seeking treatment for addiction to prescription opioids oids invited america under the banner of medicine persisted with the pain but instead of trying to wean him off though she just goes after dose after dose after dose and really became his drug dealer so whos to blame patients doctors manufacturers all the governments of. All of them back to see if he could vision grayson talking to the professor of neurology and biology instead for going for c. Professor in your latest book about the biology of good any well you refer to military psychologists who suggest that in the middle of combat soldiers should have their not. Or hate trait the fear of being killed or because they were told to stand up and 5 by the command is passed out of the feeling of kinship with that theres so the sheer will kill because others did. And if you think about it we did a lot of stupid and appalling things because theres. Houses where i mean that things that we might be uncomfortable about central seem fine if others do them well what happens when we are a very conforming species classic studies in the 1950 s. You sit somebody down you show him a picture with 3 parallel lines where one of the lines is clearly longer than the other 2 and us the person which is the longest line and 99 percent of its when people say thats the longest rule then you do the study where the person is sitting there and theres 10 other people in the room and everyone looks at this picture and you get to ask everyone which is the longest line and the other 10 people who are working for the experimenter go 1st and every single one of them says the line that shorter is a long one and you know what was seen classic psychology stuff 75 percent of people are willing to conform under those circumstances to be willing to say. Well i guess i was room yeah i guess that is the long the longest lie so those were studies in the fiftys but more modern versions of it now of involved doing neuroimaging on people when thats happened and what do you see as 2nd the 1st person says yeah thats the longest line wait thats not the longest line thats not what i thought was the longest line which and what you see in a fraction of a 2nd is activation of this part of the brain called be a mig. Which has you with anxiety and with here and what you see at that point is being different from everybody else is a terribly enzyte the provoking thing 1st you and you see at the point that subjects decide ok i dont know what theyre talking about but good im going to say that also the 2nd they do that you need to require stan safe part of the crowd again and part of not standing up for his self where a terribly conforming species because. It least in the United States where there is such an emphasis on individual list cultures and all of that we are very into the individualistic in the ways that we go about conformity and everyone else. Being a nonconformist is very anxiety provoking for any primate out there but in particular seem so we can bring out the best of our behaviors but far more often it brings out the worst because we go along with the crowd but. Could that explain then millions of people follow nasserism to the death but they get it they did it. Just doing what everyone. Around well the interesting thing very is sort of by the time he gets humans if youre looking at a hamster a. Hampster crew walk rates more with a full civil lying than it does with a stranger how does the hamster know this this could be a sibling from a different litter or whatever they to medically connect recognise row with factory signatures schumanns dont do yet how do we think youre out who is a relative we have to think about it and assumes we think about it we can be manipulated into thinking that this person feels so close to me theyre practically a relative or that person feels so different from a that they hardly even count as she. And the jargon used for it is pseudo kinship and no speciation sue kinship with every little experience or if theres a really good ahead whether you are looking at high tech armies or. Nomadic pastoralists heres what they do is the military is trained to think of each other as brothers brothers an army english cliche that is you become a band of brothers when you join the military serial kinship so very critical moments you are willing to give yourself your life for this other person and normally theres a fair degree of like relatedness everyone who joined the nazis was german nerve german gene stock but during world war 2 you had american troops fighting the nazis where one guy in this American Group would be an Italian American guy in a polish american car in a russian Jewish American guy in a black. And you would have a guy fighting on the american side whos german american and he was more related to the guy he was trying to shoot at the other in the field than he was to the black guy or the jewish guy or the italian guy right next to him. And he would be willing to give up his life for this showing when you do this sooner or can ship it is very easy to manipulate us into feeling so related unconsciously implicitly to each other thats where you get some great human moments and some turbulence but its kind of scary when i think about it the whole scenario so you know i cant shake because as opposed suter kingship visit parks forests that makes human with rice and marks to kill each other in droves i mean when you look at the past think war a spatial test like a little bit more of the whole human race could have been wiped out. Yup. You know pseudo kinship could have its good moments if youre a dalai lama you can say that every person on earth feels like a sibling to us far as you can tell he actually feels that way and you can have great moments like that but yes for the most part pseudo kinship is a scary thing and even scarier is speciation if you want to have a genocide go successfully against the people you dont like convince everyone in your side that most people are like rodents those people are like cancers those people are like vermin and theyre like viruses there are like they hardly even kennel disunion and the nazis were brilliant at that all of nazi propaganda posters were about jews as rats used as rodents when the tutsis in rwanda were killed genocidally by the hoochie there the who to consider all of them this cockerel as a german when donald trump tries to make americans turn against immigrants trying to come to the country he refers to them as it is he is as an infection mexicans coming to the United States or coming to an x. Country thats what every good. You know demagogue and fascist leader of that sort has headed to you is if you could make your followers think of them as less than human you think youre 3 quarters of the way towards completing your genocide. Well in touch because we have that machine level i wont touch on that in the apollo the pandemic that were living through right now maybe also. Indicate ship but 1st i heard that psychologists say that the current code 900 that make has put us in a survival mode. Would you say is that i mean that fully realize