> as the University of Maryland criminologist John Laub told me, it’s because any suggestion of a possible biological or genetic basis for crime could be misconstrued as racism.
Or, it is because biological and genetic factors aren't as powerful at predicting crime as other factors. The idea that crime runs in families indicates a biological factor in crime is nonsense. Families and children that start in lower deciles of wealth are likely to stay there. Social mobility is awful.
Trying to say that crime is biological is just a classic example of misunderstanding correlation and causation at best, and an attempt to justify hate speech at worst.
You're 100% spot on that it's not biological, but more than likely just a result of the other factors associated with class and access to wealth.
There is no "settled science" establishing a genetic determinant for crime. The person speaking in absolute terms and "waving away" thing is you, with your invocation of an absolute "blank slate theory".
I'm not saying one can read their DNA and determine if they will commit crime or not.
But there are a lot of inherited traits that absolutely could lead one to be more likely to get involved in crime. Things like fight vs flight response, risk tolerance, extroversion/introversion, etc.
Saying "You're 100% spot on that it's not biological" is really absurd. Nothing about humans is 100% non biological. That absolutism is exactly blank slate theory.
In context, the sentiment that you're replying to is discussing a criminologist's concern that a genetic basis for criminality --- which, again, there is no "settled science" to suggest exists at all --- would be construed as racism. At best, you're making the same hyperbolic argument you're complaining about, just in the opposite direction.
Except I'm not. I specifically called out that genetics and environment are both important, in response to someone who declared that genetics play no role whatsoever -- and that arguing otherwise is engaging in hate speech.
You're not even reading the original comment you're replying to accurately, let alone charitably. They said that arguing for biological determinants of crime is at worst a justification for hate speech, not that it automatically is. And it's clear that pleading to biological causes for criminality is often a rationale to justify racism, so they're not wrong.
If bad people use the results of good science for bad reasons, then attack those people, not the science itself.
We can't close our eyes and ears and pretend that genetics plays no role in society (including issues of violence, crime, mental health, addiction, etc).
See, you're doing it again. You've (upthread) made a claim you can't support with evidence --- that there's "settled science" connecting genetics in some useful way with criminality --- and then accused people who disagree with you of "closing our eyes and ears" (rhetorical note: it's hard to close your ears) and "pretending that genetics plays no role".
Again, the context of the thread is that appeals to genetic determination are "in the worst case" coded appeals to racism. And, obviously, they often are. You haven't engaged with that argument, but rather constructed a straw man to attack.
What is true is that if you want to ruminate on possible genetic links to criminality, you're probably need to be careful, because you're treading on ground that has very much been staked out by racists over the last 100-or-so years. Don't get angry at people who point that out to you; get angry at the racists. Or, I mean, move on to some other, less freighted argument.
IMHO it's misleading to say "There is no "settled science" establishing a genetic determinant for crime." - while it's debatable how large that component is, there certainly is evidence that it's very unlikely to be zero.
In particular, the following factors are both quite correlated with crime (and in a way where it's reasonable to assume causation) and also are known to be somewhat heritable:
a) mental disorders such as psychopathy;
b) being prone to addiction;
c) general impulse control and risk-seeking behavior.
Given the available evidence, it would be wrong to assume an absolute lack of relationship between your genes and propensity to crime, there clearly is some (though not necessarily large) genetic determinant for crime - all other things being equal, some newborn babies are a bit more likely than others to go on and commit crimes when they grow up.
Your first two factors are straightforward to concede, but then you add a question-begging (c) that is (1) much more difficult to agree with and (2) happens to be heavily tied up with the same racist rhetoric† the comment upthread is cautioning about. (You also conflate heritability with genetic determinism).
My issue isn't with the claim that there is likely some genetic connection to crime. Clearly, in some extreme cases, there is. My issue is with the extrapolation from extreme cases and from very un-settled science to broad claims about genetic determinism (and supposed unwillingness of others to entertain those claims).
† I'm not saying you're using racist rhetoric, I'm saying you're using rhetoric that is also leaned on by racists; for instance, "black people have a genetic predisposition to high time preference".
The (c) is not colloquial question-begging (or at least not intended so), these aspects (risk-seeking behavior and impulse control) are very specific personality traits that are measurable and have been studied quite much, as they are important for sociology, behavioral economics, etc.
These personality traits (like most personality traits, really) have a clear genetic component. I would consider this as settled science. For a single example, studies show that varieties of dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) influence financial risk-taking propensity, impulsivity (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781951/), and pathological gambling. As far as we assume causal relationship from impulsivity and pathological gambling to risk of crime (likely there are studies for that, but I'm not going to look now, this seems a reasonable assumption), this implies that this is one more (of many!) genetic factors that have some (small) influence on the likelihood of committing crimes.
Coming back to your specific objections, can you elaborate the what your issue is with "broad claims about genetic determinism" here? I'm not seeing any serious claims of actual genetic determinism (i.e. that it's "all nature") in this thread, I'm only seeing objections to a "no nature" argument, claims that there is no genetic component. The current established scientific opinion is that the vast majority of personality traits are determined by genetic factors (including e.g. epigenetics) and environmental/social factors and individual variation, with all of these influences being intertwined and each of them constituting a major part of the influence. And this is not limited to extreme cases (i.e. particular genetic disorders), but to all the normal variation of human behavior.
No it isn't. There deffo is some sort of component to it.
I have never met my Grandfather and Uncle that were thieves and another was a sex offender.
I do however like mischief and I love the feeling of thieving stuff. I used to work in Gambling and absolutely loved the idea of taking money from other people. I also have a lot of affiliate sites and I feel like I am stealing that money.
However to say it is 100% one or the other is also garbage. It is another nature vs nurture argument.
