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Moral minds want to know

Published 9:00 am Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Everyone don their protective gear for a review of the news:

  • “Manhunt ends with arrests of Arizona escapee, alleged accomplice”: The three-week search for three escapees ended with the capture of John McCluskey, the apparent mastermind of the escape.

    • The episode has put the spotlight on Arizona’s privately run prisons. State officials are belatedly asking themselves, why, in the supposedly super duper, tough-on-crime state of Arizona, are convicted murderers being held in a medium security prison, public or private, in the first place? The kind where your cousin-girlfriend can toss a pair of bolt cutters over the fence?

  • “Harvard says Marc Hauser guilty of science misconduct”: An investigation, prompted by accusations from his students, found eight instances of misconduct in his primate behavior research, the university said. Hauser is the author of the book, “Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong.” Of course he is.

    • Publisher HarperCollins calls the book “revolutionary” and describes Hauser’s work thusly: “He argues that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Experience tunes up our moral actions, guiding what we do as opposed to how we deliver our moral verdicts.” Uh, right.

    Now, no doubt, Hauser will argue that by totally faking his research, he has spectacularly proven his “thesis.”

  • ”Paris girls flash breasts to distract ATM users”: French police arrested two 14-year-old girls in the scam, Reuters reported. While one girl exposed herself and grabbed at the man, the other girl grabbed the money coming out of the machine.

    • So watch out for that scam. But as we learned locally, girls don’t have to be grifters to cause trouble. As reported Thursday in The Herald, “Distracted drivers escalate crash scene”: After a four-car crash on I-5 in Everett, drivers and passengers were waiting by the side of the road, including several young women in short shorts. More drivers then crashed, apparently while checking out the women, State Patrol Trooper Keith Leary said.

    Might this be a way to combat speeders? Place good-looking women and men (model citizens?) at strategic points, like any road called a “Speedway.” And, in emergency situations, instead of police engaging in high-speed chases, they could employ the famous “Paris Distraction Tactic.”

  • ”Billionaire’s children want $400,000 a month in support”: The adult “love children” of super rich guy just want their due. This is exactly why Warren Buffett preaches that the wealthy should donate their money, rather than handing it to heirs, legitimate or otherwise.

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