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Execution by nitrogen

March 18, 2015

The cryogenic industrial scale separation of nitrogen (and oxygen) from air can be traced back to 1895 when

In May 1895, Carl von Linde performed an experiment in his laboratory in Munich that led to his invention of the first continuous process for the liquefaction of air based on the Joule-Thomson refrigeration effect and the principle of countercurrent heat exchange. This marked the breakthrough for cryogenic air separation.

Cryogenic separation is normally used to produce nitrogen (78.1%), oxygen (20.9%) and argon (0.9%). Other methods are used for separating and concentrating the other trace gases in the atmosphere. Nitrogen is stable, non-explosive and inert. The growth of the chemical and oil refining industries saw a huge increase in the use of nitrogen for its physical and chemical properties. Since it is transported and stored in liquid form (cryogenic tanks) it could provide a source of “cold”, could come at very high pressures and was chemically inert. Moreover it was a raw material that was needed for the manufacture of fertilisers and pharmaceuticals. Its industrial use and medical use is widespread. Nitrogen is used – among many other things – as an assist gas for laser cutting, in creating welding atmospheres, as a pressurising gas in liquid pipelines, as a shielding or blanketing material for explosive or oxygen-sensitive materials, as a purging agent when cleaning tanks or pipes and as a freezing agent. Today there are few hospitals or factories (in any industry) which do not have a nitrogen storage facility of some kind.

In power plants nitrogen is often used for pressurising, purging, cooling or protection. I first came across a death caused by nitrogen in the 1970s when a maintenance worker entered a pulverised coal storage silo which had been blanketed with nitrogen for explosion protection during a shut-down. It was not a pressurised silo and therefore not seen as being a high risk area. By accident, he had entered the silo without a companion being present and without his breathing equipment. He was only found hours later inside the silo and it became clear that his asphyxiation had happened so fast that he had had no time to struggle, let alone call for any assistance. Of course the death was not so much caused by nitrogen as by the lack of oxygen and the resulting hypoxia. Nitrogen asphyxiation is not unknown as an industrial cause of death. Through the 1980s and 1990s, I came across another 4 accidental deaths at power plants where workers had inadvertently entered a nitrogen atmosphere. Just in the US, there were 80 industrial deaths and 50 injuries due to nitrogen asphyxiation between 1992 and 2002.

Effects of oxygen deficiency US CSB

Effects of oxygen deficiency US CSB

Nitrogen cylinders are readily available and nitrogen asphyxiation has already become – unofficially of course – one of the methods being used for end-of-life assisted deaths and suicides. It is said that the subject feels light-headed and euphoric first due to oxygen deficiency and then slips into unconsciousness and a supposed painless death. In an atmosphere with 4-6% oxygen, unconsciousness and a coma result in less than 40 seconds. An oxygen mask connected to a nitrogen – rather than an oxygen – cylinder is all that is apparently required. We cannot know for sure but it is thought that the subject:

is not stunned by the burning urge to breathe or the choking sensation of not having any air. As far as he realizes, he is breathing normally. Carbon dioxide is not building up in his bloodstream, so he never realizes that he is in danger. The subject is never in any pain he simply just passes out when his blood oxygen level falls to(o) low.

And now the State of Oklahoma is proposing that nitrogen asphyxiation be used as method of “humane” execution. (I think “humane” in this context is just a euphemism for “quick, unconscious and painless”).

Washington Post: ….. But in Oklahoma, a bill is advancing that would introduce an entirely new and untested method of execution: death by nitrogen inhalation.

“It’s probably the best thing we’ve come up with since the start of executing people by government,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mike Christian (R) told the Oklahoman. 

Nitrogen gas itself is odorless and nontoxic, and makes up 78 percent of the atmosphere. It only becomes lethal when someone breathes it in at high concentrations, and only then because that person is therefore not getting enough oxygen.

The proposed law is vague on the exact procedure, but Christian has said that it would be cheap and simple. Some kind of bag or breathing mask would be placed around the inmate’s head. Nitrogen gas would be pumped in, displacing any oxygen. The inmate would start to feel lightheaded, possibly euphoric, which are symptoms of oxygen deprivation. Painless death would soon follow.

