I get Mr. Dawkins point. Well taken, though unfortunately a bit reinforcing of the academic stereotype where theory beats practice. The questions Mr. Dawkins leaves me with, are not concerned with whether or not we should have supported or denounced Saddam's "assassination", but how on earth he imagines we could have "mined" all of this valuable historical, psycho-social information from Hussain's brain? Does he imagine Saddam a willing and truthful participant in this process? Does he imagine Hitler uttering a word that would shed himself or his agenda in anything but favorable light? To what level of subtle-to-tortuous prodding would we then resort to, in order to extract this "valuable data" from the "specimen" ("for the sake of humankind", thus spoke, Dr. Mengele)?

At a time when extracting truthful information from other humans is still a touchy, frighteningly barbaric, and questionably reliable, process in our oh-so enlightened age... might we take a moment to consider studying/debating some alternatives? The subjects of torture, in order to mine information that will save lives, or, using live human beings as research specimens, rest on shaky moral, and, from my understanding, ineffective ground... so, I hesitate to even conjecture... but I wonder, are there those among us with the knowledge to do so?

I appreciate and I am fascinated by the broad scientific perspective Dr. Dawkins offers on a socio-political topic, but I would ask that he take a step, even further back, to include and engage these questions.