Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation - Rilegato

O'Mara, Shane

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0674743903 ISBN 13: 9780674743908

Casa editrice: Harvard Univ Pr, 2015

Riassunto

<p>Torture is banned because it is cruel and inhumane. But as Shane O’Mara writes in this account of the human brain under stress, another reason torture should never be condoned is because it does not work the way torturers assume it does.<br><br>In countless films and TV shows such as <i>Homeland</i> and <i>24</i>, torture is portrayed as a harsh necessity. If cruelty can extract secrets that will save lives, so be it. CIA officers and others conducted torture using precisely this justification. But does torture accomplish what its defenders say it does? For ethical reasons, there are no scientific studies of torture. But neuroscientists know a lot about how the brain reacts to fear, extreme temperatures, starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, and immersion in freezing water, all tools of the torturer’s trade. These stressors create problems for memory, mood, and thinking, and sufferers predictably produce information that is deeply unreliable—and, for intelligence purposes, even counterproductive. As O’Mara guides us through the neuroscience of suffering, he reveals the brain to be much more complex than the brute calculations of torturers have allowed, and he points the way to a humane approach to interrogation, founded in the science of brain and behavior.<br><br>Torture may be effective in forcing confessions, as in Stalin’s Russia. But if we want information that we can depend on to save lives, O’Mara writes, our model should be Napoleon: “It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile.”</p>

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Recensione

A Times Higher Education Book of the Week

"With accurate and compelling neuroscience, this book will be valuable to individuals outside the neuroscience world in politics, in the military who should know the scientific basis of torture as they make and execute policy in this area." --Howard Eichenbaum, Boston University"

Providing an abundance of gruesome detail, O Mara marshals vast, useful information about the effects of such practices on the brain and the body - Nature

"a meticulously researched book" --Financial Times

"Why Torture Doesn't Work is a valuable book. O'Mara builds his case like a prosecutor, citing scientific studies and relentlessly poking holes in absurdities and inconsistencies in documents such as the Torture Memos. - New Scientist

"Prof O Mara, director of the TCD Institute of Neuroscience, has written a powerful, convincing and thought-provoking volume. O Mara presents us with the overwhelming scientific evidence that torture simply does not work...The writing style is always clear and accessible and this non-scientist reader was pleasantly surprised at the extent to which he could make sense of the numerous studies and experiments that are described...Prof O Mara deserves some sort of prize for this work." Irish Times

"You could be forgiven for thinking that modern torture methods were rooted in a scientific understanding of stress. Sadly, though, the opposite is true... We know this thanks to the detective work of Shane O Mara... The work could hardly be more timely.... Perhaps the most salient aspect of O Mara s work is the growing appreciation that torture has a detrimental effect on the torturer and anyone watching. - New Statesman

"O'Mara neatly and pragmatically disposes of the ethical debate...If the aim of the torturers is to extract information, they should read O'Mara's book and adopt gentler methods. CIA and the rest of you, read and note. Neuroscience says your methods don't work." --Times Higher Education

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Harvard Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2015
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0674743903
• ISBN 13: 9780674743908
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 322
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Amazon EU Sarl; 0; www.amazon.com; ; 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; 0; L-1855; Lussemburgo