Or that’s what’s supposed to happen, though nobody really knows for certain. (Generally speaking, medical professionals refuse to conduct research into killing methods.) …… 

…. At Rep. Christian’s behest, professors at East Central University recently produced a report on death by nitrogen. 

Report recommendations:

Nitrogen Induced Hypoxia as a Form of Capital Punishment,

Michael Copeland JD., Thom Parr MS. and Christine Papas JD., PhD.

The study found that:

1. An execution protocol that induced hypoxia via nitrogen inhalation would be a humane method to carry out a death sentence.

2. Death sentence protocols carried out using nitrogen inhalation would not require the assistance of licensed medical professionals.

3. Death sentences carried out by nitrogen inhalation would be simple to administer.

4. Nitrogen is readily available for purchase and sourcing would not pose a difficulty.

5. Death sentences carried out by nitrogen inhalation would not depend upon the cooperation of the offender being executed.

6. Use of nitrogen as a method of execution can assure a quick and painless death of the offender.

Accordingly, it is the recommendation of this study that hypoxia induced by the inhalation of nitrogen be offered as an alternative method of administering capital punishment in the State of Oklahoma.

In this modern, civilised, 21st century, firing squads, beheadings, stoning, being pushed off a roof-top, being poisoned (gas, lethal injection), hanging, electrocution and asphyxiation are all in use or proposed as methods of execution. Not so very different from the barbarous times of the Middle Ages.

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Amnesty provides cover for IS apologists

March 17, 2015

First it was Amnesty’s support for CAGE and their apologists for IS. Once the CAGE support for Jihadi John in particular (“a kind, gentle, beautiful, young man”) and terrorists in general (“working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror”) received publicity, Amnesty tried some damage control by trying to distance themselves from CAGE but the damage to their reputation had been done:

Evening Standard:Cage has come under fire after suggesting that MI5 “harassment” was responsible for turning Londoner Mohammed Emwazi into a bloodthirsty terrorist seen beheading civilians in horrific Islamic State propaganda videos.

Last week Cage revealed it had extensive contact with the 26-year-old between 2009 and 2012 because his allegations against the security services. In an extraordinary press conference, its research director Asim Qureshi described the now-radical Islamist as a “kind, gentle, beautiful young man”.

Cage describes itself as “an independent organisation working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror” and has spoken out against the UK’s anti-terrorism laws.

But critics have accused it of being “apologists for terror” and today Amnesty International’s deputy director suggested it may no longer campaign with Cage.

Steve Crawshaw said his personal view was that he could not foresee Amnesty collaborating with Cage again by signing joint campaign letters as it has done in the past. ……. 

Gita Sahgal led Amnesty’s women’s gender unit before she was forced out in 2010 after criticising the charity’s links to Cage.

Today she claimed Amnesty had taken research from Cage, shared logos with them, produced briefing papers together and signed letters to the government with them, all of which was hugely damaging to Amnesty and its human rights efforts around the world.

She said: “Immense damage has been done to Amnesty, not least because they won’t come clean about their association with Cage.”

But Amnesty still continues to provide indirect support for IS. Now they have come out with a report condemning the Syrian government for air strikes against IS. Civilians were killed as they also are in air strikes by the US and NATO as well. What Amnesty cannot get away from is that their reports and their search for publicity provide cover for all those who would justify the barbarism of IS.

DW: Amnesty International has said a series of “ruthless airstrikes” on an “Islamic State” stronghold last year by Syria’s government killed more than 100 civilians. Some raids gave “every indication of being war crimes.”

In the new report, published on Tuesday, the London-based human rights group said 115 civilians, including 14 children, were killed in some of the strikes launched on the city of Raqqa by the Syrian regime between November 11 and 29. Non-military targets, including a mosque, a transport hub and a busy market, were also hit in the raids.

