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The urge to dehumanise others is itself all too human
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LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2014 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
All too human Animals would never disown other members of their species IT IS a depressingly familiar story. But thinking of such incidents Two communities live in cheekas no more than outbreaks of by-jowl harmony until, one day, bestial savagery is misleading. they don’t. Then, for reasons that The cruelties meted out can be so may on the face of it seem quite ingenious as to betray the work trivial – a property dispute, or of a sophisticated social brain. It a social slight, perhaps – a rift seems the tendency to see others develops. Neighbour becomes as less than fully human is deepsuspicious of neighbour; hostility seated in our psyches – and mounts, then turns to aggression, dismayingly easy to trigger. violence and – well, the story “Seeing dehumanisation doesn’t have a happy ending. as part of human nature Rival sides in such conflicts helps us work against its describe each other in ways that deny their shared humanity: they darkest aspects” may liken each other to vermin, or pests to be exterminated. The We now know that we are all words onlookers use to describe prone to grouping the people such conflicts – bloody religious around us according to how they factionalism in the Central look, where they live or what they African Republic, for example, believe – an urge that we give in to or the civil war in Syria – are on the slightest of pretexts – and also animalistic: perpetrators inclined to deny those outside are “brutal”, while their victims our own groups their humanity, are “slaughtered”. to varying degrees (see page 39).
Far from being a reversion to animal roots, this propensity may be uniquely human. “I don’t think that we have any evidence that any other living animal is able to negate the status… of another individual belonging to the same species,” cognitive neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese said last month at the launch of the Human Mind Project. The ability to deny another person’s humanity is “probably one of the worst spin-offs of language”, he concluded. Understanding this as part of human nature, rather than a departure from it, helps us work against its darkest aspects. We can learn how to make groups more inclusive; or how former enemies might be reconciled, rather than driven to retaliate. Remembering our shared humanity is the best way to guard against those who would deny it. n
Skyscraper fresh IF YOU are the kind of person who can afford to be conscientious about what you eat, you are probably torn between rival concerns whenever you visit the supermarket. You want to keep food miles to a minimum, but you also want your greens to taste like they are fresh from the farm. Most of us, however, don’t live in areas where those two
ambitions are readily compatible. Hence the rising prevalence of refrigerated shipping containers, on the one hand, and pricey urban farmers’ markets on the other. Enter the vertical farm. The idea of intensive cultivation inside purpose-built buildings isn’t new, but it’s now beginning to make economic and environmental sense, particularly given the
booming appetites and megacities of Asia (see page 17). But will such crops attract shoppers? When it comes to farming, we are accustomed to images of rolling fields and golden sunlight. Marketing vegetables grown in vast racks under the glow of LEDs may present more of a challenge. Still, maybe it won’t be long before greengrocers’ stands bear the proud boast: “Straight from the fortieth floor”. n
Killing for cash to save the rhino?
(IUCN), conservationists are relatively relaxed about it. But what about wealthy trophy seekers from Texas or Shanghai? The pro-hunting argument is that the huge sums they are charged to shoot lions can be funnelled back into conservation – but many still harbour reservations about the morality of this practice.
Now the IUCN has upped the ante by sanctioning the hunting of a critically endangered black rhino (see page 4). It says the money raised will go into antipoaching measures. If effective – and that’s a big if – then conservationists may have to accept that killing rare species could be a way to save them. n
FOR the Maasai people of eastern Africa, killing a male lion is a rite of passage. Since it is “traditional” and lions are only classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
18 January 2014 | NewScientist | 3
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588
© 2014 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
All too human Animals would never disown other members of their species IT IS a depressingly familiar story. But thinking of such incidents Two communities live in cheekas no more than outbreaks of by-jowl harmony until, one day, bestial savagery is misleading. they don’t. Then, for reasons that The cruelties meted out can be so may on the face of it seem quite ingenious as to betray the work trivial – a property dispute, or of a sophisticated social brain. It a social slight, perhaps – a rift seems the tendency to see others develops. Neighbour becomes as less than fully human is deepsuspicious of neighbour; hostility seated in our psyches – and mounts, then turns to aggression, dismayingly easy to trigger. violence and – well, the story “Seeing dehumanisation doesn’t have a happy ending. as part of human nature Rival sides in such conflicts helps us work against its describe each other in ways that deny their shared humanity: they darkest aspects” may liken each other to vermin, or pests to be exterminated. The We now know that we are all words onlookers use to describe prone to grouping the people such conflicts – bloody religious around us according to how they factionalism in the Central look, where they live or what they African Republic, for example, believe – an urge that we give in to or the civil war in Syria – are on the slightest of pretexts – and also animalistic: perpetrators inclined to deny those outside are “brutal”, while their victims our own groups their humanity, are “slaughtered”. to varying degrees (see page 39).
Far from being a reversion to animal roots, this propensity may be uniquely human. “I don’t think that we have any evidence that any other living animal is able to negate the status… of another individual belonging to the same species,” cognitive neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese said last month at the launch of the Human Mind Project. The ability to deny another person’s humanity is “probably one of the worst spin-offs of language”, he concluded. Understanding this as part of human nature, rather than a departure from it, helps us work against its darkest aspects. We can learn how to make groups more inclusive; or how former enemies might be reconciled, rather than driven to retaliate. Remembering our shared humanity is the best way to guard against those who would deny it. n
Skyscraper fresh IF YOU are the kind of person who can afford to be conscientious about what you eat, you are probably torn between rival concerns whenever you visit the supermarket. You want to keep food miles to a minimum, but you also want your greens to taste like they are fresh from the farm. Most of us, however, don’t live in areas where those two
ambitions are readily compatible. Hence the rising prevalence of refrigerated shipping containers, on the one hand, and pricey urban farmers’ markets on the other. Enter the vertical farm. The idea of intensive cultivation inside purpose-built buildings isn’t new, but it’s now beginning to make economic and environmental sense, particularly given the
booming appetites and megacities of Asia (see page 17). But will such crops attract shoppers? When it comes to farming, we are accustomed to images of rolling fields and golden sunlight. Marketing vegetables grown in vast racks under the glow of LEDs may present more of a challenge. Still, maybe it won’t be long before greengrocers’ stands bear the proud boast: “Straight from the fortieth floor”. n
Killing for cash to save the rhino?
(IUCN), conservationists are relatively relaxed about it. But what about wealthy trophy seekers from Texas or Shanghai? The pro-hunting argument is that the huge sums they are charged to shoot lions can be funnelled back into conservation – but many still harbour reservations about the morality of this practice.
Now the IUCN has upped the ante by sanctioning the hunting of a critically endangered black rhino (see page 4). It says the money raised will go into antipoaching measures. If effective – and that’s a big if – then conservationists may have to accept that killing rare species could be a way to save them. n
FOR the Maasai people of eastern Africa, killing a male lion is a rite of passage. Since it is “traditional” and lions are only classified as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
18 January 2014 | NewScientist | 3