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Psychopaths Have Brain Structure Abnormality
mmmscience writes "A group of scientists has identified a structure in the brain of psychopaths that is abnormal when compared with controls. The change is found in the uncinate fasciculus, a bridge of white matter that connects the amygdala (emotion/aggression brain region) and the orbitofrontal cortex (decision making region). Interestingly, the greater the abnormality in the region, the more severe the levels of sociopathy in a subject. The results were published as 'Altered connections on the road to psychopathy' in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. A researcher on the team suggests the finding could have considerable implications in the world of criminal justice, where such scans could one day be presented as evidence in a trial." The study's results have not yet been replicated by other researchers.
Sometimes they occur together, but this is not always the case.
Given the brain's ability to mold itself with use, I wonder whether this abnormality is a contributing factor of the psychopathic behavior, or a result of it?
I don't have the reference handy but I once came across a study showing that incarcerated psychopaths who undergo treatment for the condition are statistically more likely to demonstrate a greater degree of psychopathy in the future than are those who do not undergo treatment.
Any psychiatrists out there want to back me up?
A much larger study is going to be needed to see if having this deformity is (a) unique to psychopaths, and (b) always present in them. If that's the case, great. A screening can be done early. If not, it sounds like a pretty scary way to lock people up in advance of them doing anything (which itself is a very very bad idea).
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Perhaps one thing that might restore sanity to the world is a bit of screening for this characteristic and perhaps some surgical corrections.
Yeah, I know that would never happen... "these" particular sociopaths are our leaders and our heroes. We shouldn't identify them with negatives should we... so let's continue supporting our sociopathic world leadership as we always have.
The summary mentions use of such scans in court cases. Frankly, that worries me a fair bit. Saying to a jury "look, this guy's brain shows that he's likely to kill people, so he's probably the murderer" is worrisome. It is all the more worrisome because of the implied argument that the individual should be locked up anyways. There's also the additional issue that when there are brain differences detected with MRI and similar methods they are often at a large-scale statistical level and there might be a substantial fraction of normal people whose brain structure looks close to that of a psychopath. I can't access the original study, so I can't tell.
This does also bring up the standard issues of free will and such. At minimum, if someone commits heinous crimes due to brain problems it makes it ethically problematic to engage in essentially punitive imprisonment.
..is when they can "fix" the abnormality. Who will be the one to decide whether or not one needs to be Fixed?
There's a hypothesis that CEOs are disproportionately selected for sociopathy. If that is true, particularly in the case of banks (which are too big to fail -- ie: they have a taxpayer sponsored safety net), then we have a vested interest in finding out if the hypothesis is true.
http://www.google.com/search?q=sociopath+executive
Given the lack of remorse, the ease with which they claim entitlement in the face of their own catastrophic failure, and that we have been left holding the tab, it seems that a concrete test like this might be reasonable.
Just a thought.
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It would be interesting if you could fix sociopathy with a knife.
Well, you can but firearms are generally more effective and easier to employ ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well that certainly explains why Mike Harris closed down all those mental hospitals. All the seriously ill mental patients were all holding office.
And that was the last Terry Fox run I ever participated in.
Scan every single world/religious/business/military leader.
Mind the frickin' laser...
A researcher on the team suggests the finding could have considerable implications in the world of criminal justice, where such scans could one day be presented as evidence in a trial.
My response:
"There is a tendency... today to explain human behavior, to remove purpose - motive - from serious consideration. We tend to accept the notion that mechanical, not purposive, causation accounts for the things people do. Joe Sinister is a criminal because his parents beat him or because of a chemical imbalance in his brain or because of a genetic disorder that removed the function we call conscience... These explanations of human behavior may be accurate... but the issue of accuracy is, in fact, quite irrelevant to human societies. A human community that uses mechanical causation to account for human behavior cannot survive, because it cannot hold its members accountable for their behavior. That is, no matter how you account for the origin of a human behavior, a community must continue to judge the perpetrator on the basis of his intent, as near as that intent can be understood (or guessed, or assumed). That is why parents inevitably ask their children the unanswerable question: Why did you do that? Terrible as that question is, it at least puts the responsibility back on the child's head and forces the child to ask himself the question that society absolutely requires him to answer: Why do I do the things I do? And how, by changing my motives, can I change my behavior?... We must believe in motives for human behavior, or we cannot maintain community life."
