In Adam on Mars, I imagined humans living in a domed city that protected them from the harsh wilderness of a partially terraformed alien planet. Cut off from the civilization that produced their domed city, the inhabitants gradually lose the ability to do the right thing. One of them—Adam—makes a decision that cracks the dome and dooms the city.
The doctrine of “original sin” explains the suffering of humanity as the result of a taint that spreads from one man’s wrongful action. God tells Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree; Lucifer whispers; Adam disobeys; humanity is cast out of Eden. Acknowledging the innate human capacity for both good and evil, the Lucifer Effect offers a broader perspective on evil acts. Phil Zimbardo’s psychological experiments show the extraordinary power of situations to override “the better angels of our nature.”
What we’ve learned of Lucifer Effect challenges the idea of “original sin.” Free will means the capacity to choose good or evil. What would it have taken for Adam to make the right choice?
Imagine a place like Mars: barren, dry, lifeless. But in the far future humans have learned to terraform planets—to make them like Earth. As the planet changes, its thin atmosphere gradually increasing, the first tentative plants taking root, humans live in a domed city safe from the harsh external world. Inside the dome they have everything they need: air, beautiful gardens, food, wildlife, lakes and streams.
But some catastrophe happens back on Earth, and the humans living in the domed city on the strange planet are cut off from humankind. Over time they lose the knowledge of how the domed city came to be. They carry out the tasks that support their environment without understanding what they do, simply following the rules that sustain their environment. As the years pass, the atmosphere outside the dome slowly grows supportive of human life—though it is still harsh and unwelcoming compared to the veritable Garden of Eden that is their city inside the dome.
Then one day a man (let’s call him Adam) decides to break one of the rules he does not understand. Like the first bite of an apple, his decision ruptures the curving wall of the dome. Was Lucifer whispering in his ear?