Raqqa city is the self-proclaimed capital of the Syrian branch of “Islamic State” (IS), but Amnesty said there was no indication that militant positions were the target of the series of strikes.

“Syrian government forces have shown flagrant disregard for the rules of war in these ruthless airstrikes,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director.

The Rules of War? Really?

I am afraid that Amnesty is getting caught up in a moral quagmire when it comes to the IS and they are damaging some of the good reputation they had. They may not want to admit it but they are – perhaps unwittingly or perhaps intentionally – not only providing a cloak for IS apologists to hide under but providing material that IS can use to justify their murderous actions.

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Age discrimination to be tested in Swedish court

March 16, 2015

Age discrimination is endemic in Sweden – that is discrimination on the basis of just age and not because of some attribute or lack of competence. Though it is illegal it is an everyday occurrence. To be labelled a “pensioner” in Sweden is often as an excuse for exclusion and a not so subtle form of insult.

The elderly are noticeably absent in parliament where they are grossly underrepresented. This is, in part, due to the fact that all the political parties are inherently prejudiced against age and have an obsession about youth. It shows up with the party leaders and their entourages as well, where youth – and being seen to be young – is of primary importance. Incompetence and inexperience are tolerated (even encouraged) to satisfy the youth fetish. Competence and experience do not balance the perceived disadvantages of age. The theory being, I suppose, that this attracts young, first time voters. I perceive the incidences of incompetence in government and in political life as increasing. I would go so far as to say that there has been a “dumbing-down” of politics. The proportion of the elderly among the electorate is growing sharply. But so far their electoral strength has not manifested itself in politics or in parliament.

A public transport company, Keolis, has introduced a blanket rule forbidding those over 70 years old from being bus or taxi drivers. This is a ban based entirely on age and not on competence. The Discrimination Ombudsman is taking this to court to see if such a blanket age-based ban is legal.

Swedish radio: The Discrimination Ombudsman has taken the position that the public transport company Keolis is discriminating illegally against the elderly with their ban on people aged 70 or over from driving buses and taxis. For the first time, such a general upper age limit will now be tested in the Labour Court.

Marie Nordström who is handling the case within the office of the Discrimination Ombudsman hopes that this will send a clear signal to employers. “We must become aware of that age itself actually constitutes grounds for discrimination, and that we should not discriminate against older people in employment. We must make effective use of older people’s knowledge and experience to a greater extent than we do today”.

…… Cecilia Jerneheim, Human Resources Manager at Keolis, says that the age limit is not about discrimination, but about road safety. “It is known that with increasing age, hearing, vision and response time are impaired and therefore we have chosen the age of 70. We need to put a limit somewhere and we have chosen 70” says Cecilia Jerneheim.

But whatever the labour court says the attitude of general condescension towards, and the political exclusion of, the elderly will continue in Swedish society for some time yet.

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Putin has not been seen in public for 10 days

March 15, 2015

He has not been seen in public since March 5th and speculation is rife. Being missing for a week-end would be rare but not unknown. Going AWOL for a week would be almost unheard of except for a well-planned holiday announced well in advance. But for a world leader to be “missing” for 10 days would suggest something quite unusual – and rather disturbing. An illness would either have to carry some kind of stigma or leave him unsightly not to have been announced.

  1. He is in Switzerland with his girl friend, gymnast Alina Kabayeva, for the birth of his “love-child”.
  2. He is under arrest after a secret coup by hard-liners who think he is being soft on Ukraine.
  3. He has the flu.
  4. He has bird flu or swine flu.
  5. He is undergoing a face-lift.
  6. He is being held for ransom and negotiations or ongoing over a price for the kidnappers to keep him.
  7. He is dead.

I am not quite sure how much more dangerous or destabilising a Russia without Putin might be. A public meeting with the leader of Kyrgystan is expected on Monday. If that does not happen ……….

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Not much difference between Hillary Clinton and Richard Nixon

March 11, 2015

They didn’t have email in Richard Nixon’s day. And we don’t have much in the way of magnetic tape recordings these days. But otherwise Richard Nixon’s deletion of 18.5 minutes of incriminating recordings is no different to Hillary Clinton’s deletion of some 32,000 emails – self defined as being “private”.