~ Orson Scott Card, from the Introduction to "Cruel Miracles".
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
This is scary as heck. And you think it's a pain in the backside having to take your shoes off at the airport now. "Sir, please place your head in the scanner..." Clang! "hey, how come that metal ring just tightened around my neck?" scary stuff... jp
I don't think accusing psychopaths of being brain damaged will make them any nicer....
I betcha John McCain has the balls to tell him, though.
Is the possibility that scientists will discover a genetic link to this brain disorder.
It scares me because:
1). It would be another way for juries to deny justice be cause "that poor person can't help the way (s)he was born."
2). It may mean the serious beginnings of research into removal of that gene in people which
3). may mean the disappearance of unique forms of intellect/creativity that might actually benefit from the person's brain not being wired just like everyone else's.
There was a SIGNATURE here, but it's gone now.
Scan everyone involved with the design, construction, sales, and use of the scanner...
If the results can be replicated, maybe, just maybe, "psychopath" can actually be defined with some degree with concreteness, with physiological distinction. It'd be a big step for the pseudo science toward becoming less of quackery.
But I doubt it.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
On one hand, science and knowledge are inherently good, in and of themselves. For some odd reason, it still plants a seed of worry in my gut...
I think Mal put it best:
"Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that."
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Well, you can but firearms are generally more effective and easier to employ ;)
Hey nothing psycho about that response...
Burma shave.
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ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
MADMEN ONLY */
Look, the prosecutor rarely WANTS this, it is often the defender who makes claims of mental illness to get his client off. Personally I never understood that. if you would come to me with two cases, one who murdered simply for say a wad of cash and another because the voices told him too, guess which one would be first to fry? You can reason with a cold blooded killer, a psycho...
And not all psycho's are criminals so we still have free will. We humans are wired for more things then you probably realize, doesn't mean we have to listen to it. Our body needs to breathe, but we can drown ourselves. Our body hates pain, but people put themselves on fire out of protest. We need to eat, yet some starve themselves to death. If we can be heroes against our nature then we can at least expect others to remain normal against their nature.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I betcha John McCain has the balls to tell him, though.
Must... Resist... Urge... For so many... Jokes...
The statistical data shows that violence -- especially, violent crime -- is disproportionately committed by African-Americans and Africans (in Africa).
Is that before or after the data has been normalised against socio-economic status?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
They don't show a causal relationship. Changing the structure doesn't necessarily 'fix' it.
And the possibility of non-psychopaths having the structure abnormality, and/or psychopaths not having the abnormality has not been ruled out.
Given our limited understanding of the human brain, it's quite possible there be multiple things that cause psychopathic tendency.
For all we know removing perceived "abnormal" structure could wind up creating an even bigger harm, or worse disorder.
therefore you must be a thief, as the control group only has 5 fingers...
evidence in trials? no, thanks!
Can I put a spell on those who can't spell?
Your wheels are loose and they're losing their grip, good you're there.
...they want their brain back.
Igor: Abby something...
Dr. Frankenstein: Abby what?
Igor: Normal. Abby Normal.
This sig is false.
1) Correlation is not causation; this "abnormality" may be an effect of psychopathy
2) Others may have this "abnormality" without manifesting any signs of psychopathy
3) Yes, it would be interesting, but it would be even more interesting if you could fix it with a single pill that contains biologic organisms
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
There is a theory that in a normal brain stimulus passes through various areas of the brain including the areas which allow us to process the stimulus which can either stop the process there or pass it on to the "caveman" brain of "fight or flight." The reactionary area of the brain.
In some people who are "hot headed" stimulus goes straight to the reactionary center of the brain. In level headed or easy going people, much of the stimulus is dealt with prior to getting to the reactionary part of the brain. If someone says something mean, rather than reacting, the person simply thinks about it and lets it go.
So it would make sense that with proper technology you could see whether or not input is being processed in the conscious brain or just being passed through to be reacted upon quickly.
The other part of that theory is that some people start out level headed and at some point start being more reactionary until the brain just skips right to reactionary for everything. Regardless of why some people are highly reactionary, there are techiques used to help a person become more level headed.
