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Individual Factors in Suicide Terrorims - ”Fictive Kin”
in Suicide Terrorism
Scott Atran
To cite this version:
Scott Atran. Individual Factors in Suicide Terrorims - ”Fictive Kin” in Suicide Terrorism. Science,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004, 304 (5667), pp.48-51. �ijn_00000480�
CREDIT:VIRGINIA INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE
Ongoing Controversy over Pfiesteria
READERS OF J. KAISER’S ARTICLE “THE Pfiesteria conundrum: More study, less certainty” (News of the Week, 2 Jan., p. 25) may have missed the fact that there is more certainty, not less, about the toxic microbe Pfiesteria. Some Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) scientists and their collabo- rators had earlier concluded that Pfiesteriaas a whole is not toxigenic and only physically attacks fish (1, 2), based on one strain of P.
shumwayae, CCMP2089. Yet Pfiesteriahas nontoxic as well as toxic strains (3), and expression of toxicity by toxic strains depends on culture conditions (4). Other laboratories have now shown that when cultured and tested appropriately (5, 6), strain CCMP2089 is ichthyotoxic.
Kaiser states that I declined to send these VIMS scientists toxic Pfiesteria culture. I had offered to provide them toxic culture and to show them how to grow it to express toxicity, if they would support the cost. Kaiser also describes me as not providing toxic Pfiesteria to the research community in general, although I have provided it to more than 40 scientists.
Kaiser does not mention the two recent publications on Pfiesteria effects on fish and mammals: A highly toxic Pfiesteria strain killed shellfish larvae as a toxic effect, without physical contact (7), and Pfiesteria toxin caused hippocampal damage in rats (8). Kaiser mentions only an unpublished study that, logically, found no evidence of health impacts from Pfiesteria because there were no toxic Pfiesteriablooms during the study.
Kaiser credits the VIMS scientists (1) for having found that Pfiesteria can kill larval finfish by physical attack, which colleagues
and I had earlier published [(4), p. 200], and she asserts that I have attributed fish death from Pfiesteriaonly to toxin. I have described physical attack and toxin as important interac- tive factors [(9), p. 672].
Kaiser reports only negative findings about Pfiesteriaamoebae. She mentions a study by Litaker et al.(10), who did not find amoebae in two P. piscicida strains (cultures 2 to 10 years old, of uncertain toxicity status) and, on that basis, concluded that the species does not form amoebae. She does not mention a peer- reviewed paper (11) with corrective informa- tion: Amoebae are minor to the toxicity issue;
toxin is produced mostly by flagellated stages.
Cultured toxic strains mostly have formed amoebae within the first few months after field isolation, and nontoxic strains rarely form amoebae. Kaiser describes a workshop presentation by P. Gillevet (VA Common- wealth Univ.), who did not find Pfiesteria amoebae in some estuarine sediments. She does not mention recent research from an international conference presentation: P.
Rublee (University of North Carolina) tested estuarine sediments and obtained a positive signal for Pfiesteria by PCR. Amoebae from those sediments were cloned by my labo- ratory, cultured for eight weeks with crypto- phyte prey in the absence of other Pfiesteria stages, and sent to Rublee, who confirmed them as Pfiesteria amoebae with PCR. Rublee then amplified and cloned 18S rDNA fragments, which were sequenced by another laboratory. The amoebae sequence was a perfect match to the sequence for P. piscicida zoo- spores (12).
Kaiser consistently fails to include new findings that are actu- ally about toxic Pfiesteria,or does not emphasize their significance.
The facts remain: Pfiesteria species have toxic strains. Their toxin adversely affects fish and mammals (5–8, 13). Further study is impor- tant, because it will provide the tools needed by resource managers and public health officials to mitigate impacts when there are more toxic Pfiesteria blooms.
JOANNBURKHOLDER Center for Applied Aquatic Ecology, North Carolina State University, 620 Hutton Street, Suite 104, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA.