To claim that over 50% of her email during this period when she was secretary of state was private is an insult to intelligence. “Of the 62,320 emails in her account, her office said 30,490 were deemed public business, while the remaining 31,830 were deemed private”. Really!

WashPo (16th June, 2014):

This week in 1972, a conversation took place which would lead to the most famous incident of evidence destruction by a presidential administration. ……. 

On November 17, 1973, the White House informed Federal District Judge John Sirica that the 18 1/2 minute Nixon-Haldeman conversation of June 20, 1972, had been erased. White House Counsel Fred Buzhardt told the Court that he no explanation for the erasure.

Nixon’s Secretary Rose Mary Woods took the blame for the first five minutes of the erasure. She said that she had been transcribing the tape, and when she reached to take a phone call, her foot hit a pedal on the recording machine, inadvertently causing the tape player to “record” over the original tape’s contents. Reporters were called to the White House to watch her perform a re-enactment, and the photos of her performing a tremendous stretch, which she supposedly held for five minutes, were rejected as implausible. Moreover, the particular tape recording machine does not operate the way she had claimed; simply pressing the foot pedal to “record” would not initiate a recording unless the play button was being manually depressed at the very same time.

Chief of Staff Alexander Haig blamed the 18 1/2 minute gap on a “sinister force.” In January 1974, experts who examined the tape reported that were four or five separate erasures. ……..

WashingtonTimes (10th March, 2015):

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton deleted nearly 32,000 emails she deemed private from her time in the Obama administration and refused Tuesday to turn over her personal email server, insisting she “fully complied” with the law and that voters will have to trust her judgment.

Answering questions for the first time about her emails, Mrs. Clinton said she’s turned over to the State Department 55,000 pages of emails she deemed work-related, but said she got rid of the rest last year. She defended her decision to keep control of her emails by using a private account, saying previous secretaries did the same thing, and saying it was more “convenient” for her this way.

“I wanted to use just one device for both personal and work emails instead of two,” she said in a hastily called press conference after she spoke at the U.N. Conference on Women.

Hillary Clinton’s motives and morals in destroying incriminating evidence are not so different to Richard Nixon’s. There is only one reason for a public official (or even any employee in any company) to use private email rather than the organisation or company provided email. And that is to keep something secret from that organisation or company. Deletion of material is even more an explicit admission that the deleted material was incriminating. The “convenience” argument is childish – but I am surprised at how many in the US can be so “gullible” and take such an excuse seriously. I suppose the acolytes will believe whatever they want to believe no matter what the evidence says.

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A certain hypocrisy

March 10, 2015

Leslee Udwin’s documentary about the Delhi rapes was shown in Sweden recently and there was much coverage in the media and the talk shows about the misogynist nature of Indian society. Also in India an alleged rapist was lynched last week by a mob which was led by a gang of schoolgirls. The alleged rapist was an immigrant from Bangladesh. The girls are being hailed as heroes in some quarters even though CCTV pictures show the victim apparently willingly accompanying her rapist into and out of a hotel. The “human rights” and “women’s rights” activists are largely silent here. So was the lynching due to misandry and were the schoolgirls leading the mob misandrists?

Today it is reported in Sweden that the rapist of a 13 year old was set free by two successive courts because the girl was well developed for her age. I note also that a certain Julian Assange is sitting holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid a Swedish arrest warrant for the investigation of an alleged rape by a woman who was willingly sharing his bed. No doubt the Swedish arrest warrant for Assange is largely political (on two counts; first to appease the US and second to appease the feminist lobby). The definition of rape in Sweden is quite wide and many so-called “rapes” would not be considered so in other countries. On the other hand Sweden must be one of a very few countries where sexual intercourse with a minor – no matter what she looked like – would not lead to a rape conviction. And when convictions are reached they often lead to little more than a slap on the wrist. Acquittals are very common. Which leads to the peculiar situation that the bar to what is considered rape is quite low when it comes to prosecution but there are very few convictions by the courts.

