and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> simon: when pope francis first stood on that dock overlooking st. peter's square, few were watching him more carefully than the nuns, especially nuns in the united states. will the new pope follow his predecessor benedict whose enforcers of church orthodoxy investigated american nuns for insubordination at the very same time that the pedophilia scandal raged? this is the same group, is it not, that ran the inquisition? >> the same office under a different name.

that's right. >> rose: the government of ghana and all school-aged children. >> very well done. good to be here. >> rose: how do you find a balance in all of this-- father, chairman of a major company, a foundation, and then all these other ventures? how does the balance come to you? >> i don't mow the lawn. ( laughs ) >> stahl: babies don't do much, right? well, years of research on infants as young as three months is proving that notion wrong. >> up goes the curtain. >> stahl: here at the yale infant cognition center, psychologists are observing everything from altruism to selfishness, bigotry to kindness. >> what seems to be an ignorant and unknowing baby is actually a creature with a learning sophistication.

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or on the go. black silk from folgers. >> simon: when pope francis became the leader of the catholic church earlier this year, people around the world asked: what happens now? can he restore confidence to a church struggling amid scandal to keeps its flock? to understand just how troubled

the church he's inheriting is, look no further than the power struggle going on between the vatican and some of its most popular disciples, american nuns. the vatican launched what some catholics call a "new inquisition" when it accused the official group that represents most nuns in the united states of undermining the church. as we first reported in march, the crackdown on the leadership conference of women religious sparked outrage, creating yet another rift between those who want the church to reform and those who do not. ( cheers and applause ) the new pope of the roman catholic church took his name from francis of assisi, the humble saint who inspired orders of priests and nuns devoted to the poor. and when he stood on that balcony in rome, few could have been watching him more carefully than the nuns there in st.

peter's square and in the united states. in his native argentina, he showed compassion to the people, but also urged catholic sisters there to promote conservative social values, very much like what the vatican has been doing in the united states. that's drawn a lot of attention to sisters like pat farrell, who leads the group that represents 80% of american nuns. you became a nun, i would imagine, for a life of prayer and contemplation and good works. >> farrell: that's correct. >> simon: and all of a sudden, you've become a rock star. >> farrell: it's very strange. it's a very strange position to be in. >> simon: are you enjoying it? >> farrell: no, i'm not someone who prefers to be in the limelight, truthfully. >> simon: she was thrust into the limelight last year when the vatican accused her group of insubordination. after a three-year investigation, it rebuked the sisters for undermining the

church by publicly disagreeing with the bishops... >> farrell: we weren't looking for this controversy. >> simon: ...and by not vigorously promoting the church's positions on issues like same-sex marriage and male- only priesthood. when you heard that phrase, "undermine the church," were you surprised? >> farrell: absolutely, because the experience we have of ourselves is of trying our best to stand in the middle of very complex situations and issues and to respond in a way that offers hope to people. >> simon: sister pat spent two decades in el salvador ministering to victims of the war, working in the shadows, like sisters everywhere; caring for the sick, as we saw in this inner city clinic, counseling women struggling with addiction... >> kids: ...with liberty and justice for all. >> simon: ...and teaching generations of needy children in

schools like the sisters academy in baltimore. but the vatican says good works aren't the issue; it's annual meetings like these that the group holds for its members, where sisters have given speeches promoting what the vatican calls "radical feminist themes" that are "incompatible with the catholic faith." >> sister elizabeth johnson: the church itself continues to live by patriarchal values that, by any objective measure, relegate women to second-class status. >> simon: centuries ago, that kind of challenge could have been considered heresy. it's hard to imagine that wasn't on pat farrell's mind when she traveled to rome last year. she met with the enforcers of church orthodoxy who ordered the investigation that found her group had undermined the church, the congregation for the doctrine of the faith. this is the same group, is it not, that ran the inquisition? >> farrell: it is the same

