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Deception: Perspectives from Science, Technology and Art

Spring Quarter 2003
STS 121B (History 301Q)
Michael John Gorman and Persi Diaconis
Seminar, 5 units
Days: Tuesday, Thursday, 12.15-2.05 (bring your lunch)
Place: Wallenberg Hall (Bldg 160), Room 328

"He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying" Michel de Montaigne

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple” Oscar Wilde

Read an article about the course, from the Stanford Report, April 23, 2003

Outline

Lying has been described as one of the most fundamental human activities. George Steiner has argued, in After Babel, that deception was at the root of the development of human language. This inter-disciplinary seminar will place deception in historical context, through a series of close case studies, particularly from the history of science, technology and the visual arts. We will consider the history of lying and changing technologies for lie detection. We will examine frauds, fakes and illusions in science, technology and art from the 1600s to the present. We will explore the cultural and legal connotations of fraud and deceit, from Descartes to the Clinton impeachment. We will consider attempts to model deception in game theory and deception in the media.

Approach taken by the course

The purpose of this course is not to teach students how to lie and deceive. Instead, the goal is to sensitize students to deception and to encourage informed scepticism by providing a theoretical and historical analysis of mendacious behaviour. Our concepts of truth and truthfulness have only been developed, this course will suggest, against a murky background of falsehoods and lies. The course will explore the analyses of deception propounded by a number of very different fields. It will explore historical attempts to categorize, model, punish, and occasionally condone mendacious behaviour by sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, game theoreticians, philosophers and police interrogators.

Enrollment

Maximum enrollment for this seminar is limited to 20.

Readings

All readings should be read in advance of the date under which they are listed. Readings will form a basis for class discussion, which is a significant component of the grade for the class.

Shorter readings are available digitally in an online reader.

Further information

For information related to the course, please contact Michael John Gorman (mgorman@stanford.edu)

Required books.

Books marked with a * are available from the Stanford bookstore

• *Tom Standage, The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth Century Chess-Playing machine, New York, Walker and Company, 2002
  
• *David W. Maurer, The Big Con, The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game, Anchor Books, 1999
• *Paul Ekman, Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics and Marriage, New York, Norton and Company, 2001
• *Sissela Bok, Lying: moral choice in public and private life, New York : Vintage Books, 1989[should be available in bookstore by week 2]
• Philip Kerr, ed., The Penguin book of Lies,Viking, 1990. This book is out of print, and therefore not available from the bookstore. However, it is still available from www.amazon.com and a number of other online retailers.
  

Strongly recommended as additional reading, available from Amazon and other online stores

• Perez Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990
• J.A. Barnes, A pack of lies: Towards a sociology of lying, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994
• Ricky Jay, Jay’s Journal of Anomalies, New York, Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2001
  

Assignments
1. One 10-15 page paper dealing with an aspect of deception, historical or contemporary will be required by May 8 (40%)
2. A final project will be due for class presentation on June 3 (30%)
3. A website describing each final project should be online by June 5 (10%)
4. Smaller assignments will be given throughout the course. Participation in class discussions and accomplishment of these assignments will count for a total of 30% of your final grade.

Calendar (subject to change)

Week 1: LYING

April 1: Defining lying and deception [CLASS NOTES]

April 3: Lying, trust and the social contract [CLASS NOTES]

• St. Augustine, On Lying;Thomas Aquinas, Whether Lies are Sufficiently divided into Officious, Jocose and Mischievous Lies and Francis Bacon, Of Truth, all from Bok, Lying, pp. 250-263
• Chapters 1 and 2 of Sissela Bok, Lying: moral choice in public and private life, New York : Vintage Books, 1989
• Steven Shapin, "The Great Civility: Trust, Truth and Moral Order", from A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 3-41

Week 2: MAGIC

April 8: Magic as deception

• Revise notes from April 1 and April 3, and prepare short answers in note form to questions from week 1.
• P. Diaconis, Magic, article from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

April 10: Students perform magic tricks in class

Magic assignment: Read this first!

• Reginald Scott, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), Book 1
  

Week 3: MECHANICAL DECEPTIONS

April 15: Automata and deception

• T. Hankins and Silverman, “Athanasius Kircher’s Sunflower Clock”, from Instruments and the imagination, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995
• Examine the reconstruction of Athanasius Kircher’s magnetic clock in the Lane Reading Room in Stanford Libraries, and visit the website on the clock.
• Finish reading * Standage, The Turk by this date

April 17: The Turing Test and Deception

• Alan Turing,  "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Mind, Vol. 59, No. 236, 1950, pp. 433-460
• Sherry Turkle, Making a pass at a Robot, from Life on Screen: identity in the age of the Internet, New York: Simon & Schuster, c1995.