(With penalties for rape so low in Sweden I wonder why Assange is so scared of being questioned. Presumably he is more concerned about “rendition” to the US – where he is wanted for the leaks in the Bradley (Chelsea) Manning case – than of any consequences for the alleged rape in the Swedish courts. Sweden does have a history of assisting the CIA in cases of rendition in the past).

But whether in India or in Sweden the hypocrisy is palpable. In India there are only very few and very reluctant prosecutions, but convictions lead to very severe sentences. Once a rape is alleged, the suspect lives precariously. In Sweden, on the other hand, the definition of rape is very wide and the bar to prosecution is very low. The many prosecutions rarely lead to any consequence of substance from the courts.

Aftonbladet: The 27-year old man saw the 13-year-old girl on a bench outside his apartment, invited her in and had sex with her.
He was charged with child rape but was acquitted in two instances.
The decisive factor was the Court’s assessment – that the girl’s body was well developed for her age.
The 27-year-old man was arrested in April last year and charged first with child-rape and secondly, rape. But both Västmanland District Court and the Svea Court of Appeal acquitted the man.
The prosecutor chose not to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the girl’s counsel has taken up the case. The Supreme Court must first grant leave to appeal for the case to be reopened.
“There are very few cases that have so far been taken up”, says the girl’s lawyer Goran Landerdahl.

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“A bloody nose” as Swedish foreign policy degenerates to be just domestic policy

March 10, 2015

UPDATE! The 22 foreign ministers of the member countries of the Arab League released a statement today condemning the Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, for her anti-Saudi comments. Her comments were considered “irresponsible and unacceptable”. The undertone is that she does not understand very much about the Arab world or about Sharia law. No matter what one may think of Sharia and Saudi Arabia, Margot Wallströms statements reveal a Swedish foreign affairs behaviour which either does not analyse the consequences of its statements – or is incompetent. The obsessions of the greens and the far-left are bringing the country’s foreign policy into disrepute.

The new left-green Swedish government seems to have become a slave of their minority green partners (and are also going out of their way to placate the far left party which supports them from outside the government). So much so that foreign policy has now become a string of sanctimonious positions. It is now more about being politically correct in a domestic context rather than actually promoting Sweden’s interests (geopolitical and commercial) in foreign lands.

The Foreign Minister – Margot Wallström – started of her term by recognising Palestine as a State. It pandered to all her domestic constituents and allies, upset Israel and the US,  and has not helped the Palestinians one jot. But it allowed those on the left to expound their beliefs and provided support for the growing anti-semitism in Sweden.

Some 10 years ago the socialist government of the time entered into a cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia regarding defence and defence production. The agreement was nurtured all through the 8 years of the subsequent moderate-led government and provided a good deal of business and many jobs in Sweden. The current socialist government of Stefan Löfven is hard pressed by its own left wing to cancel the deal. The greens absolutely hate this agreement but that is because their goal is to dismantle the Swedish defence industry. The politically correct feminist view is that all things Saudi Arabian must be condemned. For the last few weeks the Swedish media (which are predominantly left of centre and hopelessly politically correct) have been running a campaign to support the greens and the far left in condemning the Saudi agreement.

And their efforts have now resulted in Margot Wallström “receiving a bloody nose” from Saudi Arabia. She was scheduled to make a speech to the Arab League (about Human Rights) but this was cancelled at short notice by a very irritated Saudi Arabia.

TheLocal.se: Sweden’s national debate about a controversial arms deal has sparked anger in Saudi Arabia and formed the backdrop to its move to block the Swedish foreign minister’s planned speech at the Arab League, according to an expert on Saudi politics.

