Radiolab: "Killer Empathy"

Release Date: February 7, 2012
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich
Producer and Contributor: Lulu Miller
Guests: Jeff Lockwood (Entomologist & Professor), Tamara Carboni

Episode Overview

This episode, "Killer Empathy", explores the slippery and sometimes perilous territory of empathy—what happens when we try to understand or relate to creatures radically different from ourselves, and the limits (and dangers) of putting ourselves in the place of “the other.” The story uses Jeff Lockwood's research into aggressive crickets, his mentorship under Dr. LaFarge, and their tragic aftermath, as a bridge to examine the boundaries between scientific objectivity, human emotion, and the possibility—and impossibility—of empathy for both animals and people who commit violence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Encounters with Alien Creatures: The Gorilla Crickets

• Jeff Lockwood introduces his research subject: the gorilla crickets—“the Hulk Hogan of crickets” (01:47)—noted for being extremely aggressive, powerful, and unlike other insects.

  • They needed to be kept apart: “If you put them together, they would… fight to the death.” (02:05)
  • When handled, they bit so fiercely they would draw blood—so Lockwood resorted to chilling them to subdue them for study (02:35).

• Over time, Lockwood noticed behaviors that felt familiar:

  • Nest-building and recognition of self through pheromones:
    “They secrete a pheromone, a chemical, and each cricket is able to self identify its own odor…they had a kind of capacity to recognize self.” (03:49–04:04)
  • He began to see them as less "other," thinking: “Perhaps these little guys were more like me than many other insects that I had worked with.” (04:39–04:44)

2. The Shattering Limit of Empathy: Self-Consumption

• A graphic moment redefines Lockwood's ability to empathize:
  • Lockwood accidentally injures a cricket, rupturing its abdomen:
    “I felt guilt…and then…what really struck me was what he did next, which was curl his head downward toward his abdomen… and began consuming his own…consuming the viscera that was oozing out of his body. And so he was literally cannibalizing himself.” (05:24–06:11)
  • This act was “unimaginable” for Lockwood, breaking the spell of affinity he’d developed for the crickets.

3. Scientist’s Struggle: Empathy vs. Objectivity

• Lockwood recalls his mentor Dr. LaFarge, who drilled home the importance of scientific objectivity and resisting anthropomorphism:
  • “His job in the classroom was to make us good objective observers.” (07:28)
  • “Don’t put the creature in your box. It doesn’t want to be there.” (08:30)
  • There's a "moral danger almost, to sort of not allow the organism to be what it is." (08:35)
  • Respect for the subject is paradoxically attained through objectivity, not empathy.

4. When Empathy Runs Aground: Human Violence

• The narrative pivots to a traumatic experience involving Dr. LaFarge’s murder during a mugging in New Orleans, as recounted by Tamara Carboni:

  • “He said, close your eyes. And in the process of closing my eyes, I saw the gun.” (10:00–11:01)
  • “I just watched him die.” (12:13–12:24)

• The murderer was never caught, and both Tamara and Lockwood struggle to “make sense” of this violence.

  • Tamara: “I can't relate to this person. I can't imagine doing violence to another human being or killing them. I can't relate to that at all.” (15:18–15:35)
  • When asked if understanding is possible, her Vietnam-veteran boss told her: “You’ll never understand this.” (15:45–16:03)

5. Trying to Understand the Unimaginable: The Limits of Empathy

• Lockwood attempts to take LaFarge’s hyper-objective vantage, viewing violence as a biological “baseline strategy”—not monstrous, but animal (13:52–14:17).

  • “Violence is the baseline strategy for most encounters between and indeed within species.” (13:52)
  • “If we just stop there, then it’s to say that it’s somehow unnatural or inhuman. In fact… it’s profoundly human.” (16:10–16:22)
  • Nevertheless, Jeff admits “the essay itself kind of falls short… it just isn’t sufficient.” (16:32)

• Ultimately, Lockwood confides:

  • “I…can say that I understand another being’s eating its own, leaking entrails at a level that I can’t understand one of my fellow beings pulling the trigger and killing a man that I love.” (16:51–17:37)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the crickets:

  • “It's sort of like the Hulk Hogan of crickets.” – Jeff Lockwood (01:47)
  • “If you put them together, they would…fight to the death.” – Jeff Lockwood (02:05)
  • “They secrete a pheromone…and each cricket is able to self identify its own odor.” – Jeff Lockwood (03:49)

• On the pain of empathy’s limits:

  • “He was literally cannibalizing himself.” – Jeff Lockwood (06:11)
  • “Don’t put the creature in your box. It doesn’t want to be there.” – Dr. LaFarge (as quoted by Lockwood, 08:30)
  • “There’s a moral danger almost…to not allow the organism to be what it is.” – Jeff Lockwood (08:35)

• On violence and trying to make sense of it:

  • “Violence is the baseline strategy for most encounters between and indeed within species.” – Jeff Lockwood (13:52)
  • “You’ll never understand this.” – Tamara’s boss (16:03)
  • “I can say that I understand another being’s eating its own, leaking entrails at a level that I can’t understand one of my fellow beings pulling the trigger and killing a man that I love.” – Jeff Lockwood (16:51–17:37)

Important Timestamps

• 01:34–02:35: The aggressive, almost alien nature of gorilla crickets introduced; Lockwood’s struggles handling them
• 03:27–04:13: Nests, pheromones, and emergent signs of insect “self”
• 05:06–06:11: The cricket’s self-cannibalism, Lockwood’s visceral reaction
• 06:26–08:35: Objectivity as a scientific/moral principle ('don’t put the creature in your box')
• 09:36–12:24: Tamara Carboni recounts the murder of Dr. LaFarge
• 13:03–16:32: Attempts at rationalizing the violence, empathy's failure, and reflections from both Jeff and Tamara
• 16:51–17:37: Lockwood’s poignant conclusion about empathy’s limits

Thematic Summary

"Killer Empathy" deftly explores how close we may come to understanding radically different beings—from predatory insects to people who commit violent acts—and where our understanding must ultimately stop. The episode interrogates not just the boundaries of empathy but its moral hazards, the seduction of anthropomorphism, and the cold clarity—yet also the comfortlessness—of scientific objectivity. Through these stories, the show asks: Can true empathy cross the gulf between profoundly different ways of being? What does it mean when we try, and fail, to understand?

For listeners seeking contemplation on science, morality, violence, and the limits of understanding—this episode is as unsettling as it is thought-provoking.