Copyright Ray Levine 2005

Dr Kathleen Taylor Researcher and science writer affiliated to the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford. To email me click here.

Hello and welcome!

I've set up this simple site to give you fast access to information about my work and ideas, particularly my books Brainwashing and Cruelty.

If you'd like to get hold of a copy, both Brainwashing and Cruelty are available on Amazon.co.uk.

You can also learn more from my Psychology Today blog Science and Cruelty.

Book news

• April 2010: I'm due to speak about Cruelty on April 12 at the Edinburgh Science Festival.
• February and March 2010: I'm due to give academic talks on Cruelty at Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge Universities.
• 17 June 2009: I did an interview with CBC's The Current. The audio should be available on their website.

Who I am

I trained as a neuroscientist, as my research background shows, after doing a first degree in philosophy and physiology. I still follow the academic literature, as well as science news sites like eScience. In 2003, however, I started out on a new career as a non-fiction writer. To find out why I changed course, there's my personal info.

I'm interested in brains and people and particularly in how groups of people interact. Friends have said I've a pessimistic view of life - I'd say realistic - and certainly I've focused on the dark side of human behaviour. That's because it strikes me as the more urgent side, in terms of problems we need to do something about. I think increasing people's tendencies to be gentle and compassionate would be great, don't get me wrong. But that won't necessarily stop their bad behaviour. And to stop it we first need to understand it.

I write about human brains and their sciences, but as an observer not a worshipper. The flabbage in our skulls is fascinating, breathtaking even, but it also has a darker side. Understanding how it works is crucial and urgent. All the world's nastiest problems are down to our unawareness of how brains function.

Can we understand our brains? I believe we can. (I also think you don't need to be a neuroscientist to learn about how brains govern behaviour. Brains are incredibly complex, yes, but the fundamental ideas aren't impossible once the jargon's stripped away.) However, I should make it clear that this is a statement of faith in science on my part. I'm a child of the Enlightenment, after all. Scientists can't prove in advance that science will help solve a problem; they have to try it and see. I happen to think science is the best method we have for doing many things, but that's based on its track record, not some kind of ideological revelation.

Note the caveat: "many things", not "everything". Some things science simply isn't very good at, and it's not always the only method available (for examples, take a look at the field of medicine). And science isn't always the ethical choice: an ideological emphasis on scientific neutrality and superiority can contribute to very nasty behaviour. There are scientists who've done immense damage while continuing to think well of themselves, their research and their morals - and not just in wartime Germany or Japan.

However, to acknowledge that science, the product of human beings, is imperfect is not to argue that we shouldn't do our best with the tools we have. Science is a tool, a method. It can also be an ideology ('scientism'), but it doesn't have to be. As an ideology I find it unpleasant and sometimes dangerous. As a method, I revere it, and I'm sure it can help us understand why and when people behave badly.

To find out what I've been doing and get a flavour of my work, take a look at my research page, or if you're looking for a list of publications click here for HTML or here for PDF.