office under a different name, that's right. >> simon: what was your reaction, your visceral reaction, when you heard that you were being accused of radical feminism? >> farrell: it reflects, to me, fear. >> simon: what are they afraid of? >> farrell: i don't know, but it feels to me like fear-- what would happen if women really were given a place of equality in the church. >> simon: she says sisters want a place at the table, in their parishes and in the church hierarchy. in the past, her group has gone on the record supporting the ordination of women as priests, a topic so taboo the church says it's not even up for discussion. you did take a vow of obedience, didn't you? >> farrell: absolutely. >> simon: if you'll permit me, sister, it doesn't sound like you're being terribly obedient right now. >> farrell: well, i think there is one of the areas of misunderstanding and difference. our first obedience is to god.

what we obey is god and god's call to us as expressed in so many different sources. it's not just the teaching authority of the church, although that is certainly a legitimate part of it. >> simon: would it be distorting your position to say that you just don't want the men to tell you what to do anymore? >> farrell: we have never wanted the men to tell us what to do. >> simon: but the vatican was so alarmed by what it saw that it called the situation a crisis, and last year, the archbishop of seattle, peter sartain, was appointed to take command of the nuns' group and bring them into compliance. >> sartain: it doesn't make sense that a conference of women religious would want to give a platform to somebody who would espouse ideas antithetical to what the church teaches. >> simon: i can understand that it's problematic for the church, but you've called it a crisis. a bit hyperbolic? >> sartain: i don't think so.

and the reason i don't think so is because there-- there comes to be a point at which we have to get a handle on this so that it doesn't continue to evolve into something much more problematic. >> simon: not that the church didn't already have enough problems on its hands-- the administration of pope benedict was under siege for not being tough enough on priests accused of sexual abuse. you don't think that the timing is a bit off, that when the church is still really under condemnation for the pedophile scandal and the cover-up, that it brings up another issue which is very contentious? >> sartain: the church is dealing at the same time always with a variety of issues. this issue, although it's of a different nature in terms of its importance for the church and for the future of religious life in the church, is one that needed attention now also. >> simon: pope benedict gave the archbishop the power to review the sisters' publications, programs and speakers.

will you have veto power? >> sartain: ultimately, i would. >> simon: in the 21st century, in the united states, censorship is a very, very dirty word. >> sartain: i understand that. and yet, in the context of the church, we're always going to have the concern about being faithful to christ. and all i can say to you, bob, is i don't have any doubt about the reason why the holy father has asked me to do this, which is his genuine love and concern for religious women. >> simon: archbishop, the sisters in the organization say that they do not feel that love coming from the vatican right now. they feel something quite different from love. they're-- what they're hearing is "obey." >> sartain: i understand, and they-- they-- they have said that to me, as well. >> nun: now this is lunch i'm assuming that we're doing preparation for. >> simon: and they are being heard by american nuns everywhere who are sticking with their sisters. >> judy park: i got some special snacks today, not a lot but

enough to keep us going. >> simon: we met sister judy park, one of a handful of nuns... >> park: good morning. >> simon: ...who work at this soup kitchen in a down and out section of brooklyn. she says the people who matter to her, the people who strengthen her, are the people she serves. >> park: people have said to us,"you taught us how to pray, you taught us how to read, you stood by my bedside when i was sick, you were the one who's never ashamed to be with me, and now i'm surprised that this is happening to you." clarence! >> simon: isn't the vatican's point that you should be emphasizing the role of the church and what people should be doing and what is right and what is wrong, instead of just serving soup? >> park: my role is not to judge. my role is to accompany, and i think the reason people do trust us is that we don't judge. >> simon: catholics and non- catholics from all over the

country have swarmed out in their support. the sisters' resistance has developed into a populist movement complete with rallies, prayer meetings and, yes, even their own national road show, featuring slogans and groupies. ( cheers and applause ) sister simone campbell is the driving force behind "nuns on the bus," a movement she launched after her group of catholic social activists, called network, was singled out in the vatican's investigation. ( cheers and applause ) sister simone was given a starring role at the democratic national convention last year... >> simone campbell: we have nuns on the bus and a nun on the podium. >> simon: ...after she campaigned for president obama's health care law, which the u.s. bishops opposed out of fear it would cover abortion. while her group doesn't promote or condone abortion rights, it