Activity: Talk to a chatterbot such as the classic ELIZA, the Rogerian psychotherapist, or one of the newer ALICE bots and make notes on your conversation for class discussion (a list of bots on the web may be found at: http://home.online.no/~anlun/bots.htm)

Week 4: FORGERY

April 22: Inventing Nature, Forging Art [CLASS NOTES]

• Paula Findlen, "Inventing Nature: Commerce, Art, and Science in the Early Modern Cabinet of Curiosities", from Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, editors, Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe. New York: Routledge. 2002.
• Steven Jay Gould, The Lying Stones of Marrakesh
  

April 24: Forging history [CLASS NOTES]

• Ken Alder, History’s Greatest Forger, Or, Science, History, Fiction, and Fraud along the Seine (unpublished History of Science Seminar Talk, Stanford, March 2003)

Week 5: CONFIDENCE TRICKS, HOAXES AND PSYCHICS

April 29: Confidence tricks

• David W. Maurer, The Big Con, The Story of the Confidence Man and the Confidence Game, Anchor Books, 1999.
• Explore online Museum of Hoaxes, including hoax websites

May 1: Debunking the paranormal

• Ray Hyman, "The Psychology of Deception", Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 40, 1989.
• Persi Diaconis,"Statistical Problems in ESP research", Science, 201,131-136 (1978)
• Activity: Find an example of a claim to psychic abilities from an issue of Skeptical Inquirer [Green library call no. BF1001 .Z32] and report on it for class.

Week 6: DECEIVING THE SENSES

May 6: Demons and philosophers

• Descartes, "First Meditation", from Metaphysical Meditations (1641, 1647)
• Optional: Stuart Clark, "The rational witchfinder: Conscience, demonological naturalism and popular superstitions", in Stephen Pumfrey, Paolo L. Rossi and Maurice Slawinski (eds.), Science, Culture and Popular Belief in Renaissance Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 222-48.

May 8: Trompe l’oeil and deception in the visual arts

• Ren Weschler on Boggs
• Excerpts from Gregory and Gombrich, Art and Illusion
• Piece on Trompe L'Oeil painting from "The Art of deception"

Week 7: LIE DETECTION AND THE POLYGRAPH TEST

May 13: History of the polygraph test

• Ken Alder, "A Social History of Untruth: Lie Detection and Trust in Twentieth-Century America." Representations 80 (2002): 1-33.
• Geoffrey C. Bunn, “The lie detector. ‘Wonder woman’ and liberty: the life and work of William Moulton Marston”, in History of the human sciences, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 91-119. See also the original Wonder Woman comic strip.

• [optional] Otniel E. Dror, "The Scientific Image of Emotion: Experience and Technologies of Inscription," Configurations 7 (September 1999): 355-401.

Links: How lie detectors work, from Howstuffworks.com

May 15: Critical discussion of polygraph test, comparison with other technological forms of lie detection. Alternative technologies of lie detection: facial movements, thermal imaging, truth serum.

• *Ekman, Telling Lies (up to p. 278)
• The Polygraph and Lie detection, National Research Council Report (2003)
• Spotting the face of deception, BBC News 1.2. 2002
• Truth serums and torture, By Martin A. Lee, The Consortium

Links:

• New, infallible lie detector? Article on use of Electroencephalograph (EEG) scans to detect recognition of objects found at the scene of a crime by suspect.
• Liar, Liar Pants on Fire, Article from Popular Science on EEG and fMRI scans as lie detection techniques
• Picking Your Brain In The Name Of Security, Use of EEG scans for detecting terrorists

Week 8: MODELLING DECEPTION

May 20: Statistical methods of tracking deception

• Richard J. Bolton and David J. Hand, "Statistical Fraud Detection: A Review", from Statistical Science, 17 (2002) 235-255

May 22 Strategic Military Deception

All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity. When near, make it appear that you are far away; when far away that you are near. Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him .... When he is strong, avoid him. Anger his general and confuse him... Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance

from Sun Tzu, The Art of War (c. 400-320 B.C.)

Read:

• Propositions on Military Deception, from Donald C. Daniel and Katherine L. Herbig, eds., Strategic Military Deception, Pergamon Press, 1982, pp. 3-30
• The Military's New War of Words, by William M. Arken, L.A. Times, Nov. 24, 2002
• SELECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?, Seymour M. Hersh, from The New Yorker, May 12, 2003

Browse through:

• Unweaving the Web: Deception and Adaptation in Future Urban Operations, Scott Gerwehr, Russell W. Glenn, 2003
• JP 3-58, Joint Doctrine for Military Deception, 31 May 1996 (Department of Defence)

Week 9: DECEIVING THE MASSES

May 27: Deception in public office

• Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 18, In what way princes should keep faith
• *Bok, Lying: moral choice in public and private life, Ch. 12 Lies for the public good
• The Clinton Impeachment, special coverage from the Washington Post

• *Ekman, Telling Lies (pp. 279-330)

May 29: PROJECT WORK

Week 10: PROJECT PRESENTATIONS
June 3: Project presentations