that right now and im in a pretty comfortable situation in my home no ones holding a gun to my hat its not like the lines chasing us about how exactly does this situation change for their survival mode one of the most ancient actually basic instincts and how we humans well if if you had a zebra in your room with you and the zebra was getting all the same news that you were about cool that knowing seeing it would not be having stress response it doesnt have the capacity to abstract over space and time and we can sit here and we can think about all the people who have died we can think about what it must feel like to have your lungs fill up with fluid what it must feel like to go to an emergency room and they dont have a ventilator for you we can think about what it must feel like to be in the United States one of the 20000000 people who have lost their jobs in the last 2 months who are thinking about the shortages that could well be happening or any version of this and we can think about how somebody else is emotions and we can think about a scenario thats imaginary at this point but has a decent chance of occurring in the future and we can be as panicked at that point and as sickens and as feeling as if were being hunted by a lion as the zebra would feel what he really was being a concert on iran. So if you look at this point demi in terms of pseudo kinship which she said could be a horrible thing they call also be a wonderful thing would you think this. Key ship was brought out in the us in a good way or in a bad wager in the pandemic because i do feel like a lot of people are consolidating and the whole world has put aside their differences im not even talking about the president s im talking about people to sort of be in this together and fight this together and as seeing people helping each other volunteers helping old people that i never thought i dont see and normal environment what are your impressions of what this sunday has brought out in us. For were its really good. Impression you have a. The people risking their lives in the merchant sea rooms the people risking their lives to livery food to people and working as pharmacists for the sick who come in there coughing and although weve seen some incredibly her work stuff and you know this is going to a good time for people pulling together after the 911 attack in the United States and 2100 people in new york city home from new york city originally and people there are like trained to be rotten and used to your job search because thats what all new yorkers are like and for months afterward people were trying to each other it was so under nerving yes at times like this people pull together but then there are the people who are refusing to wear face masks and there are the people who are refusing to go along with Public Health measures and because they dont care if they get somebody else sick so we have this like initially assumed contrib was you miss you pretty great great stuff my guess would be as this pandemic osama longer and longer and as more people lose their jobs and as more people die were going to start seeing far less of the goods to go kinship or more of the bad stuff. And now im also considering the dark side and i see how the domestic balance has risen at 35 percent with number couple of weeks ago it could be even more now. What do you think could be there are bad moments that could resurface then asked because of uncertainty because of strasse that has a fear and an artistic sense survival what can we extract. Well at are worst moments in terms of stress memory gets better we get anxious and we get depressed whats probably most important is what stressed to the frontal cortex in the brain what stress is make the frontal cortex work less effectively and what the frontal cortex is good at is keeping you from doing something stupid in disaster risk because it gets there in the very last 2nd and tells you that may not be such a good idea i know you think thats exactly what you should do right now but trust me youre going to regret it it controls our worst impulses and what stressed does is make us more impulsive in all behaviors which stress also does is make us less in the past think we feel more empathy for people immediately around us but who counts isnt us as much narrower during periods of stress when we even know what part of the brain is involved in that so hes making terrible decisions and what that often takes the form of is looking for somebody else to take your pains out on scapegoating looking for whos record and now theres no shortage of people looking for somebody to blame for every disaster there are people who are if anything weaker and poorer than you are. Pleasure talking to you. Taking your brain i wish i could have an opportunity to. Share with him his stay safe thank you very much for your thoughts. We hope everyone. Better. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond short and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sport im showbusiness ill see you then. Give me my bit. Is not old but im also the most companies you know ive been a kid who says you know please not emotional when i meet. His compass he most people almost home you know he goes from didnt you know its risky to say hes just put a you know i call. Them and im going to. You see. You i dont like kind of this. Little kid. Thing they. Dont tell you a list. So to use you know men because he. Didnt mean the cost in charting the future we didnt do any good period to proceed it is time to assess the economic game just as the price and change the Global Economy and if theres going to be. Any are there lessons to be learned. 54 droughts and more than 1300 military person. Now are headed to air force base in alaska where is that to say come on ill show you whats the reason for any type of enhanced u. S. Military presence in this area russia. What is it suddenly about the South China Sea that makes it so that it 11000000000 barrels of oil. Take a look at this map who really owns what kind of says no it belongs to us india says no we claim that that belongs to us both of these countries have Nuclear Weapons capabilities there is reason for concern so thats why were going to drill down on this story for you today right here on the news with rick sanchez where you know as we always like to say we do believe by golly its time to do news again. And you know the guys in the front way to the. Ballot itself to see if i. Was on the slate dot to dot. The one to dismiss the look of it and i know just how much and i think. This is the only thing that we do is music because everybody fights use. The visible facility and. Given that. What i think is this is the thats what. We. Heard nice of unrest in minneapolis seize a Police Station told by protesters furious about the death and Police Custody of a black man. Francois further relax his lockdown starting during the 2nd easing restrictions on cafes and travel inside the country. And a new study shows a surge of prescriptions for antidepressants in the view western doctors raising the alarm about the risks of addiction