does advocate for universal health care. why did you embrace health care when the bishops were against it? >> campbell: well, because i read the bill. i mean, the fact is, i'm a lawyer and i read the bill. i saw what it said, it made sense. i could see that it said no federal funding of abortion, which is what the bishops' staff was concerned about. >> simon: she rallied sisters to the health care cause, publishing a letter of support that was signed by dozens of nuns. >> campbell: and one of the sisters who signed our letter said, "oh, simone, don't worry about this. the boys played the girls, and for once the girls won and the boys are upset." >> simon: isn't that what it's all about? >> campbell: well, it's way more politics and culture than it is faith. i mean, we're a staff of nine full-time people, and we make the vatican nervous? oh, give me a break. >> simon: archbishop peter sartain says the vatican's crackdown had nothing to do with politics, at least not over health care. but the catholic church in the united states is fighting an

uphill battle against other hot button issues like same-sex marriage, contraception and abortion, and it criticized the group of american nuns for not joining the struggle. you just remain silent on these issues. >> farrell: well, yes and no. while we haven't made a lot of public statements on abortion, we have certainly spoken on right-to-life issues with our lives, with our commitments. we certainly defend the sacredness of life. >> simon: do you think that the church's rigidity on these issues is one of the reasons why so many catholics are leaving the church? >> farrell: there doesn't seem to be a safe place to talk about issues of difference. where do people go? they're struggling in a divided church. they're wondering where to go with some of their honest questions. >> simon: she says she is

hopeful pope francis will begin to close that divide and create more openness in the church. he has been an advocate for the poor, just like the sisters, but has already signaled how he is going to handle the standoff with the american nuns-- he has said he supports the vatican's takeover. archbishop sartain was given five years to get his job done and has begun what both sides call a dialogue. >> sartain: if dialogue means that-- that the goal is to change the teaching of the church, then that's not what we're about. if it's about a dialogue which leads to a better understanding of the church's teaching, that kind of dialogue i think has already begun in many ways. >> simon: you have devoted your life to helping the poor and the underprivileged, devoted your life to prayer, to faith, and to following the gospels. why can't you do this without the church? >> farrell: i think it's because i am church that i have been doing those things.

i have no interest in being separate from the church. it's who i am. >> cbs money watch pup date sponsored by:. >>gñ>> glor: good evening. it's a deal worth more than $35 billion. advertising giants7h2wq onmicond will merge. the federal reserve meets tuesday and wednesday as wallo=d purchases are cut back. and gas is now ats7 $3.63 a gallon, down four cents in a week. i'm jeffñ glor, cbs news. ♪

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farmers in every region of the country." "when you see our low prices, remember the wheels turning behind the scenes, delivering for millions of americans, everyday. "dedication: that's the real walmart" >> rose: you probably know bill gates as the founder of microsoft, the hard-driving tech executive whose software fueled the personal computer revolution.

you might also know him as the long-time richest man in the world who left microsoft five years ago so he could work full- time giving his money away. as we first reported last spring, we had the chance to witness "bill gates 2.0," the man you don't know. he is driven as much as anyone we have ever met to make the world a better place. gates told us why he thinks inventions are the key to success, and just what he intends to accomplish with his time, intellect and $67 billion fortune, starting with his plans to knock out some of the world's deadliest diseases. you're going to spend the next 20 years of your life trying to eradicate disease, yes? >> bill: yep. >> rose: that's your mission? >> bill: that'll be the... the majority of my time. >> rose: starting with polio? >> bill: get it done by 2018. >> rose: tuberculosis? >> bill: the current tools are not good enough to do an eradication. they're good enough to reduce the... the deaths very dramatically, but we'll need a few better tools that'll take probably six or seven years. >> rose: malaria?