The brain isn't permanenty wired. It can adjust based on various things. If you lose one sense, other senses can become stronger. People who have had part of their brain damaged can end up with other areas of the brain taking over.
So even if it were possible to see that someone doesn't think things through prior to reacting, it would be an opportunity to work with them to try to rewire their brain. Not to pre-emptively toss them in prison.
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If were going to judge people by their brains and whatnot rather than just their actions, why stop at using it as evidence? Why not preemptively imprison or euthanize people with "defective" brain types, or force them to undergo "corrective" surgery? While were at it, why just sociopaths? Why not identify revolutionary or disobedient brain types and "fix" those as well?
Let's write a very inflammatory post. Suppose, as you did, that this deformity is a perfect predictor of sociopaths, and is a cause (not a consequence) of their behaviour; that is, suppose we discover that sociopaths are born. Suppose also that we can precisely determine whether a foetus has this deformity.
What if governments mandate abortion of sociopathic foetuses? I am not really sure about the issue. On one hand, if a sociopath is born, we are pretty sure they are going to make people suffer or outright kill them. On the other hand we are removing people based on what they are, not what they have done.
The disturbing thing is that such a discovery would finally give a rational basis for eugenics: instead of silly things like "being aryan" or "son of a rich family, therefore of the better part of society", we would actually have a rational criterion to trash new members of society.
I am not sure at all here. Where do we draw the line? I almost wish they don't find this out, the moral questions are harder than the science.
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It might still be better to be treated as having free will but failing, than be defective machinery that failed.
A lot of criminals will pose a net cost to society even if they were rehabilitated successfully, but we still do not discard them lightly.
In contrast we tend to stop repairing machines soon after it stops making economic sense.
Illusion or not, it and other beliefs has produced our not so illusory society.
I expected the conversations to quickly turn to Hans Reiser...but...nothing? (Queue killerfs jokes, etc.)
"We only have well regulated markets."
You made an error too.
When dogs go mad and bite kids, we don't investigate wether they had a bad upbringing, disease, or bad genes. They are put to sleep.
When men do the same, society excuses them on these same grounds? I'm not saying that they should be executed, I'm just wondering why we make that big a distinction between sentient creatures.
I ain't no brain surgeon, but my understanding of that bundle of nerves is that the relationships grow over time between areas and between cells. They evolve throughout our early childhood and then slowly over time, seem to cement more and more. after these paths have developed, the brain treats them as we treat our limbs - you can't just go cutting them out because it isn't the same as the other brains are.
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The problem is likely a lack of connections rather than too many connections.
A fairly plausible view is that, in normal people, emotions inform the reasoning portions of the brain that some action makes them or others (empathy) feel sad, and that stops you from doing that action. If the connection is missing, they just don't care about the suffering of their victims or even what happens to them as a consequence.
So, psychopathy is probably not the addition of something, but the lack of something, and that's probably difficult to put back with a knife.
So...does this mean that we could predict sociopathic behavior from (or before) birth?
That should have been a no-brainer..
If I speed because of my sum biology + experience, then can't it be argued that I really don't have a choice in speeding?
But you do have a choice. There is nothing physically preventing you from acting differently and you logically understand the consequences of your actions, both the harm you cause others, and the punishment you will face. That's all that free will and choice means. If you're biologically inclined to make choices that are bad for you or others, well, so be it; you just have to live with the consequences, which may include incarceration or execution.
Purely from a practical point of view, people who are biologically destined to be sociopaths with a propensity to cause harm to others are exactly the kind of people we need to remove from society. Whether you call that "punishment" or "treatmnet" really doesn't make a big difference.