Also "Hate Speech" is another way of saying I don't have an argument. It is just a way of saying "You are bad because I don't like what you are saying". This term is destroying my country (people in the UK have been imprisoned because they have posted rap lyrics on facebook).
Surely it's not just wealth though - if kids grow up in a family environment where breaking the law is normal, I'd very much expect that to affect their attitudes differently than if they grow up in a law-abiding family.
Given the wealth disparity in some places it is actually surprising how law abiding most people are. Keep in mind that the rich have a disproportionate effect in making the laws in the first place.
The idea that crime runs in families indicates a biological factor in crime is nonsense.
Yes, but it does suggest it is a possibility. I thought it was a common belief that genetics play a part in addiction, and mental illness. I do agree that socioeconomic factors are most likely the biggest contributor, the movie Trading Places convinced me of that at a young age. I just think it would be foolish to dismiss genetics completely.
Probably the same as any fable or faery tale. It presents the idea that people are a product of their environment, which is a fairly easy concept to believe. Also when I said young, I meant like 5 or 6, I was not considering "evidentiary value." Though for what it's worth, my experiences have pretty much backed this up.
We have numbers on this sort of thing. Here are some Swedish adoption studies (they track everyone) which, from a first glance, support the usual rule of half-half:
I can't now find the (also Swedish I think) study I remember, which managed to look at families who'd got suddenly rich between the 1st son & the 2nd son.
There was a seminal study in the US of twins who were adopted (and raised) by different parents.
This of course is an amazing natural experiment to see if genes or parenting is the cause of important personality traits.
The study "found that an identical twin reared away from his or her co-twin seems to have about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, and attitudes as one who has been reared with his or her co-twin. This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment."
So, yes, genes clearly matter.
This is a very unfashionable finding currently in the US, but the science is clear.
> a very unfashionable finding currently in the US, but the science is clear.
The science is not really that clear. Tyler Cowen [1] refers us to Jay Joseph [2] who refers us to other critics of "twins reared apart" ("TRA") studies:
Critics, however, have pointed to several key methodological problems with TRA studies (TRA study critics include Farber, 1981; Joseph, 2001, 2004, 2010; Kamin, 1974; Kamin & Goldberger, 2002; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984; Taylor, 1980). These problems include (a) the doubtful “separation” of twins, who frequently grew up together and had contact over much of their lives, (b) similarity bias in the methods of MZA identification and recruitment, (c) the questionable status of “intelligence” and “personality” as valid and quantifiable constructs, (d) the failure of the MISTRA researchers to publish or share raw data and life history information for the twins under study, and (e) the impact that the researchers’ bias in favor of genetic interpretations may have had on their results and conclusions.
and continues:
While these and other issues are important, the main problem with TRA studies such as Bouchard’s MISTRA is clear: the investigators used the wrong control group (MZTs). By using MZTs as controls, they failed to control for several key environmental factors shared by both MZA and MZT pairs (see Joseph, 2004; Rose, 1982). Environmental influences shared by both MZAs and MZTs include but are not limited to the following:
• They are exactly the same age (birth cohort).
• They are always the same sex.
• They are almost always the same ethnicity.
• Their appearance is strikingly similar (which will elicit more similar treatment from the social environment).
• They usually are raised in the same socioeconomic class.
• They usually are raised in the same culture.
• They shared the same prenatal environment.
• Most studied pairs spent a certain amount of time together in the same family environment, were aware of each other’s existence when studied, and often had regular contact over long periods of time (Farber, 1981; Kamin, 1974).
So maybe twin studies aren't the slam dunk they are often presented as.
Seriously. I would say that also applies over to the author's claim that "doctors produce doctors, lawyers produce lawyers", etc. Sure, kids whose parents/relatives have forged a career in a particular industry have a much easier time making their way in, I would seriously doubt that genetics are a major factor other than general cognitive ability.
IIRC studies about career choice imply that "doctors produce doctors, lawyers produce lawyers" is somewhat true, however, not because ability (there was no evidence that there's much specialized ability, someone who has the qualities where they're likely going to be a good doctor is also likely to be a good lawyer and vice versa), but because career choice is highly influenced by the options you consider, by the choices that seem "normal" in your community, and that is highly influenced by having parents/relatives in that field.
General cognitive ability is a pretty big contributor to social and professional success but so is conscientiousness. To a lesser extent so are extraversion, (a lack of) neuroticism and work ethic, all of which are heritable.
Family trades are a big thing but even absent that social status is highly heritable in every society Gregory Clarke looked at in England, the United States, Sweden, India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Chile. A doctor’s children may have divergent status but their children and grandchildren will look more similar, on average, as n increases the variance will decrease.
The article traces the Bogle's family start in crime back to the Prohibition era. While there are, of course, a host of reasons why people become criminals, ridiculous laws are a contributing factor. The War on (some) Drugs is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results. It's well past time to end it, along with the human devastation it causes.
While the War on (Americans who use (some)) Drugs is a decades-long tragedy whose human costs dwarf most natural disasters, it's pretty clear the goals of US drug policy aren't to reduce criminal activity, but instead explicitly criminalize what may consider a personal choice.
Given that minimizing criminal activity isn't a concern isn't a goal, what incentive is there to change the policy? Saying that the war on drugs causes more harm than drugs is obvious, but repeatedly pointing that out and expecting policy to change hasn't worked for a long time.
Pseudo-legal. It's still illegal in the whole country, but federal law enforcement is giving a pass in states that have removed state level laws against it.
If you make it illegal, for the sake of being able to throw certain demographics in prison (brown, black, hippies), then you incentivize further actions. If you're caught, you're already going away for a long time.
That's why decriminalization/legalization of drugs also stops other crime. Suddenly, $thing is no longer criminalized, so people doing it have no reason to commit crimes.
TFA didn't mention drugs, it talks about a family where burglary was a bonding activity. Plenty of crime existed before War on Drugs, and it still exists in places where such strictures don't exist.
