Through the Wormhole

We're at war,

and the battle lines have been redrawn.

Terrorism can strike anywhere...

...and everyone is a target.

Science is peering into the dark heart of terror networks

to find out why terrorists embrace unspeakable atrocities.

Are they so different from us,

or do we all have the ability

to give our lives for a cause?

Could we learn to dehumanize our enemies,

or could science show us a way to stop terrorism...

...and understand what makes a terrorist?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos lie through the wormhole.

captions paid for by Discovery communications

When four planes dropped out

of a clear-blue sky on September 11th, 2001,

it was shocking to realize

we were all potential targets.

Today, al-qaeda and Isis claim the headlines,

but it was once the ira

and basque separatists in Europe, or anarchists

and the Ku Klux Klan in the United States.

Terrorists, like any group,

have ideals they belive in...

a cause to rally around.

But for them, the cause justifies the deliberate

targeting of innocent civilians.

How can they think that way?

Can we peer inside the mind of a terrorist?

Anthropologist Scott Atran has spent years

trying to understand the enemy.

He went to the front lines of Iraq,

embedding himself with American allies

to meet terrorists face to face.

This is the foremost position on the front lines.

I'm 10 kilometers west of makhmur.

So, we went to Iraq in 2016

to follow up on a battle.

Some 500 kurdish soldiers had cornered

fewer than 100 Isis fighters.

When all appeared to be lost to them

and the last 15 were retreated,

7 of them blew themselves up to cover their retreat.

The kurdish forces, seeing this,

decided it just wasn't worth trying

to hold on to the territory,

even though they vastly outnumbered

the islamic state fighters.

Scott wanted to know how such a small group

were able to hold off a much more formable force.

He sat down to interview captured Isis fighters

and put them through a battery of tests

to assess the strength of the group.

Yes.

Scott discovered there was an incredible bond

between these fighters.

They would do anything for their cause.

Scott has been studying

the dynamics of groups for years.

Humans are the preeminent group animal.

That's what allows us to build things like that.

It's a collective effort.

They have to coordinate,

and they have to take risks for one another.

In fact, they have to be able to sacrifice for one another.

One world trade stands as a testament to America's

resolve after September 11th.

When the towers came down in 2001,

it was the iron workers from local 40, amongst others,

who rebuilt the site a decade later.

Terrorists and iron workers seem like polar opposites to us.

But to an anthropologist,

both groups share a crucial trait.

These New York City iron workers risk their lives

every day for each other maneuvering these massive beams

while balancing hundreds of feet in the air.

Just set it down here.

They have an extremely close group dynamic.

Today, Scott is going to measure how strong it is,

administering to them the same test

he has given to terrorists in Iraq.

We're interested in how individuals relate

to the groups they live with and they work with.

The test is simple.

It involves five cards.

Each card shows a pair of circles.

The small one represents me.

The large circle represents the group.

In the first pairing, the "me" circle

and the "group" circle are totally separate.

But gradually, they begin to overlap.

In the fifth pairing, the "me" circle

is entirely contained within the "group" circle,

the two identities fully fused.

And what I'd like you to do

is pick the one that defines the way you think you are.

The iron workers see their identities

closely overlapped by the group's.

Scott expects this...

it's a natural byproduct of a tight-knit group

in a highly risky profession.

So, how do the iron workers' answers to the test

compare to those of terrorists?

The terrorists' answers were unlike those

of any other group Scott had studied.

For them, the group was all consuming.

The individual was nonexistent.

Well, they did this with guerillas in Libya,

where they actually rubbed it out

and blackened out the "me" in the group,

as if there were no difference.

Well, then we say they they're completely fused with the group.

What makes their dedication so extreme?

Scott says it has to do with the values

that hold the group together.

Iron workers are loyal to their brothers,

but probably wouldn't go to work if they weren't paid

or their families were being threatened.

Not so for Isis fighters,

who see their group as their salvation

and an islamic state as absolutely non-negotiable.

These values have become sacred to them.

Sacred values are often religious values,

because they're transcendent.

You wouldn't comprise or negotiate

to trade off your children.

Many of us wouldn't negotiate or comprise

to trade off our country or our religion

for any amount of money, under any social pressure.

They respond on all other measures...

willingness to fight, to die, to sacrifice for one other,

to torture, to have their families suffer.

And so, if you have a group of people fused around

a set of ideas they hold sacred,

for which no negotiation and compromise is possible,

well, then you have the most formable

fighting force possible.

And Isis is no exception.

Scott's work has shown how terrorists are single-minded

and absolutely committed to a cause.

But how do they take this behavior

so far as to load a car full of explosives

and blow up a building full of innocent people?

How do we shut down our ability to care for others?

According to psychologist Jay Van bavel,

our brains have a remarkable ability

to dehumanize others under the right circumstances.

Jay has designed a test to demonstrate

how we recognize humanity in the first place.

People came in, we took an image of a doll

and morphed it with a human face that looked very similar.

And when does this face look human to you?

Jay asked participants the same question.

And right about now.

Just passed the half-way mark

between the doll face and the real face,

most of us perceive that the face is human

and has a mind.

Right... There.

In Jay's field, it's called "perception of mind."

But he says it's not fixed.

Jay adjusted the experiment, and told his subjects

what college the person in the photo went to.

Their own college, an in-group...

And right about now.

...or a rival college across town,

an out-group.

This rivalry had a measurable effect.

What we found was that these students

were able to mind behind the in-group face much faster.

And they were slower to see the humanity

in students from another college.

Right about now.

These are subtle kinds of dehumanization.

How do we get into the mind of a terrorist

who can view a tower full of civilians

as a justifiable target?

Jay believes it's easier than you think.

For a second experiment, Jay divides subjects,

arbitrarily, into two teams...

the "rattlers" and the "eagles."

We told people that we were keeping track of points,

and the winning team would walk away with the money.

Jay's creating the essence of conflict...

two group competing for resources.

So, now I'm gonna read both teams a number of statements.

He reads the group short stories about people

who supposedly belong to neither team.

Jane managed to get indoors before it started to rain.

These stories are designed to measure empathy.

If you empathize with the person's story,

you put your thumb up.

If you don't care, thumb down.

Brandon got soaked by a taxi driver through a puddle.

Eagles and rattlers give equally empathetic responses.

Then Jay changes the game.

Andrew sat in gum on a park bench.

Andrew is a member of the eagles.

Serves him right.