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3 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
Hey Bjorn,
ReplyDeleteI just came across this and was wondering what your take on this argument might be:
http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/biological-influences-on-criminal-behavior/#comments
Well, Ryan- the voice of the insulated middle class.
ReplyDeleteYou spoke.
But seriously, I don't know how hereditary criminality is. But that won't stop me from speculating.
First off, I have myself observed some pretty surprising behaviors to be inherited. I believe (one of those things I can't show a lot a evidence for) that many human behaviors have heritable components, and that some of them are very heritable, meaning just that we'd be surprised by just how much. Biologists still don't know too much about how such traits are inherited - the genotype-phenotype map is an important unsolved problem.
On the other hand, the environment we live in clearly has a huge impact on what our behaviors are. Criminality, while it might have a heritable component (that it would have none at all is hard to believe for me), is obviously strongly influenced many other factors, which in turn are either genetically heritable or culturally heritable, meaning that if your parents are poor, you are likely to be poor because you're unlikely to get an education like they didn't, you'll grow up in a bad neighborhood, etc. This makes it very, very difficult to separate culture from genetics, I think.
If I were to enter the discussion on Mathilda's blog (I won't), I'd say that either extreme is unsupported - claiming either that genetics or environment plays no role in determining how criminal people are is ludicrous. But, perhaps that wouldn't be a very interesting or controversial point of view...
Hey Bjorn,
ReplyDeleteI think I might have to adopt that as my new nickname...THE VOICE of the insulated middle class. Sounds like a radio show to me.
"If I were to enter the discussion on Mathilda's blog (I won't), I'd say that either extreme is unsupported - claiming either that genetics or environment plays no role in determining how criminal people are is ludicrous. But, perhaps that wouldn't be a very interesting or controversial point of view..."
I hear you about joining in. I am not sure why I did...but maybe it was the part where she advocated sterilization and eugenics as a possible solution based upon her assessment of the "data". Fortunately she rethought her post and decided to take those elements out. So that's good.
I agree with your position that we have to look at both genetics and environment. While I may be studying socio-cultural anthropology, I still have never felt that "culture" or the social environment can explain everything. It just does not make sense to discard biological factors.
Probably not, as you say, a very interesting position, but it seems to make sense to me. Unfortunately there are a whole slew of biological determinists and cultural determinists who can't seem to consider a middle ground approach. The whole idea that complex behaviors are determined by EITHER culture or heredity just seems ridiculously oversimplified.
Anyway, thanks for the response.
Fortunately she rethought her post and decided to take those elements out.
ReplyDeleteOh, so that's why I didn't understand how the discussion became about that. She could have added a note that she had edited the original content after getting comments.
Who on Earth are the biological determinists? They, actually, seem like the strangest of the bunch.
"She could have added a note that she had edited the original content after getting comments."
ReplyDeleteYa, that would have made sense.
"Who on Earth are the biological determinists? They, actually, seem like the strangest of the bunch."
They're not really any stranger than anyone else. They just tend to favor biology as the main determinant or factor in human behavior. I would argue that it's part of the equation, but not all of it--and I think that's basically what most biologists and anthropologists accept at present. I know the anthropological position better than the biological position though.
I would place someone like Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, in the camp of biological determinism. Probably the worst aspect of Murray is the people who have latched onto his ideas because they fit a certain political agenda. Murray basically correlates "race" with cultural achievements, intelligence, etc. Mathilda, who studied psychology in the 1990s, seems to be parroting some of Murray's basic arguments.
I would also include some of the work of certain sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, psychologists, physical anthropologists.
Still, there are always the extremists on all sides...there are plenty of cultural determinists who explain every human behavior as if its the product of a socio-cultural construct. So deterministic thinking cuts both ways, clearly.
Both extremes are extremes, but the reasons why I think the biological determinists are stranger, is that any idiot should be able to see that the environment affects who we become. No (sane) biologist would say that the environment doesn't affect the phenotype (though here we are talking about the mind and behavior only). That behavioral traits are genetically heritable isn't as easy to see, because there's always the cultural influence from the parents and the similar environment.
ReplyDelete