References
1. W. K. Vogelbein et al.,Nature418, 967 (2002).
2. J. P. Berry et al.,Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.99, 10970 (2002).
3. D. D.Turgeon et al.,Protocols for Monitoring Pfiesteriaand Related Health and Environmental Conditions in U.S.
Coastal Waters (National Oceanic & Atmospheric
Administration, National Ocean Service, National Center for Coastal Ocean Science and Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment, Silver Spring, MD, 2001).
4. J. M. Burkholder, H. B. Glasgow, N. J. Deamer-Melia, Phycologia40, 186 (2001).
5. P. D. R. Moeller et al.,Environ. Health Perspect.109, 739 (2001).
6. A. S. Gordon, B. J. Dyer, D. Seaborn, H. G. Marshall, Harmful Algae1, 85 (2002).
7. J. Springer, S. E. Shumway, J. M. Burkholder, H. B.
Glasgow,Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.245, 1 (2003).
8. E. D. Levin et al.,Neurotoxicol. Teratol.25, 419 (2003).
9. J. M. Burkholder et al.,Environ. Health Perspect.109, 667 (2001).
10. R. W. Litaker et al.,J. Phycol.38, 442 (2002).
11. J. M. Burkholder, H. B. Glasgow,J. Phycol.38, 1261 (2002).
12. J. Burkholder, presentation at 10th International Conference on Harmful Algae, St. Petersburg, FL, Oct. 2002.
13. L. M. Grattan et al.,Lancet 352, 532 (1998).
Response
MY REPORT STATED THAT JOANN Burkholder’s lab had declined to share its toxic cultures with “critics.” The fact that more than 40 scientists have received Pfiesteria material from Burkholder, but certain other laboratories have not, was discussed in a previous news story (News Focus, 11 Oct. 2002, p. 346). For example, a request for toxic cultures from researchers at the University of Maryland was turned down because Burkholder decided that the several thousand dollars they offered was not suffi- cient. The VIMS team sent a written request for toxic cultures to Burkholder in August 2002. Burkholder responded that she
“cannot” supply cultures without also providing “training to use them properly”;
this, she later indicated, would cost $40,000.
Burkholder instead suggested a collaboration and sent VIMS a possible research plan in late 2002. According to VIMS scientists, Burkholder did not reply to their response, an e-mail sent 19 December 2002 that called the plan “an appropriate starting point” and suggested next steps.
The “recent research” showing that an amoebae sequence matched the sequence for P. piscicidazoospores was presented in October 2002, more than a year before the meeting on which I reported, and has not been published; Burkholder says this culture was lost in a power outage. The fact that the Burkholder lab’s attempts to isolate possible amoeboid Pfiesteira in 2003 yielded only true amoebae species seemed Pfiesteriafeeding on fish epidermis.
Letters to the Editor
Letters (~300 words) discuss material published in Sciencein the previous 6 months or issues of general interest. They can be submitted through the Web (www.letter2science.org) or by regular mail (1200 New York Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20005, USA). Letters are not acknowledged upon receipt, nor are authors generally consulted before publication.
Whether published in full or in part, letters are subject to editing for clarity and space.
L ETTERS
LE T T E R S
www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 304 2 APRIL 2004 47
worth reporting to readers of Science. Many aspects of Pfiesteriaresearch continue to be controversial in the field (1, 2).
JOCELYNKAISER References
1. Y. S. Shimizu,Curr. Opin. Microbiol.6, 236 (2003).
2. T. R. Miller, R. Belas,Res. Microbiol.154, 85 (2003).
Individual Factors in Suicide Terrorism
IT IS PERPLEXING THAT IN HIS OTHERWISE compelling Review “Genesis of suicide terrorism” (7 March 2003, p. 1534), S. Atran fails to address the most conspicuous case in recent memory: the suicidal raids of September 11, 2001. These events might have provided empirical data to corroborate or invalidate his model. Perhaps because all of the direct perpetrators of the attacks perished, it may have seemed wise to avoid any refer- ence to them at all: The data would have been indirect and anecdotic at best. Nonetheless, the same could be said of most of the exam- ples discussed in the Review: The scanty evidence that Atran presents comes from interviews with families, acquaintances, and various recruiters of a handful of suicide bombers in the Middle East, or from polls surveying the degree of support that suicidal terrorist acts receive in certain societies.