Thord Janson, a Saudi Arabia expert at Gothenburg University, said: “This isn’t a slap on the hand; it’s a punch in the nose,” he told news agency TT. The decision by Saudi Arabia, a regional powerhouse, to prevent Wallström from speaking in Cairo on Monday appeared designed to cause embarrassment, he said. “From a diplomatic perspective it’s incredibly harsh. One couldn’t be more clear.” Janson predicted that Saudi Arabia would now make life trickier for Swedish firms operating in the wealthy Middle Eastern oil state. “The authorities might make it more difficult for them to import goods, deliveries might get slowed down in customs, and it could become hard to get certain permits.” 

The very public discussion in Sweden on whether to extend a military cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia had sparked strong reactions in Riyadh, said Janson. Sweden’s Green Party, the junior partner in the Social Democrat-led government, wants to scrap the deal, as do several members of Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s own party.  

Swedish criticism of the flogging of the blogger and human rights activists Raif Badawi may also have played a part in the Saudi decision.

“They thinks it’s an internal matter,” said Janson. “They don’t understand why a morally decadent country like Sweden is getting involved in the Saudi legal system.

My perception is of Swedish foreign policy now becoming quite shallow and with little substance. It is more concerned with being – and being seen to be – politically correct in the eyes of the greens, the far left and the feminist party. Foreign policy has degenerated to become a series of sanctimonious and self-righteous statements where the purpose is to look good for the domestic audience. And Margot Wallström – who is not inexperienced – has not the strength to resist the domestic lobbying.

Swedish foreign policy no longer shows any evidence of any deep thought about Swedish interests or how to promote change abroad. The end of the agreement with Saudi Arabia is now inevitable. There is little chance of Saudi Arabia (or Israel) now paying any attention to the “Swedish opinion”. Swedish business of any kind – and not just the defence business – can expect to meet more unfriendly customers. Other European countries will not be slow to step in to replace Swedish suppliers. But the far left and the greens can wallow in self-righteousness. Any chance of a place on the Security Council has disappeared.

 

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India’s daughter let down by government stupidity

March 9, 2015

The documentary film about the Delhi rape victim by Leslee Udwin and which was banned by a Delhi Court and the Indian government, was shown on Swedish TV tonight (available here till 7th April with Swedish text). I thought the authorities were being rather stupid in their knee-jerk reaction in imposing the ban. Now after seeing the documentary, it is apparent that I was being too kind. The stupidity was multiplied by idiocy. The ban does no service to India’s daughters.

The ban was for having “objectionable content” and because it might cause a “public outcry”. There should instead be a public outcry against their ridiculous ban. I found nothing derogatory at all about women in the film. In fact the attitudes displayed by the rapist (and his lawyer) were what I found most revealing. Their attitudes are no different to what is displayed by most of the male politicians (of all political hues). The argument made by the government that the film provides a platform for the condemned rapist does not hold and could only be put forward by someone who has not seen the film.

As a documentary, the film itself was a little patchy but very good in parts. But where it worked very well was in exposing the ingrained nature of the attitudes of people – male and female – when they have been brought up to see women as chattel.

It ought to be compulsory viewing for Rajnath Singh, all members of the BJP and the Delhi Court which banned the film. (Of course what ought to come first is that they all be required to exercise their minds before opening their mouths).

I was glad to hear that NDTV which was scheduled to screen the documentary today did not replace the film but just showed a slate with the film title for the scheduled duration of the banned documentary:

Screen grab from NDTV of a slate featuring India's Daughter titles

BBC: 

India’s NDTV has halted programming in protest at the banning of the BBC documentary India’s Daughter.

The network ran a slate referring to the film’s title, during the hour-long slot when it should have aired.

The film, which features an interview with one of the men convicted of the Delhi bus rape, was due to be broadcast by the channel on Sunday night.

But it was outlawed by the Indian authorities on the grounds of “objectionable content”.

Explaining its decision not to broadcast an alternative show from 21:00 to 22:00 local time (15:30-16:30 GMT), editorial director Sonia Singh said in a tweet: “We won’t shout, but we will be heard.”

 

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Sexual perks for senior Australian surgeons

March 7, 2015

Senior Australian surgeons, it seems, regularly expect sexual gratification from their juniors as part of their due.