>> bill: malaria's the one that the tools are being invented now-- 15 and perhaps even 20 years, but start to really shrink that map. >> rose: these are the people gates wants to help. they are what he calls "the bottom two billion," a third of the world's population that struggles on less than $2 a day. they are poor, hungry, lack electricity and clean water. gates' most urgent goal: help the millions of children under five who die every year, one every 20 seconds, from preventable diseases. no one alive that i know of has said, "my goal is to eradicate a disease and then another disease and then another disease." this is somebody that dreams high. >> bill: yeah, because i... i'm excited about that. and... and it's... it's doable. >> rose: today, gates spends most of his time here at the bill and melinda gates foundation in seattle. he runs it with his father, bill, sr., and his wife, melinda, whom he credits with

being a driving force behind the foundation. there are over 1,100 employees to help them decide which programs to fund, but gates still visits sites around the world to see what's working and what's not. >> i welcome bill gates to our school. the government of ghana and all school-age children are grateful for your support. >> bill: very well done. great to be here. >> rose: the grants here go towards school nutrition... >> this is spinach. >> rose: ...improving agriculture... >> jacob: we don't have enough water in the river. >> rose: ...and. most important to gates, lifesaving vaccines. ( applause ) >> bill: well, whenever you see a mother bringing a sick child into a facility, it's easy to relate to, "what if that was my child?" you realize how crazy it is that with the world being rich enough to afford all sorts of frivolous things, that those basic things still aren't... aren't being provided.

>> rose: but providing vaccines throughout the developing world is no simple task, so gates has set up his foundation to run like microsoft. he insists on strict accounting, and, when a problem arises, he pulls in the best people to find solutions. we saw a good example of that when it comes to vaccines. to be effective, they need to be kept cold. >> bill: so, this is using electricity. >> rose: but that's tough in hard-to-reach areas where refrigerators are rare and unreliable. so, back in seattle, gates turned to scientists at a company called intellectual ventures, where he is both an investor and an inventor. they created a "super thermos" using the same technology that protects spacecraft from extreme heat. using only a single batch of ice, it can keep vaccines cold for 50 days. so, here is the thermos? >> bill: that's right. this holds vaccines for over 200

children, and it doesn't require any battery, any energy. its walls have been designed to be such a good thermos that even in very, very hot days, inside it will stay cold enough to make the vaccines work. and when you want to take them out, you just go in here, and there... there's a whole tray of the vaccines. >> rose: yeah. >> bill: you take them out. it records everything you've done with it, the temperature. so, it's a replacement for all those refrigerators that have been so unreliable. i mean, just look at this thing. when we take it out in the field, people go, "oh, that's amazing. you can't do that." >> rose: no matter how perfect the vaccine, if you can't get it to the people who need it, it ain't doing no good. >> bill: that's right. and now, you know, we need to get it to every child in the world. >> rose: gates is betting technology will solve other age- old problems like sanitation. two and a half billion people around the world do not have adequate toilets. that means streams and rivers get clogged with debris and

human waste, becoming breeding grounds for disease. >> bill: the toilet is one of those things that's like a vaccine, where it really would change the... the situation. >> rose: so, gates launched a global competition: design a toilet that works without plumbing. >> bill: we had over 20 entrants. we gave four top prizes. some of them used burning, some of them used a laser approach. there... there were quite a few novel ideas of how you reinvent the toilet. and so, this was one of the prototype designs of what a good-looking new toilet would look like. it actually processes everything down in here, and then recycles water. over the next four or five years, we think we can have a toilet that's every bit as good as the flush toilet. >> rose: you can learn a lot about what motivates bill gates by visiting his private office. he showed us why he draws inspiration from the italian genius leonardo da vinci.

