University of New England

The media love lies and war and what UNE philosopher David Smith has to say about both
 
The national and world media discovered University of New England Associate Professor David Livingstone Smith three years ago, and they haven't let go of him since.

Two days before his most recent book, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War, went on sale, Smith was featured in an interview in the Boston Globe Magazine.

His last book Why We Lie:The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Uncoscious Mind  (St. Martins Press 2004) captured the national media’s attention, including excepts in Seed magazine, a review in Psychology Today, an article in the Wall Street Journal, and interviews on Fox News Live and Forbes.com, among other media outlets.

U.S. News & World Report, for instance, quoted Smith in a December 2005 story titled "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire," which looked at media figures such as Baltimore Orioles player Rafael Palmeiro and Martha Stewart and at a New York Times/CBS poll on the Bush administration's credibility on the case for the Iraq War.

Then in September 2006, National Geographic Television flew him down to their studios in Washington DC to interview him for an upcoming PBS documentary on the science of lying. More recently, in October 2006, the Brazilian magazine, Veja, the fourth largest weekly magazine in the world with a circulation of 1,300,000, published an interview with Smith in a wide ranging discussion about deception in relation to politics.

Smith's new book, The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War,  published by St. Martins Aug. 7, 2007, is proving to be equally provocative. In the book, Smith explores the evolutionary and psychological roots of war and genocide, with a view towards identifying what it is about human nature that makes it possible for us to treat our fellow human beings with such extraordinary brutality. 

He argues that our penchant for war is a product of  evolution and is deeply embedded in our human nature.  However, killing does not come easily to us: our lethal ferocity towards members of our own species is matched by equally powerful inhibitions against killing that are also part of our evolutionary heritage.  In taking the lives of others, we also do violence to ourselves. 

Smith says that as a result, psychiatric disorders are common among soldiers.  In order to go to war, we must find a way to overcome our natural reluctance to kill members of our own species. In a remarkable act of self-deception, we activate psychological systems originally evolved to deal with non-human dangers in a prehistoric environment, viewing 'the enemy' not as a real human being, but as a predator, prey or a vector of disease. 

Although not overly optimistic about humankind’s ability to rise above its nature and put war on the shelf, Smith remains “an informed optimist. ...  If I can contribute to people being just a little bit more reflective about this horrible business of war, then I’m deeply gratified.”

In addition to the Boston Globe interview, It has already garnered interviews with the Portland Press Herald and WLOB's "Talking Maine" program while advanced reviews of the book were glowing.

David P. Barash, professor of psychology at the University of Washington and author of Madame Bovary's Ovaries: a Darwinian Look at Literature, Understanding Violence and Approaches to Peace, wrote:

"If you have the intestinal fortitude to confront the horrors of war, as well as the intellectual fortitude to confront its basis in human nature, then you are ready for The Most Dangerous Animal.  David Livingstone Smith knows evolutionary biology, and history,and psychology, and philosophy, and anthropology, and has put them together to produce a riveting, unflinching and disturbingly accurate account of human warfare, from the 'commanded wars' of the Old Testament to Bush's Blunder in Iraq."

While Michael Shermer, publisher of Skepticmagazine, monthly columnist for Scientific American, author of The Science of Good and Evil and Why Darwin Matters, wrote:

"This is the most important post-9/11 analysis of war and it comes none too soon, as hundreds are daily dying and commentators continue to ask why. David Livingstone Smith has provided a cogent answer to the deeper why question of war; not why Iraq? or why Afganistan? or why Darfur?, but why war at all? Smith's answer--that war is buried deep in our evolutionary past--will be controversial, but his case is irrefutable. We have seen the enemy in the mirror, and until we gather the courage to accept our true nature, men will fight and people will die."

Lies, Deception
Smith's books explore two of humans' most basic instincts - lying and war - from the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology. 
In Why We Lie, Smith posits that our brains have evolved to handle deception as a Darwinian tool for survival.

Smith’s thesis is that none of us are entirely honest. With false claims about weapons of mass destruction, the Martha Stewart trial, corporate scandals involving Enron and MCI, and candidates preparing for the upcoming election, we are just as fascinated as ever with liars and deception.

There are scientific, evolutionary explanations for our propensity to lie—to others and to ourselves, Smith believes. Deception and social manipulation, he claims, were driving forces behind the evolution of human intelligence. We lie to others to gain success and to enhance our social status; we lie to ourselves because this helps us to deceive others more effectively (the most effective liar is the one who believes his/her own lies). Much of this activity is unconscious, with our brains deciding on a course of action before we are consciously aware of it.

Smith earned his M.A. from Antioch University and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of London, Kings College, where he worked on topics in the philosophy of mind and psychology.  Smith's earlier books include Freud's Philosophy of the Unconscious (Kluwer, 1999), Approaching Psychoanalysis: An Introductory Course (Karnac, 1999), and Psychoanalysis in Focus (Sage, 2002).

His current research interests include deception and self-deception, the evolutionary psychology of war, incest and incest-avoidance and various aspects of analytical philosophy.  He is co-founder of the University of New England's New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Studies and is an assistant professor in UNE's Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. He lives in Portland.

(Last updated Aug. 8, 2007)