A Bone to Pick

Monday night on Fox showcased the season finale of a new found favorite of mine: Bones. To best describe Bones I turn to IMDB.

Brilliant, but socially inept, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperence Brennan works at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington DC. After consulting for him on a FBI case, she is approached by cocky yet charming ex-Army Ranger turned Special Agent, Seeley Booth to help the Bureau solve crimes by identifying human remains that are too far gone for standard FBI forensic investigations. Brennan’s empirical, literal view of the world causes friction with Booths emotive, instinctive attitude creating a volatile relationship. However as their case load increases the symbiotic partnership produces results and with the support of Brennan’s Squint Squad, murderers, past and present should be on the lookout.

As usual, it excelled in providing an exciting, compelling, witty, smart (if techno-babblish), romantically-charged hour of entertainment. Adding to this usual array of strengths, the episode promised to deliver on a season of clues involving a series of cannibalistic murders. On the whole, it fulfilled its promises in a satisfying way. However, in the last five minutes or so, the show lost me. What follows after the jump is an investigation into what I consider one of the few failings of an otherwise brilliant show and stellar season.

SPOILER :: This post contains a number of spoilers regarding Bones. If you have NOT watched through season three of bones, back away from this computer, buy the DVDs, grab some popcorn, and find a TV.

Now that that’s over, I can get to the heart of the matter: why I didn’t find the convincing of Dr. Addy to first commit murder and then admit he was wrong compelling. What follows is first the base of the argument as explained by Dr. Brennan (and affirmed by Zack) and my rebuttal to its main points. Enjoy and feel free to disagree.

(Implicit) Assumption 0: The historical human experience as a whole is more important than a single person’s life

Assumption 1: Secret societies exist.

Assumption 2: The existence of such societies is detrimental to mankind.

Assumprion 3: Attacking and killing members of secret societies will have an ameliorating affect on the human experience.

(Implicit) Conclusion: Killing the members of such societies is a good idea.

Murder by Tin Foil Hat

To begin, I’m going to address why I believe the logic Zack has used to commit murder fails.

Assumption 0: “The historical human experience as a whole is more important than a single person’s life”

For the sake of starting at the beginning, I will address this initial assumption very briefly by saying that I do not agree with it. However, since I could continue for the better part of 10 pages going point for counter-point I’ll let those who want to investigate this notion Google utilitarianism. For all others, we move on.

Assumption 1: “Secret societies exist”

Zach Addy is supposed to be an objective, logical, disassociated scientist. He is characterized oft times by his inability and unwillingness to speculate, participate in baseless conjecture, or draw conclusions from all but the most solid of evidence.

Why then does he believe that secret societies exist?

His purported rational is the evidence and testimony of Dr. Hodgins. Lets investigate this a moment. Dr. Hodgins is also a logical individual, who prefers to make conclusions based on hard facts. However, he is also as seen through his interactions with many characters to be prone to flights of fancy and drawn to conclusions supported by only circumstantial evidence. Even if this evidence is overwhelming, it does not validate—in the logical sense—the belief in these conclusions. For instance when Booth insists the squints begin speculating Hodgins is generally the first inline. A more striking example is his infatuation with the pirate treasure in one of the second season episodes. Not only does he become intellectually curious about it, but it blinds him and puts him in mortal danger. Given the relationship of Zach and Hodgins, there seems no reason the former isn’t aware of the weakness of the latter on this front. Does he still then believe that all Hodgins says is material fact?

What about the “evidence” itself? Like all conspiracy theorists, Hodgins’ evidence is a long string of interconnected facts. While all the individual maybe unquestionably true and some even linked, the rest of the links between them are at best tenuous and at worst based on wild unverifiable presumptions. One purposed solution to this is that perhaps “the master” (who I’m going to refer to as Darth Cannis for reasons the people who watch will understand) had incontrovertible evidence to prove that secret societies do exist. Or perhaps one can argue that the existence of secret societies is inarguable—look at things like the skull and bones for proof.

For argument’s sake then, let us assume that ’secret’ societies do exist. This still leaves to question the nature of these groups…

Assumption 2: “The existence of such societies is detrimental to mankind.”

In a formal logic argument there would need to be another assumption that identifies the nature of secret societies. For simplicity sake though, I’ll just discuss it here as a necessary assumption about these societies, which is needed to have the above assumption B make sense.

The existence of secret societies in and of itself indicates nothing of their nature. There is no clear justification for believing that being secret in and of itself detrimental. Arguing that a secret society is by definition affecting the world negatively begs the question of whether any secret is just as harmful by its nature. Assuming this is true, the fact that a society is merely secret no longer is a distinguishing feature that should condemn them. This means that in order for assumption B to be true there must be a different property of the society that is making it detrimental.