The paths to martyrdom are diverse. They require different abilities, talents, and temperaments, and this also applies to suicidal attacks. Rejecting individual factors on the basis of a “fundamental attribution error” (the tendency to explain behavior in terms of individual personality traits when significant situational factors in the larger society are at work) can lead to another funda- mental miscalculation: neglecting traits robustly related to particular propensities or temperamental styles. However obvious the relevance of institutional factors to Al Qaeda attacks, it does not obviate the need to analyze whether the influence of peer pressure under a closed organization fully explains the excep- tional behaviors under scrutiny. Emotion- driven loyalty in highly indoctrinated small cells had to be uncompromising during the
preparation and execution of 9/11.
Apparently, the model works. Nonetheless, the sheer elaborateness of the plan makes these attacks very different from a low-cost bus ride by a single youth carrying a home- made bomb under his (or, less commonly, her) belt, with the aim of detonating the arti- fact in a crowded marketplace. For the former, you need highly trained and reliable soldiers;
for the latter, any indoctrinated believer will do (hence the wide sociodemographic vari- ability in the studied samples).
Self-recruitment, for instance, is an indi- vidual factor that characterizes members of violent doctrinal groups, although it is not a distinctive feature among their members:
fellow devotees, intermediate officers, and commanders typically share this attribute, which may be connected to biological procliv- ities (1). But there are other constitutionally based traits (dominance, proneness to risk- taking, fearlessness, aggressiveness, machi- avellianism, narcissism, and obedience) that may make a contribution to the different roles played by self-recruited members, which in turn are crucial for the ties they establish within their microsocieties as well as the tactics they employ. To put it another way, can the sole trait of “charisma” explain the excep- tional influence of unique leaders (2)? Some charismatic leaders commonly succeed in promoting highly prosocial and nondestruc- tive goals; others are able to push entire groups of followers into mass suicide without injuring anybody else outside the group; and still others lead highly cohesive parties to challenge political power using terror (suicidal or not).
We need to dissect profiles that may char- acterize the different temperamental styles and goals of terrorism militants. Individual- oriented research seems essential in this respect. In addition to the aforementioned traits, altruistic punishment (3), messianism (4), and religiosity (5, 6) are factors that may play important roles in the phenomenon of suicidal terrorism. Research efforts directed at disentangling the critical social vectors of suicidal terrorism are extremely important.
They can, however, become even more valu- able if individuals are taken into account, rather than rejecting the perspective out of hand just because there is an absence of clear links with psychopathology or the lack of reliable differences between introverts and extroverts (7).
ADOLFTOBEÑA Unit of Medical Psychology, Institute of Neurosciences, Department of Psychiatry and Forensic Medicine, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Campus of Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: adolf.tobena@uab.es
References
1. C. Tudge,New Scientist, 11 May 2002, p. 36.
2. J. K. Galbraith, The Anatomy of Power (Houghton
Mifflin, Boston, 1983).
3. E. Fher, S. Gächter,Nature415, 137 (2002).
4. A. Tobeña, Anatomia de la Agresividad Humana (Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona, 2001).
5. D. S. Wilson,Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society (Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2002).
6. J. Borg et al.,Am. J. Psychiatry160, 1965 (2003).
7. A. Merari, paper presented at the Meeting “Mind, Brain and Violence,” Queen Sophie Center for the Study of Violence, Valencia, Spain, 7 to 8 Nov. 2002.
Response
TOBEÑA RAISES TWO CONCERNS ABOUT MY Review “Genesis of suicide terrorism”
(GST): Data stem largely from interviews and polls, and individual selection factors may contribute to understanding, predicting, and countering suicide terrorism.
Such data are almost all that exist, although new material confirms patterns in GST (1). Information from Palestinian news services on 171 militants killed during 2000 to 2003 (including 87 suicide attackers) reveals a majority of young bachelors from multisibling families (both parents living) having completed secondary education (most Hamas suicide bombers were college-educated) (2).
