Read a June 13, 2011, New York Times review of British scholar Simon Baron-Cohen’s book, The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. See also an excerpt of the book.

The National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) is a non-profit organization which strives to protect human embryos by promoting, facilitating and educating about embryo donation and adoption. Email through the website.

The Embryo Adoption Awareness Center was established in 2007 by Nightlight® Christian Adoptions after receiving a grant award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services specifically to increase awareness regarding embryo donation and adoption as a family building option.

Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist at New York University School of Medicine, is founder of the Forensic Panel, which is developing a standardized “depravity scale” to determine whether specific crimes reflect depraved intent, actions and/or attitudes.

John E. Thiel is a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., and the author of God, Evil and Innocent Suffering: A Theological Reflection.

Jack Levin, professor of sociology and criminology and co-director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflictat Northeastern University in Boston, has written about domestic terrorism, hate crimes, youth violence, ethnic conflict and mass and serial murder.

Dr. Michael Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, has been called “the Einstein of Evil.” Stone developed a “Gradations of Evil Scale” for ranking homicides and was host of the Discovery Channel’s series Most Evil from 2006 to 2008. His books include The Anatomy of Evil (2009).

Ervin Staub is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and founding director emeritus of its doctoral program on the psychology of peace and the prevention of violence. He has written several books about evil, including The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults and Groups Help and Harm Others and Overcoming Evil: Genocide, […]

Roy F. Baumeister is a professor and Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar in Social Psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He is the author of Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty.