[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Anti-social Samson
by Alison Motluk
February 14, 2001

Eric Altschuler from the University of California at San Diego and his colleagues say that Samson showed signs of no fewer than six of the seven behaviours associated with antisocial personality disorder. Samson routinely got into fights, and once killed 1000 Philistines single-handedly and then gloated over it, showing no remorse. He also showed a reckless disregard for his own safety when he told Delilah, a woman who'd tried to kill him three times before, the secret of his strength. The researchers note that Samson also burned Philistine fields, which showed both his impulsivity and his inability to conform to social norms. He was deceitful, not telling his parents, for instance, that he got honey from the carcass of a lion. And like many people with ASPD, Samson behaved badly as a child: setting things on fire, torturing animals, stealing, and bullying other children. A whole chapter is devoted to Samson's mother being warned by angels not to drink while she's pregnant.

Gee, maybe it was fetal alcohol syndrome. : ) Or an April Fool joke. Now from that November:

Old Testament prophet showed epileptic symptoms
by Alison Motluk
November 17, 2001

Eric Altschuler, a neuroscientist at the University of California at San Diego, now says that neurologically, Ezekiel displayed some obvious signs of epilepsy, such as frequent fainting spells and episodes of not being able to speak. For instance, he wrote compulsively, a trait known as hypergraphia. Ezekiel was also extremely religious, another characteristic associated with this form of epilepsy. While many Biblical figures are pious, none was as aggressively religious as Ezekiel, says Altschuler. Other signs of epilepsy can include aggression, delusions and pedantic speech - and the man had them all, Altschuler told a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego. It also serves as further evidence that this disease is genetic in origin. "If there were no old cases," he says, "we'd have to ask if there was something wrong in our environment."