Terrorist incidents across the world (cited by U.S. Department of State) are unrelated to per capita income, whereas denial of civil liberties (defined by Freedom House) is related (3). U.S. Army Defense Intelligence (DIA) officials interrogating Saudi-born Al Qaeda detainees at Guantánamo report that these militants are often educated above reasonable employ- ment level; a surprising number have grad- uate degrees and come from high-status families. Motivation and commitment are evident in willingness to sacrifice material and emotional comforts (families, jobs, physical security), to travel long distances, and to pay their own way (4). For Hamas, Al Qaeda, and allies, religious indoctrina- tion (of recruits who initially express only moderate religiosity) appears crucial to creating intimate cells of fictive kin whose members commit to willingly die for one another. As with the 9/11 attackers (5), no
“personality” defects seem evident.
No doubt, predisposing individual differences render some people more
We need to dissect profiles that may characterize the different temperamental styles and goals of terrorism militants.
Individual-oriented research seems essential in this respect. ”
–TOBEÑA
“
Although both personal and contextual factors affect action, studies of individual behavior in group contexts show situation to be a much better predictor than personality.”
–ATRAN
“
susceptible to social factors that leaders use to get people to die for their cause. But individual differences often singled out as causally important—personal instability, hopelessness, and poverty (6)—are not dependable predictors (1). Tobeña proposes additional personality traits as possible factors (aggressiveness, narcis- sism, and obedience). But a U.S.
Interagency report (used by the CIA) concludes: “there is no particular psycho- logical attribute… or any ‘personality’ that is distinctive of terrorists” (7, p. 40).
Months—sometimes years—of intense indoctrination can lead to “blind obedi- ence” no matter who the individual, as indicated in studies of torturers (8).
Traits conceived as cross-situational dispositions are somewhat circular in scientific reasoning. How do we know someone is aggressive? Because the person attacks when provoked. Why does he attack? Because he is aggressive. In contrast to personality traits, cognitive attributions and appraisals (of how an indi- vidual construes the situation he finds himself in) may have explanatory value:
One can present the same event and manip- ulate the attribution/appraisal of the event to get different reactions.
Although both personal and contextual factors affect action, studies of individual behavior in group contexts show situation to be a much better predictor than person- ality (9). One situational factor, according to a U.S. Defense Science Board, is polit- ical context: “Historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States”
[(10), p. 8]. In any event, we cannot do much about personality traits, whether biologically influenced or not. We presum- ably can think of ways to make terrorist groups less attractive and to undermine their effectiveness with recruits.
GST sought to encourage new research into what causes suicide terrorism so that knowledge of causes could be used to stop the killing and devastation. The final U.S.
Interagency report on combating terrorism overseas shows funding increasing 133% from 2001 (apart from $165 billion voted for the Iraq war, which was primarily billed as depriving terrorists of weapons of mass destruction) (11). Incidence of suicide terrorism has not decreased. Despite detailed review of actions related to tens of billions spent by dozens of federal civilian and military agencies, there is scant mention of funding, or efforts to understand or prevent people from becoming terrorists in the first place.
SCOTTATRAN CNRS–Institut Jean Nicod, 1 bis Avenue Lowendal, 75007 Paris, France, and Institute for Social
Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106–1248, USA. E-mail: satran@umich.edu
References and Notes
1. See supplementary online material available on ScienceOnline at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/
full/304/5667/47/DC1.
2. B. Saleh, paper presented to the Graduate Research Forum, Kansas State University, 4 April 2003.
3. A. Krueger, J. Maleková,Chron. Higher Educ., 6 June 2003; available at http://chronicle.com/free/v49/
i39/39b01001.htm.
4. S. Atran,N.Y. Times, 5 May 2003, p. A27.
5. A. Karatnycky,National Review, 5 Nov. 2001; available at www.freedomhouse.org/media/0501nr.htm.
6. “September 11 one year later” (U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, September 2002), p. 14; avail- able at usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0902/ijge/
ijge0902.htm.
7. “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism” (Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, September 1999); released 14 December 2001; available at www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/Soc_Psych_of_ Terrorism.pdf.
8. M. Haritkos-Fatouros,J. Appl. Social Psychol.18, 1107 (1988).
9. L. Ross, R. Nisbett, The Person and the Situation (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1991).
10. “DoD Responses to Transnational Threats, Vol. 2: DSB Force Protection Panel Report to DSB,” December 1997; available at www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/trans2.pdf.
11. “Combating terrorism: Interagency framework and agency programs to address the overseas threat” (U.S.
General Accounting Office, Washington, DC, 23 May 2003); available at www.gao.gov/highlights/
d03165high.pdf.
12. Thanks to B. Saleh, T. Stewart, R. Nisbett, R. Gonzalez, R. Axelrod, N. Chomsky, G. Hammel, D. Medin, I.
Pitchford, H. Gintis, and D. Sperber for arguments and suggestions, and G. Origgi for organizing a CNRS- sponsored internet debate targeted on GST (available at www.interdisciplines.org/terrorism).
“Fictive Kin” and Suicide Terrorism
IN HIS REVIEW “GENESIS OF SUICIDE terrorism” (7 March 2003, p. 1534), S. Atran writes that institutional reinforcement of evolved psychological dispositions may play a role in the training of suicide terrorists.
These dispositions “may have emerged under natural selection’s influence to refine or over- ride short-term rational calculations that would otherwise preclude achieving goals against long odds.” In Atran’s view, commit- ment to apparently irrational behavior is a signal that convinces others of one’s sincere willingness to act. Organizations that recruit and train suicide terrorists purposefully manipulate dispositions to such commitment in order to engender or reinforce a willingness to engage in suicidal sacrifice. However, it is difficult to see how individuals could be induced to commit acts so personally costly that they preclude the fitness benefits that signaling is presumably evolved to provide.
Only if commitment to suicide occurs in the context of kin and psychological dispositions related to kin-related altruism is successful manipulation plausible.
I have developed a model to explore the relationship between nonkin altruism and
institutional practices related to kin recog- nition. Its logic is straightforward: Kin recognition is a necessary component of inclusive fitness calculations related to altruistic behavior in many species, and kin are often identified by means of evolved cues that are open to manipulation (1, 2).
As recognizing kin has been an important problem in hominid evolution (3), cognitive adaptations to address that problem have evolved (4, 5). Relevant literature suggests that cues most applicable to human behavior are close physical association (particularly during development), pheno- typic similarity, and the use of kin terms and other symbolic kin referents (6–8).
Thus, institutions desiring to maintain and reinforce nonkin altruistic behavior among their members should attempt to manipulate predispositions associated with these cues (9, 10). It is predicted that they will tend to
“cloister” recruits with each other and their trainers, provide them with false phenotypic matches such as uniforms and distinctive hair- styles, and encourage use of linguistic and other symbolic kin referents. Additionally, because youth and separation from kin are conditions likely to facilitate manipulation, institutions should prefer young, impression- able recruits and discourage their association with actual kin.
As suicide terrorism is an example of dramatically self-sacrificial behavior often exhibited in institutional contexts, the model should apply to this behavior as well, and a preliminary review of available data suggests that it does. Atran describes two of the five predicted practices: Suicide terrorists are typically young (early twen- ties), and they are recruited and trained even younger. Parental and sibling kin terms are often used among recruits, trainers, and leaders. In addition, recruits are typically separated from kin and community to train in secret, isolated camps where uniforms and other markers of phenotypic similarity are common. For example, among the “Children of the Iman” in 1980s Iran, young boys and girls were selected for martyrdom and sent to isolated camps for training. They “no longer belong[ed] to their respective fami- lies,” were assigned uniforms and red headbands, and were referred to as brothers and sisters, and children of the Ayatollah [(11), p. 91]. The same pattern can be seen among recruits to Al Qaeda, where kinship imagery is particularly pronounced: Osama bin Laden is known as the “elder brother,”
and recruits are placed in “families” during training and deployment (12).