The article is scant on details, but if the ancestor's only crime during Prohibition was bootlegging, then actually, it's possible Prohibition caused generations of other crimes that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
Then we should also get rid of the prohibition on ivory- after all, think of all of those future generations of criminals we're creating by jailing poachers.
its not the same thing at all, and your argument is logically fallacious because of it. A person consuming a drug violates no other beings rights. This is obviously not true about ivory poaching.
But actually, crime IS crime, in important ways. Put it this way; marijuana can be a "gateway drug" without being addictive, because people who are willing to break the law and social norms to do one thing are the kind of people who might break the law and social norms to do another thing; it's correlation in that case, though. To extent the analogy, maybe now the marijuana user's child begins using marijuana because their parents did, but then they move on to hard drugs. Their willingness to break the law and social norms in one way made them more open to doing so in another way.
Same thing here; if you create too many victimless crimes, children of 'crime' may grow up to do crimes that actually have victims.
I support legalizing — or at least decriminalizing — most drugs and treating it as a public health issue rather than a crime. But after talking with some police officers I can also understand their perspective on keeping drug laws in place. They often know who the local gang members and other violent criminals are, but don't necessarily have enough evidence to convict in court. Most of those serious criminals also use and/or deal drugs. So when the police catch them holding it's easy to get a conviction and take a bad guy off the street for a while.
Felon here. Like the article describes, my father was arrested and jailed, and his father before him. Many of my family have spent time in prison. When I turned 18, I also shared the same experience. Less than a year in min security prison.
Now I'm 35, moved away from my troubled youth, and have made millions of dollars building startups.
A few points:
- To this day, I am terrified to speak to police or any authority figures. I sweat every time I pass through passport control when my wife and I go to Europe every summer.
- I can't break my "guarded" way of thinking, that everyone is out to get me, that I need to take what I can when I have the chance because the chance won't come around again. I am never relaxed.
- I have a 4 year old and not a day goes by that I don't spend working with him to provide things I never had. The fact that I can afford to send him to piano lessons or that we can afford to live in the "rich" part of town makes me emotional.
- I lost every part of my childhood. My parents are ghosts and my friends from then are long sense forgotten. Some people go back to their home town to feel nostalgic, but all I do is feel anger. I am angry every day.
- Many people are afraid to take risks for their careers, but as an ex-convict who spent over a year as a homeless person, I feel no fear. Moving across the country when I have no money, sleeping at my desk to launch a product due the next day, giving a speech in front of 1000 people, or aggressively gunning for a better company is nothing compared to begging someone for their half eaten sandwich. That's true fear.
Even the ones who escape a criminal family never really escape.
I am a felon and I live in Washington State, it really doesn't effect me much at all. When I lived in California, same thing, it never came up and didn't seem to matter. Texas on the other hand really works hard to keep you down once youve made a mistake... it was hard to find work, housing, etc.
Maybe I'm the exception then - I'm probably the first person in my family to get in trouble (felon, did 5 years). What you say about taking risks is so true. Once you've taken big risks, the thought of these relatively small risks is a joke.
My father is a felon, and his father before him, and most of my uncles (one is even a convicted murderer). I didn't follow in their footsteps -- never even gotten so much as a speeding ticket.
The funny thing is I can completely relate. I had to cut off my father's family from my life to escape; all police make me nervous as I think they will arrest me; every interaction I have with non-best-of-friends is "fuck you, I'm getting mine".
I'm not sure how many generations it takes to escape the mentality, but I'm hoping my sons aren't the same way.
I am a black person and I have similar feelings even though I grew up middle class and privileged.
I am very afraid of police, become anxious in any federal building, and I am nervous at airports and their security setups.
My brother and I were forced to grow up early, given we could be accosted by police at any time for any reason.
The first time I had a rear headlight out and was stopped by the police, I was put in handcuffs and placed in the back seat of the police car. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for this precaution.
When I go to my hometown, I go back to feelings of isolation and loneliness, and where I was never invited to parties, and spent entire summers alone at the library.
I come from a line of smugglers and bootleggers. Luckily I did not choose a life of crime, but I do think being raised in my family and possibly a genetic component helps with risk tolerance.
How much do you think your troubles come from bad cultural influence from family, and how much due to genetic legacy ? Open and serious question. Had you been raised somewhere else, do you think you'd still be attracted to bad/illegal/criminal acts (in the general sense) ?
It's funny someone with a long legal history still sweat near authority. Personal anecdote, I lifted some school furnitures (laughably sad project) with a friend and got busted. Couldn't get into any store that had detectors without going full paranoia (what if someone drops an item in my pocket before I leave..). Lasted 3 years.
This is kind of a flippant dismissal based on the multiple findings backed up by numbers. Yours may be an anecdotal story (and not my place to comment on) but there's no evidence that welfare dependence causes crime. It seems to be more of a political talking point. There may very well be a correlation, but it doesn't imply causation.
Almost all of my step family on the Isle of Wight (this in the UK) are doing this along with most of their friends.
I know what I saw with my own eyes. I know what some women have said "I can get X amount if I have another kid". I also know that almost all of my step brothers and step sisters abuse the welfare system mainly by having children with other people.
Telling me that it doesn't happen, when I know it blatantly does and then telling me it doesn't because of some academic release that for all we know probably hasn't been peer reviewer properly. A slight aside ... some dudes managed to get Mein Karph through peer review recently by changing the wording slightly.
Also guess the arrest rate for my step family? The first day I met them they got arrested. Every-time I hear something about them one of them or their mates or both have got arrested.
You know what the connecting thing is ... they are all on welfare and their parents were drunks and lived off of welfare on the Island because there are no jobs.
The poster above was respectful that they would not comment on your experiences, merely that a single persons experiences does not defy statistical data results. To argue further with more personal experiences does not adequately address the concern...
LOL. This is the problem with you guys. I don't care if he is respectful
Sometimes what is right in front of your face is true. That is why stereotypes exist.
No one has addressed the point I made. Just saying it in anecdotal when I have observed it in a number of instances by myself is incorrect. I am not saying it is one personal experience. I am saying it is a pattern I have seen 5 or 6 times myself and I have seen it as a recurring theme in news etc.
BTW I have been programming computers for 15 years. There are these things called Heuristics. They are based on experience. I am sure a lot of people would be will to agree with a lot of programming Heuristics ... but when it comes to something else ... it must be much higher bar all of a sudden.
The problem with saying that just because you observed it makes it a widespread pattern is that the opposite can also be true at the same time. Which small-scale observation is correct? Just because something is "a recurring theme in news" does not make it a widespread thing. By definition, a thing is "newsworthy" when it is notable and unusual; not something that's commonplace.
And the someone who can come along and ague the opposite is me. Growing up, my family was on every form of welfare our state and the federal government offered. I've eaten more off-brand cereal and helped my mother figure out what's WIC-approved and what isn't over many, many grocery trips. I helped push the car home on more than one occasion when we ran out of gas two days before payday. Yet none of us--neither my two parents nor any of their five children--has a criminal record at all. Not even a parking ticket. Same goes for several of my friends from high school (since we all went to the "poor" high school in the "poor" neighborhood). It was easy to tell which of my friends got some form of social assistance because, until my junior year of high school, the free-school-lunch program cards were green instead of white for paid cards. The worst criminal thing any of my several friends has done is a hot check charge.
On the other hand, I also know several financially successful people through work and organizations I'm a member of. Quite a few of them have a range of minor-to-medium charges and convictions. DUIs, drug possession, credit card fraud, petty theft. Most of them grew up with money yet have a criminal record.
So my assertion is that growing up with money causes crime because everyone I know who was on social assistance is as pure as the driven snow and everyone I know who grew up with money has committed crimes. Heck, my assertion is even backed up by being a recurring theme in news. Just watch CNBC for 10 minutes.
"Anecdotal" doesn't mean "happened once" or even "wrong". Anecdotal means that's it's a relation of personal experiences filtered through memory. That's fine.
Evidence that meets scientific or academic standards is different than anecdote. Such data is gathered in a way that tries to minimize biases, and analyzed in a way that tries to account for random chance, and then presented with quantitative precision.
For example, suppose I saw an article saying that men are typically taller than women. "Nope" I reply. "My sister is taller than I am. My cousin is taller than her brother, my aunt is taller than my dad." That may so be true, but it doesn't refute the general claim that is backed by real data.
There's nothing wrong with telling about your personal circumstances. There is something wrong with imagining that your personal circumstances invalidate or even compare to real research.
You suggested that you are familiar with heuristics. To put things in those terms - the heuristic of using anecdotes and stereotypes may well produce better results for life's decisions than random chance would. Using real research and analysis to inform decisions is likely a better heuristic than anecdotes and prejudices though.
I don't know if you can say "welfare dependence causes crime". What you could say is that there are those who commit crime that take advantage of welfare, that is, they abuse its availability.
I know of those who abuse welfare payments because they are incapable of doing honest work - they would rather rort a system than put in an honest days work. Yet there are many other who cannot get such help when they truly need it. These are the one that fall through the cracks and I have seen some of those turn to criminal activity because they don't see any other way.
Many years ago, I had the "pleasure" of dealing with someone on welfare. They wanted to see our pastor and were wanting to obtain some monies. Ostensibly for putting fuel into their vehicle.
I offered to help and took them back to my place and got a twenty litre jerry can of fuel that I had. I took them and the fuel back to their place and emptied it into their car fuel tank. My observations of them lead me to the conclusion that their financial help request was bogus. They were not enthused that they had received practical help (fuel) instead of currency.
I went to this effort to test them and the veracity of their story. Never saw them again. I shared this with the then pastor and he laughed that I had had the nowse to test the person's story. He had seen that person previously on a number of occasions.
Since then, it has been policy to help people practically by giving the actual things like food, etc, rather than monies. This always results in one of two things, grateful acceptance or ungratefulness.
I'm nearly blind but no one else in my family is. So obviously eyesight isn't heriditary...
A single counterexample doesn't negate a discussion about probabilities and populations. I can find plenty of women taller than me, but I'm still taller than the average women (I'm a perfectly average height man). But my 6'4" female friend is not a counterexample to the claim that men tend to be taller than women, nor is my 5'2" male friend a counterexample from the opposite end.
You'll need more examples to go from anecdote to data and to show a countertrend.
Way to strawman with a first sentence. I know how a bell-curve works
My family is very large. Most aren't criminals even though we have had two very horrendous individuals.
I am sorry I just don't believe it. Even more of my iffy friends and family stopped doing things like cash in hand work and benefit fraud once they were rich enough not to bother.
It is a simply a function of circumstances and upbringing and nothing more. There might be a genetic component but I suggest that component is being more of an opportunist than actual thievery.
Actually, speaking of Australia - as 20% of Australians are apparently descended from convicts shipped there from the UK shouldn't Austrialia be suffering from terrible levels of crime?
"Yet, despite the abundance of evidence showing the role of family in crime, criminologists and policymakers have largely neglected this factor—as the University of Maryland criminologist John Laub told me, it’s because any suggestion of a possible biological or genetic basis for crime could be misconstrued as racism."
How exactly does a family connection imply a biological basis? Did nature defeat nurture when I wasn't looking? or is this just a poorly written sentence implying that connecting the two could then result in ascribing the trait to biology, and so was avoided?
> How exactly does a family connection imply a biological basis?
...because most families have a biological connection?
I don't believe it's poorly written, but the truth is closer to your third question.
Race is a very touchy subject, especially when it comes to crime, and making it known that you're looking into something that could lead to biological/genetic assertions about criminality is a good way to draw unpleasant attention.
Such people are why we can't have adult conversations without an exhaustive, preambulatory ritual re-establishing baseline assumptions. And even then people (of all stripes) will willfully misconstrue you, especially if you don't pepper your assertions with limiting and contextualizing language.
> a possible biological or genetic basis for crime could be misconstrued as racism.
But what if it is isn't and it is something like impulsivity? I know someone who worked for a large state prison system for many years. They've observed one common trait of the majority of people incarcerated is that they are very impulsive. They react rather than think things through. Often they regret the crime, but could be too late by then [+].
However the same impulsivity is also a trait of someone we might consider a "hero". Say someone jumping into the river or a fire to rescue a person, a salesperson quickly responding to a customer need and so on. Someone quickly responding and standing up to a bully to defend someone being abused.
At the genetic level it could be the same low level drive, but family, society and culture have a chance of molding that into either something good or destructive.
[+] There is a lot to be said there for the society and the correctional system being punitive and not much correctional per se, and mental illness playing large role as well but that's for a different post perhaps.
Lead exposure in children can cause ADHD and developmental delays. Other things can probably permanently affect your neurology as you're growing up and appear heritable because a family stays in the same place with the same economic conditions over generations.
Yeah, I found that strange. One of the things that stuck with me from reading "How Children Succeed"[0] was that violence/ crises in the household tend to make kids impulsive and short-sighted in decision making. The idea kids who grow up around criminal parents would wind up doing the same because of modeling and the likelihood of violence or other frightening events like being put in foster care makes sense to me and doesn't have to have a biological underpinning to be true.
Factors like this mean that the heritability of such things is even larger than the purely genetic effect, as the "nurture" part i.e. home environment also is quite hereditary.
Surely that theory will find an eager with the HN audience and its disgusting affinity for biological determinism. Quick to condemn the unsuccessful as unworthy, strident in praise of the inherent superiority of the successful, deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "luck".
It's not a good idea to anthropomorphize HN. Inevitably that makes of it a demon composed of the nastiest scraps of comments you've seen here—and railing against demons, like you've done here, is inevitably unsubstantive. This community has millions of people, and the vast majority don't fit this description.
Zeitgeist forms here as it does for any gathering of humans, and zeitgeist need not be representative of the majority.
Arguments denigrating outgroups as genetically unworthy will always find an eager audience at HN. It's no wonder that outgroups are, and will continue to remain, underrepresented -- such disparagement is a potent mechanism of exclusion.
Expressing disgust with this self-reinforcing insularity may get me flagged and eventually banned. I won't go out of my way to do that, not least because I appreciate the HN mods' work (including today's constructive criticism). But if it happens, I won't regret it.
> “We need another solution,” [Judge Norblad] told me, “something to separate Bogle family members so they will not keep reinfecting themselves.” Norblad, who died in 2014, did not know how to do that.
Once upon a time judges could kick offenders out of their jurisdiction or a state entirely. I think this was eventually deemed unconstitutional, though I can't find any on-point caselaw and suspect it simply fell out of favor and assumed unconstitutional. IIRC the closest scholarly analysis I could find at the time (~10 years ago) discussed a governor's right to impose conditions on a pardon, and in particular the condition that one leave the state, which concluded that it was probably still constitutional because of how extensive is the pardon power.
In the 1960s or 1970s a relative of mine was kicked out of Wisconsin by an exasperated judge after drunkly shooting up a yacht in search of rumored hidden money; receiving a suspended sentence as long as he never set foot in Wisconsin again. He was happy to leave and both he and Wisconsin were probably the better for it. He was only in Wisconsin temporarily so it's not like Wisconsin exported its problems, either.
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[ 92.0 ms ] story [ 2183 ms ] threadOr, it is because biological and genetic factors aren't as powerful at predicting crime as other factors. The idea that crime runs in families indicates a biological factor in crime is nonsense. Families and children that start in lower deciles of wealth are likely to stay there. Social mobility is awful.
You're 100% spot on that it's not biological, but more than likely just a result of the other factors associated with class and access to wealth.
Yes, nurture matters, but so does nature. Declaring this settled science "an attempt to justify hate speech" is laughable.
But there are a lot of inherited traits that absolutely could lead one to be more likely to get involved in crime. Things like fight vs flight response, risk tolerance, extroversion/introversion, etc.
Saying "You're 100% spot on that it's not biological" is really absurd. Nothing about humans is 100% non biological. That absolutism is exactly blank slate theory.
We can't close our eyes and ears and pretend that genetics plays no role in society (including issues of violence, crime, mental health, addiction, etc).
Again, the context of the thread is that appeals to genetic determination are "in the worst case" coded appeals to racism. And, obviously, they often are. You haven't engaged with that argument, but rather constructed a straw man to attack.
What is true is that if you want to ruminate on possible genetic links to criminality, you're probably need to be careful, because you're treading on ground that has very much been staked out by racists over the last 100-or-so years. Don't get angry at people who point that out to you; get angry at the racists. Or, I mean, move on to some other, less freighted argument.
In particular, the following factors are both quite correlated with crime (and in a way where it's reasonable to assume causation) and also are known to be somewhat heritable:
a) mental disorders such as psychopathy;
b) being prone to addiction;
c) general impulse control and risk-seeking behavior.
Given the available evidence, it would be wrong to assume an absolute lack of relationship between your genes and propensity to crime, there clearly is some (though not necessarily large) genetic determinant for crime - all other things being equal, some newborn babies are a bit more likely than others to go on and commit crimes when they grow up.
My issue isn't with the claim that there is likely some genetic connection to crime. Clearly, in some extreme cases, there is. My issue is with the extrapolation from extreme cases and from very un-settled science to broad claims about genetic determinism (and supposed unwillingness of others to entertain those claims).
† I'm not saying you're using racist rhetoric, I'm saying you're using rhetoric that is also leaned on by racists; for instance, "black people have a genetic predisposition to high time preference".
These personality traits (like most personality traits, really) have a clear genetic component. I would consider this as settled science. For a single example, studies show that varieties of dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) influence financial risk-taking propensity, impulsivity (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781951/), and pathological gambling. As far as we assume causal relationship from impulsivity and pathological gambling to risk of crime (likely there are studies for that, but I'm not going to look now, this seems a reasonable assumption), this implies that this is one more (of many!) genetic factors that have some (small) influence on the likelihood of committing crimes.
Coming back to your specific objections, can you elaborate the what your issue is with "broad claims about genetic determinism" here? I'm not seeing any serious claims of actual genetic determinism (i.e. that it's "all nature") in this thread, I'm only seeing objections to a "no nature" argument, claims that there is no genetic component. The current established scientific opinion is that the vast majority of personality traits are determined by genetic factors (including e.g. epigenetics) and environmental/social factors and individual variation, with all of these influences being intertwined and each of them constituting a major part of the influence. And this is not limited to extreme cases (i.e. particular genetic disorders), but to all the normal variation of human behavior.
I have never met my Grandfather and Uncle that were thieves and another was a sex offender.
I do however like mischief and I love the feeling of thieving stuff. I used to work in Gambling and absolutely loved the idea of taking money from other people. I also have a lot of affiliate sites and I feel like I am stealing that money.
However to say it is 100% one or the other is also garbage. It is another nature vs nurture argument.
Also "Hate Speech" is another way of saying I don't have an argument. It is just a way of saying "You are bad because I don't like what you are saying". This term is destroying my country (people in the UK have been imprisoned because they have posted rap lyrics on facebook).
https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/23/she-posted-rap-lyrics-to-...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921
Yes, but it does suggest it is a possibility. I thought it was a common belief that genetics play a part in addiction, and mental illness. I do agree that socioeconomic factors are most likely the biggest contributor, the movie Trading Places convinced me of that at a young age. I just think it would be foolish to dismiss genetics completely.
This is an interesting thing to admit. What is the evidentiary value of a fictional movie?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4009388/
http://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2012.11.0...
I can't now find the (also Swedish I think) study I remember, which managed to look at families who'd got suddenly rich between the 1st son & the 2nd son.
This of course is an amazing natural experiment to see if genes or parenting is the cause of important personality traits.
The study "found that an identical twin reared away from his or her co-twin seems to have about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, and attitudes as one who has been reared with his or her co-twin. This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment."
So, yes, genes clearly matter.
This is a very unfashionable finding currently in the US, but the science is clear.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Twin_Family_Study
Families who adopt are not necessarily representative of the wider population.
The science is not really that clear. Tyler Cowen [1] refers us to Jay Joseph [2] who refers us to other critics of "twins reared apart" ("TRA") studies:
Critics, however, have pointed to several key methodological problems with TRA studies (TRA study critics include Farber, 1981; Joseph, 2001, 2004, 2010; Kamin, 1974; Kamin & Goldberger, 2002; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984; Taylor, 1980). These problems include (a) the doubtful “separation” of twins, who frequently grew up together and had contact over much of their lives, (b) similarity bias in the methods of MZA identification and recruitment, (c) the questionable status of “intelligence” and “personality” as valid and quantifiable constructs, (d) the failure of the MISTRA researchers to publish or share raw data and life history information for the twins under study, and (e) the impact that the researchers’ bias in favor of genetic interpretations may have had on their results and conclusions.
and continues:
While these and other issues are important, the main problem with TRA studies such as Bouchard’s MISTRA is clear: the investigators used the wrong control group (MZTs). By using MZTs as controls, they failed to control for several key environmental factors shared by both MZA and MZT pairs (see Joseph, 2004; Rose, 1982). Environmental influences shared by both MZAs and MZTs include but are not limited to the following:
• They are exactly the same age (birth cohort).
• They are always the same sex.
• They are almost always the same ethnicity.
• Their appearance is strikingly similar (which will elicit more similar treatment from the social environment).
• They usually are raised in the same socioeconomic class.
• They usually are raised in the same culture.
• They shared the same prenatal environment.
• Most studied pairs spent a certain amount of time together in the same family environment, were aware of each other’s existence when studied, and often had regular contact over long periods of time (Farber, 1981; Kamin, 1974).
So maybe twin studies aren't the slam dunk they are often presented as.
[1] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/02/wha....
[2] http://jayjoseph.net/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Claims_and....
Also referenced by Cowen:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag....
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp2001-08.pdf
Family trades are a big thing but even absent that social status is highly heritable in every society Gregory Clarke looked at in England, the United States, Sweden, India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Chile. A doctor’s children may have divergent status but their children and grandchildren will look more similar, on average, as n increases the variance will decrease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book)
Given that minimizing criminal activity isn't a concern isn't a goal, what incentive is there to change the policy? Saying that the war on drugs causes more harm than drugs is obvious, but repeatedly pointing that out and expecting policy to change hasn't worked for a long time.
In USA, there are 2million people in prison/jail right now, and 2million people with an opiod use disorder.
https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/index.html
Yeah, he'd be a saint if drugs were legal.
If you make it illegal, for the sake of being able to throw certain demographics in prison (brown, black, hippies), then you incentivize further actions. If you're caught, you're already going away for a long time.
That's why decriminalization/legalization of drugs also stops other crime. Suddenly, $thing is no longer criminalized, so people doing it have no reason to commit crimes.
Same thing here; if you create too many victimless crimes, children of 'crime' may grow up to do crimes that actually have victims.
But no one is making that argument. You’re attacking a strawman.
Also, dealing is very different from using.
Now I'm 35, moved away from my troubled youth, and have made millions of dollars building startups.
A few points:
- To this day, I am terrified to speak to police or any authority figures. I sweat every time I pass through passport control when my wife and I go to Europe every summer.
- I can't break my "guarded" way of thinking, that everyone is out to get me, that I need to take what I can when I have the chance because the chance won't come around again. I am never relaxed.
- I have a 4 year old and not a day goes by that I don't spend working with him to provide things I never had. The fact that I can afford to send him to piano lessons or that we can afford to live in the "rich" part of town makes me emotional.
- I lost every part of my childhood. My parents are ghosts and my friends from then are long sense forgotten. Some people go back to their home town to feel nostalgic, but all I do is feel anger. I am angry every day.
- Many people are afraid to take risks for their careers, but as an ex-convict who spent over a year as a homeless person, I feel no fear. Moving across the country when I have no money, sleeping at my desk to launch a product due the next day, giving a speech in front of 1000 people, or aggressively gunning for a better company is nothing compared to begging someone for their half eaten sandwich. That's true fear.
Even the ones who escape a criminal family never really escape.
I am a felon and I live in Washington State, it really doesn't effect me much at all. When I lived in California, same thing, it never came up and didn't seem to matter. Texas on the other hand really works hard to keep you down once youve made a mistake... it was hard to find work, housing, etc.
My parents abandoned me at a young age and I feel a lot of the same feelings.
Congrats on your success and best of luck to you in the future.
Congrats on beating the system.
The funny thing is I can completely relate. I had to cut off my father's family from my life to escape; all police make me nervous as I think they will arrest me; every interaction I have with non-best-of-friends is "fuck you, I'm getting mine".
I'm not sure how many generations it takes to escape the mentality, but I'm hoping my sons aren't the same way.
I am very afraid of police, become anxious in any federal building, and I am nervous at airports and their security setups.
My brother and I were forced to grow up early, given we could be accosted by police at any time for any reason.
The first time I had a rear headlight out and was stopped by the police, I was put in handcuffs and placed in the back seat of the police car. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for this precaution.
When I go to my hometown, I go back to feelings of isolation and loneliness, and where I was never invited to parties, and spent entire summers alone at the library.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
It's funny someone with a long legal history still sweat near authority. Personal anecdote, I lifted some school furnitures (laughably sad project) with a friend and got busted. Couldn't get into any store that had detectors without going full paranoia (what if someone drops an item in my pocket before I leave..). Lasted 3 years.
My Grandfather was a sex offender and my Uncle is a convicted Armed Bank Robber.
The rest of the family has their problems like all families do. Mostly recovering from abuse of the previous two guys.
What is a bigger problem (especially in the UK) is welfare dependence which does become a family thing.
This is kind of a flippant dismissal based on the multiple findings backed up by numbers. Yours may be an anecdotal story (and not my place to comment on) but there's no evidence that welfare dependence causes crime. It seems to be more of a political talking point. There may very well be a correlation, but it doesn't imply causation.
Almost all of my step family on the Isle of Wight (this in the UK) are doing this along with most of their friends.
I know what I saw with my own eyes. I know what some women have said "I can get X amount if I have another kid". I also know that almost all of my step brothers and step sisters abuse the welfare system mainly by having children with other people.
Telling me that it doesn't happen, when I know it blatantly does and then telling me it doesn't because of some academic release that for all we know probably hasn't been peer reviewer properly. A slight aside ... some dudes managed to get Mein Karph through peer review recently by changing the wording slightly.
Also guess the arrest rate for my step family? The first day I met them they got arrested. Every-time I hear something about them one of them or their mates or both have got arrested.
You know what the connecting thing is ... they are all on welfare and their parents were drunks and lived off of welfare on the Island because there are no jobs.
Sometimes what is right in front of your face is true. That is why stereotypes exist.
No one has addressed the point I made. Just saying it in anecdotal when I have observed it in a number of instances by myself is incorrect. I am not saying it is one personal experience. I am saying it is a pattern I have seen 5 or 6 times myself and I have seen it as a recurring theme in news etc.
BTW I have been programming computers for 15 years. There are these things called Heuristics. They are based on experience. I am sure a lot of people would be will to agree with a lot of programming Heuristics ... but when it comes to something else ... it must be much higher bar all of a sudden.
And the someone who can come along and ague the opposite is me. Growing up, my family was on every form of welfare our state and the federal government offered. I've eaten more off-brand cereal and helped my mother figure out what's WIC-approved and what isn't over many, many grocery trips. I helped push the car home on more than one occasion when we ran out of gas two days before payday. Yet none of us--neither my two parents nor any of their five children--has a criminal record at all. Not even a parking ticket. Same goes for several of my friends from high school (since we all went to the "poor" high school in the "poor" neighborhood). It was easy to tell which of my friends got some form of social assistance because, until my junior year of high school, the free-school-lunch program cards were green instead of white for paid cards. The worst criminal thing any of my several friends has done is a hot check charge.
On the other hand, I also know several financially successful people through work and organizations I'm a member of. Quite a few of them have a range of minor-to-medium charges and convictions. DUIs, drug possession, credit card fraud, petty theft. Most of them grew up with money yet have a criminal record.
So my assertion is that growing up with money causes crime because everyone I know who was on social assistance is as pure as the driven snow and everyone I know who grew up with money has committed crimes. Heck, my assertion is even backed up by being a recurring theme in news. Just watch CNBC for 10 minutes.
Evidence that meets scientific or academic standards is different than anecdote. Such data is gathered in a way that tries to minimize biases, and analyzed in a way that tries to account for random chance, and then presented with quantitative precision.
For example, suppose I saw an article saying that men are typically taller than women. "Nope" I reply. "My sister is taller than I am. My cousin is taller than her brother, my aunt is taller than my dad." That may so be true, but it doesn't refute the general claim that is backed by real data.
There's nothing wrong with telling about your personal circumstances. There is something wrong with imagining that your personal circumstances invalidate or even compare to real research.
You suggested that you are familiar with heuristics. To put things in those terms - the heuristic of using anecdotes and stereotypes may well produce better results for life's decisions than random chance would. Using real research and analysis to inform decisions is likely a better heuristic than anecdotes and prejudices though.
They have.
> Just saying it in anecdotal
That's your point being addressed.
> when I have observed it in a number of instances by myself is incorrect.
That's the definition of anecdotal.
> I am not saying it is one personal experience. I am saying it is a pattern I have seen 5 or 6 times myself
Its not just personal experience, its an experience you've experienced personally?
> and I have seen it as a recurring theme in news
Do I really need to address the bias of the news toward eye-catching headlines rather than sober analysis of real-life trends?
I know of those who abuse welfare payments because they are incapable of doing honest work - they would rather rort a system than put in an honest days work. Yet there are many other who cannot get such help when they truly need it. These are the one that fall through the cracks and I have seen some of those turn to criminal activity because they don't see any other way.
Many years ago, I had the "pleasure" of dealing with someone on welfare. They wanted to see our pastor and were wanting to obtain some monies. Ostensibly for putting fuel into their vehicle.
I offered to help and took them back to my place and got a twenty litre jerry can of fuel that I had. I took them and the fuel back to their place and emptied it into their car fuel tank. My observations of them lead me to the conclusion that their financial help request was bogus. They were not enthused that they had received practical help (fuel) instead of currency.
I went to this effort to test them and the veracity of their story. Never saw them again. I shared this with the then pastor and he laughed that I had had the nowse to test the person's story. He had seen that person previously on a number of occasions.
Since then, it has been policy to help people practically by giving the actual things like food, etc, rather than monies. This always results in one of two things, grateful acceptance or ungratefulness.
A single counterexample doesn't negate a discussion about probabilities and populations. I can find plenty of women taller than me, but I'm still taller than the average women (I'm a perfectly average height man). But my 6'4" female friend is not a counterexample to the claim that men tend to be taller than women, nor is my 5'2" male friend a counterexample from the opposite end.
You'll need more examples to go from anecdote to data and to show a countertrend.
My family is very large. Most aren't criminals even though we have had two very horrendous individuals.
I am sorry I just don't believe it. Even more of my iffy friends and family stopped doing things like cash in hand work and benefit fraud once they were rich enough not to bother.
It is a simply a function of circumstances and upbringing and nothing more. There might be a genetic component but I suggest that component is being more of an opportunist than actual thievery.
Being on welfare closes a vast amount of opportunities to people, which causes many to turn to crime.
Bring a criminal closes a vast amount of opportunities to people, which causes people to turn to welfare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convicts_in_Australia
NB As far as I can tell it isn't.... :-)
How exactly does a family connection imply a biological basis? Did nature defeat nurture when I wasn't looking? or is this just a poorly written sentence implying that connecting the two could then result in ascribing the trait to biology, and so was avoided?
...because most families have a biological connection?
I don't believe it's poorly written, but the truth is closer to your third question.
Race is a very touchy subject, especially when it comes to crime, and making it known that you're looking into something that could lead to biological/genetic assertions about criminality is a good way to draw unpleasant attention.
Yes, some people are convinced nature trumps nurture:
Such people are why we can't have adult conversations without an exhaustive, preambulatory ritual re-establishing baseline assumptions. And even then people (of all stripes) will willfully misconstrue you, especially if you don't pepper your assertions with limiting and contextualizing language.But what if it is isn't and it is something like impulsivity? I know someone who worked for a large state prison system for many years. They've observed one common trait of the majority of people incarcerated is that they are very impulsive. They react rather than think things through. Often they regret the crime, but could be too late by then [+].
However the same impulsivity is also a trait of someone we might consider a "hero". Say someone jumping into the river or a fire to rescue a person, a salesperson quickly responding to a customer need and so on. Someone quickly responding and standing up to a bully to defend someone being abused.
At the genetic level it could be the same low level drive, but family, society and culture have a chance of molding that into either something good or destructive.
[+] There is a lot to be said there for the society and the correctional system being punitive and not much correctional per se, and mental illness playing large role as well but that's for a different post perhaps.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=34&po=10
[0] http://www.paultough.com/the-books/how-children-succeed/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#He...
Arguments denigrating outgroups as genetically unworthy will always find an eager audience at HN. It's no wonder that outgroups are, and will continue to remain, underrepresented -- such disparagement is a potent mechanism of exclusion.
Expressing disgust with this self-reinforcing insularity may get me flagged and eventually banned. I won't go out of my way to do that, not least because I appreciate the HN mods' work (including today's constructive criticism). But if it happens, I won't regret it.
Once upon a time judges could kick offenders out of their jurisdiction or a state entirely. I think this was eventually deemed unconstitutional, though I can't find any on-point caselaw and suspect it simply fell out of favor and assumed unconstitutional. IIRC the closest scholarly analysis I could find at the time (~10 years ago) discussed a governor's right to impose conditions on a pardon, and in particular the condition that one leave the state, which concluded that it was probably still constitutional because of how extensive is the pardon power.
In the 1960s or 1970s a relative of mine was kicked out of Wisconsin by an exasperated judge after drunkly shooting up a yacht in search of rumored hidden money; receiving a suspended sentence as long as he never set foot in Wisconsin again. He was happy to leave and both he and Wisconsin were probably the better for it. He was only in Wisconsin temporarily so it's not like Wisconsin exported its problems, either.
EDIT: 2013 Slate article on banishment and exile: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/01/banishment-as-pu...
Anecdotally it worked, and he's now quite a successful programmer, married, kids, decent house, etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jukes_family