The Science of Evil

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Reading this now--just wondering if any of you have. If so, any thoughts/opinions?

THE SCIENCE OF EVIL by Simon Baron-Cohen

It's pretty good.

It explains to the unwashed how the lack of empathy in ASDs doesn't manifest in the same way as it does with antisocial (psychopaths), narcissistic and borderline PDs, whilst still showing that there is definitely a lack of empathy.

I don't have any respect for Baron-Cohen. He strikes me as a know-it-all armchair quack, who observes, and endlessly analyzes, but never really understands the human aspects of what he's looking at - though he THINKS he does. Perhaps B-C has a lack of empathy issue himself, but Attwood seems a much more hands-on and compassionate researcher, who spends more time interacting with actual autistic people, rather than endlessly parsing dry theories on paper. Baron-Cohen may be brilliant in his way, but he's also full of brilliant sounding BS.

I read the OP a few hours ago before there were any replies and decided to go ahead and read the whole book while I had nothing to do. It was an ebook on my university library so I just finished reading it now. I enjoyed it. I was worried at first it was going to be really dark and heavy given the intro which talked about some true crimes but it pretty well stuck to a clinical look at how a greater emphasis on empathy would make society better. I also like how he classifies the autistic spectrum as being 'zero positive' in terms of empathy because of all the potential benefits unlike the unfortunate circumstances of 'zero negative' related to psychopathy, narcissism and borderline pd. It definitely gave me a couple more ideas of things to read next. Anyone interested in this book might also enjoy the writings and/or lectures of Johaan Galtung, a peace negotiator. He's a funny old guy too.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention conundrum

I felt his differentiation of clueless lack of empathy from ill-intended lack of empathy did point to a distinction that sometimes goes unrecognized in someone being angry about the harm they feel I or anyone has just inflicted on them---by failing to accurately predict and understand their mindset.

And I think he is correct that this can be a useful trait. I think he said in law enforcement, he may have mentioned emergency personnel, any first responders, I'm not sure as read it awhile ago. But it would apply. Easier to not be manipulated by someone who is lying about having committed a crime and wants you to believe, easier to carry an infant out of a burning building when there are obstacles if you aren't feeling her terror.

I did though feel like he emphasized the potential overlap of ASD and someone doing harm more than occurs in real life. But not bashing.

I think you're giving him too much credit. As a psych major who's done a lot of reading of the research literature, I don't think Simon Baron-Cohen is that good a researcher. A lot of his 'contributions' are things other people have done just as well if not better - testing emotion recognition (the Mind in the Eyes test horribly confounds emotion recognition with vocabulary - better tests generally use simpler words for emotions), developing autism screening tests, etc. His publicity is way out of proportion of his actual contribution.

I find his work interesting, and I'm not going to dismiss him because I haven't read his other books.

Baron-Cohen is a professor at Cambridge. You don't get that gig unless you're quite good at what you do.

You're welcome--and thanks for the recommendation, I will look him up.

I'm about halfway through myself, and I find this perspective on the effects of empathy (or lack thereof) interesting. I now see why autism used to be confused with "psychopathy", even though "Zero-Negative" and "Zero-Positive" are completely different.

Since this is the second person saying things along these lines I thought I'd interject. In this book Baron-Cohen uses 'we' when talking about important discoveries made linking things like autism and empathy to genetics. And as someone else said you don't end up being a professor at Cambridge out of nowhere. It seems like he's contributing a lot to psychology and even stuff like population genetics.

Yes.

Also, in The Science of Evil he recites at least two urban legends as personal or second-hand experience.

I don't really consider him as a credible source of information on what autism is like, and I am far from alone in that.