It is no accident that suicide terrorists are often compared to monks (13) or members of religious cults (14), or that the organizational structure of suicide terrorist
LE T T E R S
www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 304 2 APRIL 2004 51
camps mirrors that of military organiza- tions (15). Costly sacrifice in nonkin contexts is the key to understanding commitment and behavior in all of these institutions. And while what motivates particular individuals to commit suicide terrorism may be impossible to ascertain, how institutions maintain and reinforce a willingness to do so can be more clearly understood. Atran is to be commended for his exploration of this question in evolu- tionary psychological terms. One hopes that work on kin-cue manipulative institu- tional practices will contribute to further understanding in this area.
HECTORN. QIRKO Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, South Stadium Hall 250, Knoxville, TN 37996–0720, USA. E-mail: hqirko@utk.edu
References
1. R. Trivers, Social Evolution (Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park, CA, 1985).
2. D. Fletcher, C. Michener,Kin Recognition in Animals (Wiley, New York, 1987).
3. M. Daly, C. Salmon, M. Wilson, in Evolutionary Social Psychology, J. Simpson, D. Kenrick, Eds. (Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1997), pp. 265–296.
4. L. Cosmides, J. Tooby, “Evolutionary psychology: A primer” (Center for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA) (available at www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html).
5. D. Symons,Ethol. Sociobiol.11, 427 (1990).
6. P. Hepper,Kin Recognition(Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1991).
7. P. Sherman, W. Holmes, in Experimental Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, B. Holldobler, M. Lindauer, Eds. (Verlag, New York, 1985), pp. 437–460.
8. R. Alexander,Ethol. Sociobiol.11, 241 (1990).
9. G. Johnson,Pol. Life Sci.4, 127 (1986).
10. S. Balch,J. Soc. Biol. Struct.8, 313 (1985).
11. A. Taheri, Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism(Adler & Adler, Bethesda, MD, 1987), p. 91.
12. R. Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror(Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 2002), p. 96.
13. J. Chivers, D. Rhode,N.Y. Times, 18 March 2002, p. A1.
14. D. Long,The Anatomy of Terrorism(Free Press, New York, 1990), p. 21.
15. C. McCauley, in The Psychology of Terrorism, vol. 3, C.
Stout, Ed. (Praeger, Westport, CT, 2002), p. 13.
Response
QIRKO ARGUES THAT SUICIDE TERRORISM’S equation of sincere displays of willingness- to-die-rather-than-submit with actual acts of dying-to-kill enemies nullifies any evolutionary benefits in such displays.
Only by translating personal cost into calculations of inclusive fitness (sacri- ficing for kin) can we understand such behavior. Martyr-sponsoring organizations do this by indoctrinating recruits into inti- mate cells of “fictive kin,” which triggers a naturally selected disposition for kin altruism. Qirko elaborates on how this may be done, suggesting that sexual abstinence, cloistering, and sharing of cult body symbols facilitate manipulation.
These practices, which are manipulated to trigger naturally selected cues associated with kin selection, can indeed encourage fictive kinship, but are not sufficient or
necessary for terrorism. French foreign legionnaires exhibit Qirko’s characteristics:
Candidates are stripped of names and belongings and, through the tutelary figure of Father Legion, a fictitious filiation is established and identity restored. This involves physical isolation from outsiders and close training with comrades; tattoos, stylized beards, and strict dress codes; and songs, fetishes, and bonding ceremonies (1). In terrorist groups, sexual promiscuity can also be a bonding factor, either within the group or toward others. Also, clois- tering and cultlike behaviors may be more prevalent among ideologically driven terrorist organizations than grievance- driven ones (which are more thoroughly enmeshed in the local community that sustains them).
In Moslem lands, exploding youth popu- lations crash against rigidly authoritarian regimes in the competition for political and economic opportunity (2). These youths and their families also see hope for escape blocked by rapidly rising anti-immigration sentiment elsewhere. Dwindling returns on future life prospects for individuals trans- late into increasing recruitment and prompt returns for terrorist organizations and leaders. To ensure returns, organizational indoctrinators lead recruits through an esca- lating series of commitments and entice- ments, ranging from initial encouragement of petty crime (3), to lures of Paradise, to the “living martyr’s” final testament whose retraction would make life unbearably humiliating (4).