in 1994, gates bought da vinci's 500-year-old notebook. >> bill: he had an understanding of science that was more advanced than anybody of the time. the notebook we have here is one where he's thinking about water. and he's looking at how it flows when it hits barriers, and it goes around, comes back together. he's actually trying to understand turbulence. how should you build a dam? how does it erode away? >> rose: it cost $30 million at auction, making it the most valuable manuscript in the world. for gates, it is priceless. >> bill: it's an inspiration that one person off on their own, with no positive feedback-- nobody ever told him, you know, it was right or wrong-- that he kept pushing himself, you know, found knowledge in itself to be a beautiful thing. >> rose: gates scoffs at any comparison to the great leonardo, but a look around his private office reveals a man equally obsessed with understanding his world. can i look at these? >> bill: sure. this is the weather one, "meteorology." my very first course that i

watched was this geology course. >> rose: this is a whole series on the joy of science? "mathematics, philosophy in the real world." gates' collection of dvds contains hundreds of hours of college lectures that this famous harvard drop-out has watched. >> bill: the more you learn, the more you have a framework that the knowledge fits into. >> rose: when he's on the road, gates, who's a speed-reader, lugs around what he calls his "reading bag." when he finishes a book, he posts his thoughts on his web site, "gates' notes." >> bill: what i'll do is, i'm reading these books. >> rose: oh, look at that. >> bill: i'll take notes. >> rose: oh, these are your notes already? >> bill: right. >> rose: look at this. >> bill: i love to take notes on books. so, i just haven't written it up yet. >> rose: how long will it take to read all of this? >> bill: oh, a long time. ( laughter ) thank goodness for vacations. i read a lot. >> rose: but gates isn't just reading books for pleasure; he is determined to use his knowledge to back groundbreaking innovations.

take this high-tech zapper. it is a laser designed to shoot down malaria-infected mosquitoes in mid-flight. and gates showed us one of his boldest and, he says, most important ventures, a new kind of nuclear reactor. it would burn depleted uranium, making it cleaner, safer and cheaper than today's reactors. >> bill: and your fuel will last for 60 years. so, during that entire time, you don't need to open it up, refuel it. you don't need to buy more fuel. so, there's a certain simplicity that comes with this design. >> rose: and when could it come onstream? >> bill: best case would be to have a prototype around 2022. >> rose: bill gates calls himself an "impatient optimist," a description his wife melinda says was accurate even when they met over 20 years ago. melinda, what did you like about him? >> melinda: just his curiosity and his optimism about life and this belief that, you know, that you can change things. i mean, he believed that clearly in microsoft. he was changing the world with

software, and he knew it. >> rose: is the curiosity a shared curiosity, or are there different curiosities? >> melinda: well, we both have curiosity for lots of things. bill, at this stage in our life, also gets more time to read than i do, quite honestly, with three kids in the house. >> rose: yeah. >> melinda: but the great thing is, bill will go read an entire book about fertilizer. and i can tell you even without three kids in the house, i'm not going to read a book about fertilizer. >> rose: yeah. >> melinda: but he loves to teach. and so, as long as i have time, we'll spend time talking about that. >> rose: so, what is it about a book about fertilizer? i mean, seriously? >> bill: well, fertilizers are very interesting. we couldn't feed... a few peop... billion people would have to die if we hadn't come up with fertilizer. >> rose: how do you find a balance in all this-- father, chairman of a major company, a foundation, and then all these other ventures? how does the balance come to you? >> bill: i don't mow the lawn. ( laughter ) >> rose: you found somebody to do that? >> bill: absolutely. >> rose: he has come a long way

from that teenage prodigy obsessed with writing computer code. over nearly four decades, we've watched bill gates help lead the digital revolution with what he now admits was a fanatic and relentless determination. >> bill: you guys never understood, you never understood the first thing about this. i'm not using this thing. >> rose: in the early years, there was a demanding guy, there was a driven guy, there was an obsessed guy. there was, some say, an arrogant guy. have you changed? >> bill: i've certainly learned. ( laughter ) when i make a mistake, you know, and my thinking is sloppy, i like to be very hard on myself. like, "that is so stupid. how could you not see how those pieces fit together?" and that way that you're, you know, very disciplined yourself and careful about your thinking, you don't want it to extend out to when other people may not get something quite as quickly. it's like, "uh, how come you don't get this thing?" >> rose: has he mellowed at all? >> melinda: i hope any of us in life mature, right? we all mature. but look, i wouldn't have married bill if there wasn't a huge heart.

