What possessed them?

[100th POST!! It is, quite unfortunately, not a very happy topic to be talking about, hopefully my 101st will]

Sometimes you wonder what's happening to the human race. Or rather, what it's doing to itself. There are so many acts by individuals or groups that make you wonder, "what in the world could possess them to do such things?"

Most notably of late, is the Austrian man who locked his daughter in a cellar at the age of 18, and began having sex with her the following year. Or so he claims; she says he started sexually abusing her when she was 12. Now in her 40s, she has borne him 7 children! Firstly, it was rape. Secondly, it's incest. Thirdly it's just plain wrong! And sick.

Then there's the junta in Burma/Myanmar who for over a week, resisted the entrance of international aid workers to help its people after Cyclone Nargis. And the father from Sydney (And 3 other adults) who strapped a crate of beer in in his car, but not his own baby. A bit further back, there were the massacres at Virginia Tech and even older news, at one at Columbine High in the US. Or the father who microwaved his baby because apparently, God told him to.

I'm reading a book about the human brain. It's really interesting. Who knows, maybe at some point I'll stumble across some information that would shed light on the things that make these people (and many many others) do what they do.