There are two remaining things I’d like to discuss related to this.

First, what evidence is there to prove that these secret societies (which we are assuming exist) are evil or the performer of evil acts? If we either take Hodgins at his word or use real world examples of things like the Skull and Bones, we have no evidence to indicate they are manipulative, murderous, or the committers of other heinous acts. Skull and Bones for instance is in reality a harmless hangout for the elite where they gather together to make themselves feel better. Moving on then we must rely on the stories and ‘evidence’ of Hodgins to provide us the proof that these societies are in fact detrimental. Here again we run into all the same problems as before and are left with the only possible answer being another assumption: Darth Cannis had the answers to these questions—which to me feels like a cop out.

The second remaining point I have is regarding the nature of this ‘detriment’. Let us assume for a moment that indeed secret societies are detrimental. In order for this to matter in the full scheme of the argument, this detriment must be greater than the actions the argument is meant to justify, namely the killing of these societal members—at minimum!

I say at minimum because the actions of Darth Cannis and his apprentice didn’t end there. They continued on to eating the corpse and ritualistically organizing the bones in elaborate patterns. One might argue that since Zach didn’t eat anyone it cannot be considered a factor in is judgment. Or perhaps since the person was dead what happened with the corpse was irrelevant. In my opinion, his non participation in the eating is irrelevant since he was aware of its happening. By allowing it, he was implicit in it. With regard to the objection that the actions post-mortem are irrelevant, I again must disagree. While it makes no difference to the deceased, it effects the family and more broadly society. Being such a close friend with Bones (Dr. Brennan)—the noted anthropologist she is—there is NO way that these effects should have escaped his understanding. Even if you discount all of these secondary factors, there is no way to escape the fact that Zach was using this argument to justify a murder (and possibly more in the future).

On what basis did Zach justify that these killings were going to be less a detriment to society than the actions allegedly being undertaken by the members of these societies? Again we must turn to our two main sources: Hodgins and Darth Cannis. Since we’ve been through my arguments as they relate to the validity of their evidence I’ll simply refer you back up the page here.

Assumptions 1 + 2:

The final nail in the coffin for this theory in my mind is the fact that the best evidence to justify Assumption 1 and 2 is in fact the VERY ACTIONS of Zack and Darth Cannis. They together constitute a secret society and their actions are most certainly directly detrimental to mankind. Given that should Zack not be just as compelled to kill The Master or himself? Though he might insist that he and the master are different, in truth any argument would beg the question of “how?”

One counterargument to this might go: “Two people do not form a society; therefore the actions are not hypocritical.” However, throughout the early part of this third season it is made clear through a number of people that Darth Cannis is indeed invoking and modeling his actions after that of a secret society. Also, as my nickname alludes to, there are secret societies that consist at one time of two (or fewer) members. A society is a communal identity that exists beyond the members. Such is the case with the Gormogon society that the master was a part of and Zack was an initiate in.

The “Epiphony”

Now that I’ve established why I don’t feel Zack’s motivation for killing compelling, I’m going to touch on why I don’t believe he should have been so easily convinced he was wrong. I promise this will be shorter.

Assumption 0:

To start, let us grant Dr. Addy that it was logical to preserve the “historical human experience” through the murder of a single individual. In the show, Dr. Brennan attacks his argument by ostensibly cutting it off at its roots – at Assumption 0. Dr. Brennan purports that Zack’s single act of preserving Hodgins from harm refutes the core assumption of his argument.

In reality, his noncompliance with his own principal doesn’t refute its validity. Her argument in fact relies on one of the simplest fallacies in logic: Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. She argues that Zack’s principal doesn’t hold because his actions imply that he valued Hodgins’ life over his continuing mission to preserve the “historic human experience”. In reality, the only thing that Dr. Brennan has proven is that Zack Addy isn’t as infallible and totally logical as he would like to be. Rather he is human and sometimes fails to practice what he preaches. Zack’s actions were likely motivated by the emotions he and Hodgins had developed over the years.

With this in mind, what is the reason that Zack would admit defeat? I see the only option being that he’s abandoned the logic which supposedly brought him to his current situation. For Zack, this might not be a bad development, but for the writers I feel it’s a continuity issue.

Now What…

So now that I’ve gone on, and on, and on. I shall rest my case here. There are a number of other things I could speak to, but for my own well-being I shall stop. Hope you enjoyed it!