with all of the adjectives you just used about how he drove his career, which was very successful for microsoft, there was an enormous heart always there. >> rose: no question gates has softened with age-- just listen to how he reflected on his often tumultuous relationship with the late apple c.e.o., steve jobs. >> bill: he and i, in a sense, grew up together. we were within a year of the same age and, you know, we were kind of naively optimistic and built big companies. we achieved all of it, and most of it as rivals. but we always retained a certain respect, communication, including even when he was sick. i got to go down and... and spend time with him. >> rose: and talk about what? >> bill: oh, about what we'd learned, about families, anything. >> rose: today, gates says he gets advice on patience and generosity from his friend, warren buffett, who, seven years ago, entrusted the majority of

his fortune to the gates foundation; and from his father, bill, sr., a lawyer who prodded his son into giving his money away. you've said before, this is your hero. why? >> bill: well, my dad has integrity, he's got a humble approach to things, he's calm and wise about things. it's just a huge influence to always, you know, want to live up to a great example. >> rose: someone said to me, "your son may be the most influential person in the 21st century." >> bill, sr.: i can only say yes. >> rose: he's determined, as he already has proven, that he can dramatically reduce the number of kids under five who die. >> bill, sr.: that's right. >> rose: you can't do any better than that, can you? >> bill, sr.: that's right. that's right. there's no way to be unimpressed about that. >> rose: you couldn't be more proud. >> bill, sr.: i couldn't be more proud. that is exactly true.

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>> stahl: it's a question people have asked for as long as there have been people: are human beings inherently good? are we born with a sense of morality, or do we arrive blank slates, waiting for the world to teach us right from wrong? or could it be worse-- do we start out nasty, selfish devils who need our parents, teachers, and religions to whip us into shape? as we first reported last fall, the only way to know for sure is

to ask a baby. but until recently, it's been hard to persuade them to open up and share their secrets. enter the baby lab. this is the creature at the center of the greatest philosophical, moral and religious debates about the nature of man-- the human baby. they don't do much-- can't talk, can't write, can't expound at length about their moral philosophies. but does that mean they don't have one? the philosopher rousseau considered babies "perfect idiots, knowing nothing," and yale psychologist karen wynn, director of the infant cognition center here, the baby lab, says for most of its history, her field agreed. didn't we just think that these creatures at three months and even six months were basically just little blobs? >> wynn: oh, sure. i mean, if you look at them, they... >> stahl: yeah. >> wynn: ...they kind of look like little... i mean, cute

little blobs. but they can't do all the things that a... an older child can. they can't even do the things that a dog or a pigeon or a rat can. >> stahl: no pulling levers for treats or running mazes for these study subjects. but they can watch puppet shows, >> wynn: up goes the curtain! >> stahl: and wynn is part of a new wave of researchers who have discovered seemingly simple ways to probe what's really going on in those adorable little heads. >> wynn: up goes the curtain! >> stahl: we watched as wynn and her team asked a question that, 20 years ago, might have gotten her laughed out of her field-- does wesley here, at the ripe old age of five months, know the difference between right and wrong? wesley watches as the puppet in the center struggles to open up a box with a toy inside. the puppy in the yellow shirt comes over and lends a hand. then the scene repeats itself, but this time, the puppy in the blue shirt comes and slams the