This issue, too, may gain from evolu- tionary psychology’s insights. The attempt to monopolize social and economic resources—most often by males, and perhaps rooted in evolved reproductive strategies involving sexual competition—is arguably a factor in creating exploitative political systems that are organized to benefit those controlling resources (and power) and reduce fitness in (and competi- tion from) those who do not (5). The more that people who are dominated face risk in attempting to realize their hopes (6), the more they tend to become aggressive and tolerant of prospects for a shorter life (7).
Indoctrination into martyrdom converts tolerance into desire, even necessity (8).
SCOTTATRAN CNRS–Institut Jean Nicod, 1 bis Avenue Lowendal, 75007 Paris, France, and Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106–1248, USA. E-mail: satran@umich.edu
References
1. R. Stopin, introduction to C. Fréger, Légionnaires (779/Le Château d’Eau, Paris, 2002).
2. G. Hammel, Demographic Appendix to Discouraging Terrorism (National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2002) (available at http://books.nap.edu/books/
0309085306/html/38.html#pagetop).
3. A. Silke, Terrorists, Victims, and Society (Wiley, Chichester, UK, 2003), p. 35.
4. A. Merari, Statement before Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, “Terrorism and Threats to US Interests in the Middle East” [HASC No. 106-59] (U.S. Congress, Washington, DC, 13 July 2000) (available at http://tinyurl.com/g10v).
5. J. Sidanius, F. Pratto,Social Dominance(Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 1999), p. 265.
6. One way the PLO managed to reduce terrrorist activity among members of Black September was simply to marry them off (B. Hoffman,The Atlantic, December 2001; available at www.theatlantic.com/
issues/2001/12/hoffman.htm).
7. J. Chisholm,Death, Hope and Sex (Cambridge Univ.
Press, New York, 1999), p. 236: “Political planning should give preference to reducing the security short- fall of those at the edge of a fitness cliff.”
8. According to Sulayman Abu Ghayth, Al Qaeda spokesman, “There are among the youth of this community (Islam) thousands desirous of death in the same way as Americans are desirous of life… Jihad for the sake of God now is a must for every Moslem”
(Al-Jazeera Television, 9 Oct. 2001).
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS News of the Week:“Gene suggests asthma drugs may ease cardiovascular inflammation” by I.
Wickelgren (13 Feb., p 941). The credit for the image was incorrect. It should be “R. Spanbroek et al.,PNAS100(3), 1238 (2003).”
TECHNICAL COMMENT ABSTRACTS
COMMENT ON“A Reservoir of Nitrate Beneath Desert Soils”
R. B. Jackson, S. T. Berthrong, C. W. Cook, E. G. Jobbágy, R. L. McCulley
Walvoord et al. (Reports, 7 Nov. 2003, p. 1021) reported a large nitrate pool beneath desert soils (up to 104kg N ha–1) and similarly shaped soil nitrate and chloride profiles. Analyzing 16 new desert cores, we found nitrate values at least an order of magnitude lower (50 to 100 kg N ha–1) and no relationship to chloride profiles. The generality of the deep nitrate pool is questioned.
Full text at
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5667/51b
RESPONSE TOCOMMENT ON“A Reservoir of Nitrate Beneath Desert Soils”
Michelle A. Walvoord, Fred M. Phillips, David A. Stonestrom, R. Dave Evans, Peter C. Hartsough, Brent D. Newman, Robert G. Striegl
Desert subsoil nitrate inventories are spatially highly variable. Smaller inventories measured in the Chihuahuan Desert (particularly in areas of recent desertification as reported in the comment by Jackson et al.) relative to those in the Sonoran and Mojave deserts reported in our study confirm that subsoil nitrate retention in desert ecosystems is influenced by precipitation patterns, vegetation type, and vegeta- tion history.
Full text at
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5667/51c