The President of the Australian Medical Association in New South Wales, Dr. Steven Smith, however seems remarkably complacent and quite content to allow demographics to solve the problem. He is just waiting for the tide to turn.

“”But we know increasingly and the trend is that every graduating year for medicine is more female than male as far as the graduate numbers. And as such, there is a tide to turn.” – ABCnet

Sydney Morning Herald:

A senior surgeon has been criticised for her “appalling” suggestion that surgical trainees should stay silent if they’re sexually assaulted by a colleague because coming forward could ruin their careers.

Dr Gabrielle McMullin, a Sydney vascular surgeon, says sexism is so rife among surgeons in Australia that young woman in the field should probably just accept unwanted sexual advances.

She referred to the case of Caroline, who won a case against a surgeon accused of sexually assaulting her while she was completing surgical training at a Melbourne hospital. But the woman was unable to get work at any public hospital in Australasia after the legal victory, Dr McMullin told ABC radio at a book launch at Parliament House in Sydney on Friday night.

“Her career was ruined by this one guy asking for sex on this night. And, realistically, she would have been much better to have given him a blow job on that night,” Dr McMullin said.

“What I tell my trainees is that, if you are approached for sex, probably the safest thing to do in terms of your career is to comply with the request; the worst thing you can possibly do is to complain to the supervising body because then, as in Caroline’s position, you can be sure that you will never be appointed to a major public hospital.”

 

ABC: …. Dr McMullin told the ABC the story of a neurosurgical trainee in Melbourne suggested this was the case.

“Caroline was … the daughter that you’d wish to have. She excelled at school. What she always wanted to be was a neurosurgeon,” she said. “At the hospital Caroline ended up training at, one surgeon took her under his wing. But things got uncomfortable. “He kept asking her back to his rooms after hours. But after this one particularly long [work] session, she felt it was rude to refuse and they ended up back in his rooms, where, of course, it was dark and there was nobody else around, and he sexually assaulted her.

“She was horrified. She ran out of the office. She didn’t tell anyone.” 

Dr McMullin said the surgeon began to give Caroline bad reports and faced with the prospect of failing after years of hard work, Caroline finally complained. After a long and gruelling legal process, Caroline won her case. 

“However, despite that victory, she has never been appointed to a public position in a hospital in Australasia,” Dr McMullin said.

“Her career was ruined by this one guy asking for sex on this night. And realistically, she would have been much better to have given him a blow job on that night.

“The worst thing you could possibly do is to complain to the supervising body, because then, as in Caroline’s position, you can be sure that you will never be appointed to a major public hospital.”

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Gods and religions as tools for control of social behaviour

March 6, 2015

Religions (belief in systems of supernatural punishment – BSP) and then those based on Moralising High Gods (also to mete out punishment for social transgressions) were, no doubt, originally invented as a means of social control in societies of increasing size and/or complexity. It has been suggested that Moralising High Gods (MHG) were a necessary condition which probably enabled the growth of complexity in, and success of, such societies. (Effectively then, a means for getting large numbers to behave themselves and as a cheap substitute for – and perhaps a complement to – an expensive police force in complex societies).

A new paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (B) reports on studies of religious beliefs in 96 Austronesian cultures and suggests that a belief in a “Big God” was not necessarily the driver of developing social complexity.

Joseph Watts et al, Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia, Proceedings B, The Royal Society, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2014.2556

Abstract: Supernatural belief presents an explanatory challenge to evolutionary theorists—it is both costly and prevalent. One influential functional explanation claims that the imagined threat of supernatural punishment can suppress selfishness and enhance cooperation. Specifically, morally concerned supreme deities or ‘moralizing high gods’ have been argued to reduce free-riding in large social groups, enabling believers to build the kind of complex societies that define modern humanity. Previous cross-cultural studies claiming to support the MHG hypothesis rely on correlational analyses only and do not correct for the statistical non-independence of sampled cultures. Here we use a Bayesian phylogenetic approach with a sample of 96 Austronesian cultures to test the MHG hypothesis as well as an alternative supernatural punishment hypothesis that allows punishment by a broad range of moralizing agents. We find evidence that broad supernatural punishment drives political complexity, whereas MHGs follow political complexity. We suggest that the concept of MHGs diffused as part of a suite of traits arising from cultural exchange between complex societies. Our results show the power of phylogenetic methods to address long-standing debates about the origins and functions of religion in human society.