box shut. nice behavior... mean behavior... at least to our eyes. but is that how a five-month-old sees it, and does he have a preference? >> wynn: wesley, do you remember these guys from the show? >> stahl: to find out, a researcher who doesn't know which puppet was nice and which was mean offers wesley a choice. >> wynn: who do you like? >> stahl: he can't answer, but he can reach. >> wynn: that one? >> stahl: wesley chose the good guy, and he wasn't alone. >> wynn: that one! >> stahl: more than three quarters of the babies tested reached for the nice puppet. >> wynn: that one! >> stahl: wynn tried it out on even younger babies-- three- month-olds, who can't control their arms enough to reach. but they can vote with their eyes, since research has shown that even very young babies look longer at things they like. >> wynn: which one do you like? >> stahl: daisy here looked at the mean puppet for five seconds, then switched to the

nice one for 33. >> wynn: babies, even at three months, looked towards the nice character and looked hardly at all-- much, much, much shorter time-- towards the unhelpful character. >> stahl: so basically, as young as three months old, we human beings show a preference for nice people over mean people. >> wynn: study after study after study, the results are always consistently babies feeling positively towards helpful individuals in the world. and disapproving, disliking, maybe condemning individuals who are antisocial towards others. >> stahl: it's astonishing. wynn and her team first published their findings about baby morality in the journal "nature" in 2007, and they've continued to publish follow-up studies in other peer-reviewed journals ever since; for instance, on this experiment. they showed babies like james here a puppet behaving badly.

instead of rolling the ball back to the puppet in the middle, this green-shirted bunny keeps the other puppet's ball and runs away. then, james is shown a second show. this time, the bunny, who he just saw steal the ball, tries to open up the box to get the toy. will james still prefer the puppet who helps out, or will he now prefer the one who slams the box shut? >> wynn: who do you like? >> stahl: he chose the one who slammed it shut, as did 81% of babies tested. the study's conclusion-- babies seem to view the ball thief as deserving punishment. so, do you think that babies, therefore, are born with an innate sense of justice? >> wynn: at a very elemental level, i think so. >> paul bloom: we think we see here the foundations for morality. >> stahl: paul bloom is also a professor of psychology at yale, with his own lab.

he's collaborated with wynn on many of her baby studies, and he also happens to be her husband. >> bloom: i feel we're making discoveries. i feel like we're... we're discovering that what seems to be one way really isn't. what seems to be an ignorant and unknowing baby is actually a creature with this alarming sophistication, this subtle knowledge. >> stahl: and he says discovering this in babies who can't walk, talk or even crawl yet suggests it has to come built in. so, remember b.f. skinner, who said that we had to teach our children everything through conditioning. so, does this just wipe him off the map? >> bloom: what we're finding in the baby lab is that there's more to it than that, that there's a universal moral core that all humans share. the seeds of our understanding of justice, our understanding of right and wrong, are part of our biological nature. >> stahl: wait a minute-- if babies are born with a basic sense of right and wrong, a universal moral core, where does

all the evil in the world come from? is that all learned? well, maybe not. take a look at this new series of discoveries in the yale baby lab. >> wynn: would you like a snack? >> stahl: in offering babies this seemingly small, innocuous choice, graham crackers or cheerios, wynn is probing something big-- the origins of bias, the tendency to prefer others who are similar to ourselves. >> wynn: adults will like others who share even really absolutely trivial similarities with them. >> stahl: so will nate, who chose cheerios over graham crackers, prefer this orange cat who also likes cheerios over the grey cat who likes graham crackers instead? >> wynn: which one do you like? >> stahl: apparently so. but if babies have positive feelings for the similar puppet, do they actually have negative feelings for the one who's different?

to find out, wynn showed babies the grey cat, the one who liked the opposite food, struggling to open up the box to get a toy. will gregory want to see the graham cracker-eater treated well? or does he want him treated badly? >> wynn: which one do you like? that one. okay! >> stahl: gregory seemed to want the different puppet treated badly. that is amazing. so he went with his bias, in a way. and so did nate and 87% of the other babies tested. from this, wynn concludes that infants prefer those who harm others who are unlike them. >> bloom: what could be more arbitrary than whether you like graham crackers or cheerios? >> stahl: nothing. >> bloom: nothing. but it matters. it matters to the young baby. we are predisposed to break the world up into different human groups based on the most subtle

and seemingly irrelevant cues. and that, to some extent, is the dark side of morality. >> stahl: we want the other to be punished? >> wynn: in our studies, babies seem as if they do want the other to be punished. >> stahl: we used to think that we're taught to hate. i think there was a song like that. this is suggesting that we're not taught to hate, we're born to hate. >> wynn: i think that we are built to, you know, at the drop of a hat, create "us and them." >> bloom: and that... and that's why we're not that moral. we have an initial moral sense that is, in some ways, very impressive, and in some ways, really depressing; that we see some of the worst biases in adults reflected in the minds and in the behaviors of young babies. >> stahl: but bloom says understanding our earliest instincts can help.

>> bloom: if you want to eradicate racism, for instance, you really are going to want to know to what extent are babies little bigots? to what extent is racism a natural part of humanity? >> stahl: sounds to me like the experiment show they are little bigots. >> bloom: i think, to some extent, a bias to favor the self-- where the self could be people who look like me, people who act like me, people who have the same taste as me-- is a very strong human bias. it is what one would expect from a creature like us who evolved from natural selection, but it has terrible consequences. >> stahl: he says it makes sense that evolution would predispose us to be wary of "the other" for survival, and so we need society and parental nurturing to intervene. he showed us one last series of experiments being done in his lab not with babies, but with older children of different ages. >> blue. >> stahl: the kids get to decide how many tokens they'll get versus how many will go to

another child they're told will come in later. they're told the tokens can be traded in for prizes. >> so you can say "green," and if you say "green," then you get this one and the other girl doesn't get any. or you can say "blue," and if you say "blue," then you get these two and the other girl gets these two. so green or... >> green! >> stahl: the youngest kids in the study will routinely choose to get fewer prizes for themselves... >> green. >> stahl: ...just to get more than the other kid... >> i'll pick green. >> stahl: ...in some cases, a lot more. >> ( laughs ) >> bloom: the youngest children in the studies are obsessed with social comparison. >> so you get these seven. she doesn't get any. >> yay! >> bloom: they don't care about fairness. what they want is they want relatively more. >> stahl: but a funny thing happens as kids get older. around eight, they start choosing the equal, fair option more and more. >> green. >> stahl: and by nine or ten, we saw kids doing something really crazy...

>> green. >> stahl: ...deliberately giving the other kid more. >> green or blue? >> green. >> stahl: they become generous. chalk one up to society. they've already been educated? >> bloom: they've been educated, they've been inculturated, they... they have their heads stuffed full of the virtues that we might want to have their heads stuffed with. culture and education. >> stahl: so we can learn to temper some of those nasty tendencies we're wired for-- the selfishness, the bias-- but he says the instinct is still there. >> bloom: when we have these findings with the kids, the kids who choose this and not this, the kids in the baby studies who favor the one who is similar to them, the same taste and everything, none of this goes away. i think, as adults, we can always see these and kind of nod. >> stahl: yeah. it's still in us. we're fighting it. >> bloom: and the truth is, when... when we're under pressure, when life is difficult, we regress to our

younger selves, and all of this elaborate stuff we have on top disappears. >> stahl: but, of course, adversity can bring out the best in us, too-- heroism, selfless sacrifice for strangers-- all of which may have its roots right here. >> bloom: great kindness, great altruism, a magnificent sense of impartial justice have their seeds in the baby's mind. both aspects of us, the good and the bad, are the product, i think, of biological evolution. >> stahl: so it seems we're left where we all began-- with a mix of altruism, selfishness, justice, bigotry, kindness-- a lot more than any of us expected to discover in a blob. well, i end my conversation with you with far more respect for babies. who knew?

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