Philip Ball comments in Nature:

All human societies have been shaped by religion, leading psychologists to wonder how it arose, and whether particular forms of belief have affected other aspects of evolved social structure. According to one recent view, for example, belief in a “big God” — an all-powerful, punitive deity who sits in moral judgement on our actions — has been instrumental in bringing about social and political complexity in human cultures.

But a new analysis of religious systems in Austronesia — the network of small and island states stretching from Madagascar to Easter Island  — challenges that theory. In these states, a more general belief in supernatural punishment did tend to precede political complexity, the research finds, but belief in supreme deities emerged after complex cultures have already formed. …

The most common examples of religions with MHGs — Christianity and Islam, the dominant representatives of so-called Abrahamic religions — are relatively recent and obviously postdated the appearance of complex societies. But the question is whether earlier MHGs, for example in Bronze Age civilisations, catalysed sociopolitical complexity or resulted from it. …

…. Watts and his colleagues pruned the 400 or so known Austronesian cultures down to 96 with detailed ethnographic records, excluding any in which contact with Abrahamic religions might have had a distorting outside influence. They range from native Hawaiians, who hold polytheistic beliefs, to the Merina people in Madagascar, who believe in a supreme God.

The team considered two classes of religion: MHGs and a broader belief in systems of supernatural punishment (or ‘BSP’) for social transgressions, such as those enacted through ancestral spirits or inanimate forces such as karma. Although both schemes see religious or supernatural agents as imposing codes of moral conduct, BSP does not assume a single supreme deity who oversees that process.

Six of the cultures had MHGs, 37 had BSP belief systems and 22 were politically complex, the researchers concluded. They used trees of evolutionary connections between cultures, deduced from earlier studies of linguistic relationships, to explore how the societies were inter-related and exchanged ideas. That in turn allowed them to test different hypotheses about MHGs and BSPs — for example, whether belief in MHGs precedes (and presumably then stabilizes) the emergence of political complexity.

But it seems to me that the distinction between BSP (with punitive supernatural forces) and MHG (with punitive moralising high gods) is largely a matter of degree. MHG is a natural progression with the identifying of the supernatural forces in human terms – and therefore – allowing some sections to claim some special alliance with the god having supernatural force. A god without supernatural force clearly would not qualify. Worshipping a Sun-god is different to worshipping the Sun only in that it allows the priests of the Sun-god to identify with the god. Priests of the Sun (rather than a Sun-god) just don’t have the same credibility and thus authority. It is not by accident that all gods are in the recognisable image of man (and that applies even to the elephant god Ganesh and the monkey god Hanuman). That allows the “priests” and the “prophets” to establish themselves in a position of social power (allied to the political power). It seems to me to be a logical extension of “calling on supernatural forces” for social control to become “calling on a specific supernatural god” as a cost-effective, self-policing method to control the masses in an increasingly complex society.

It also seems quite apparent to me that a small clan would have no need of a religion since the “leader” would exercise his social control directly and by the force of his personality or his strong right arm. It would be the increasing numbers of the society and his inability to exercise control – even with some rudimentary police force – which would lead to some measure of self-policing becoming necessary. And that would drive the invocation of a system of super-natural punishments for transgressions. And so religion would have been born. “Correct” behaviour was a requirement to placate the supernatural forces and avoid punishment. Thereafter it was just a matter of increasing numbers and/or complexity which would have led to the definition of “humanised” gods and their chosen cadre of priests.

A religion (BSP) then is no more than a tool for developing the self-policing of the social behaviour of the masses. And then religions need to “humanise” supernatural forces into gods and moralising high gods (MHG) only when a ruling class needs to secure its power over the unwashed masses.

 

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