Try to review what you think you know about "free will" and "punishment", I had some misconceptions about that too. There is no reason to believe that something like "free will" exists - it really is more of a religious thing but somehow many non-religious people cling to it. Of course I have the impression that all of my actions originate in me, but that's how consciousness works. Anyone who believes in free will is implying that his brain doesn't obey causality and that is one claim that can't just stand there, unproven... (And don't start with quantum mechanics at this point if you are not a physicist)
What's important to understand is that something being deterministic doesn't mean it doesn't look random to someone who does not have all the data. So your thoughts will continue to look like free will, even if you know that it doesn't exist. Also something like "so now we have to let all the criminals go because they had no choice?" is a completely false implication. But there's the other misconception: law/justice should have nothing to do with punishment or revenge. It is supposed to be a solution to a problem. If you have a violent criminal then you'll want to put him away so he can't attack normal people. If someone stole something, you'll want to make him give it back and maybe add some incentive to not do it again (what you may call punishment - but it only works on rational-minded people). So what about psychopaths, child abusers and so on? You can 1) put them away (doesn't really solve the problem, just the symptoms), 2) kill them (barbaric, innocent people will die as well, also not really a solution), or when it's available 3) correct what's physically wrong with them.
So if your justice system is based on revenge rather than problem-solving, then I hope these advances will affect it. As for society I guess the effect will be a lot of misunderstandings, fear and knee-jerk reactions. As usual.
Why is this considered an abnormality? It very well may be an evolutionary advantage.
It is not only bank CEOs. The higher you get in any hierarchy, the higher the prevalence of sociopath or psychopathy.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
It does seem to make sense - psychopaths are characteristic by having difficulty attaching "emotional value" to their actions; but I think it raises some interesting philosophical questions. I think most people would agree that the term "crime" implies that the perpetrator knows what is right and wrong, but chooses to do the wrong thing, to sum it it up; but this implies a value judgement that in itself is based on being able to attach emotional flavour to one's actions in some sense. Again, this is of course only a crude summary of the essence - but if true, can we really call psychopaths criminals in the ordinary sense?
After all, we don't call lions and tigers evil, even though they kill, often cruelly; we understand that they can't act any other way - it is their nature. Of course, we don't let tigers and lions roam freely amongst us either, and I'm not suggesting that we just let psychopaths free.
The other thing is - when we know the cause, we might think up a cure. Would it be right of us to do so? In many, if not most, cases it would have to be done against the individual's will; and if it is right to make adjustments in the fundamental personality of a psychopath, would it be OK in other cases? How many gays and religious/ political dissidents would we see "cured" of their mantal problems with a little snip in the right place? And remember, it was in the US that frontal lobotomy was practised most vigorously for exactly this sort of reason.
In any case, we are not robots programmed by the structure and chemistry of our brains.
My apologies for trotting out an old and overused meme... but, [citation needed]...
I absolutely think we ARE robots that are programmed by the structure and chemistry of our brains and would be extremely surprised to discover that there is some other factor involved. Of course there are other factors that you could mention (environment, upbringing, etc), however these are all things that influence the structure and chemistry of the brain, and so are just another abstraction layer rather than being different things to the structure and chemistry specifically.
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most of the CEOs have the brain structure abnormality? http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/08/entertainment/et-boss8
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
Sounds like a portable MRI would help when dealing with car salesmen and politicians.
You know for "lack of connections".
I'm curious when they'll find the neural connections that encode belief in global warming, or God, ... perhaps if done prenatally we can call it abortion.
Having this abnormality become another prerequisite for admission to law school.
Who is teh guy who made a name for himself designing tests for sociopathy to be administered to potential police officers?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
And if the abnormality is the result of psychopathy, not the cause?
In any case, we are not robots programmed by the structure and chemistry of our brains. My fear is that discoveries such as these will prompt people to start blaming criminal behaviour on physiological features, with brain surgery as the prescribed cure, just as ADD is overused as an excuse for misbehaving children with the result that children are being medicated with potent drugs.
Everyone still has the ability to choose their actions, and for everyone with a disorder that "forces" them to commit a crime, I'm sure you can find someone with the same feature who lives a normal life. Brains are not computers, you cannot expect to hack them for a quick fix to interpersonal problems.
I am extremely puzzled by your post. You start out asking what "if the abnormality is the result of psychopathy and not the cause" and then go on to talk like your hypothesis is proven fact. I have no choice but to ask you the opposing question: What if there turns out to be a direct, provable causation between the abnormality and psychopathy? What if there are people who literally have NO choice about their 'moral' decisions? At the very least it would put the practice of 'punishment' under a whole new light if you are punishing people for something they have no control over.
My personal view, based upon my own experience, agrees somewhat with some of what you said. MOST people can at the very least see the consequences of their actions, if not the actual morality of them, and can choose to act one way or another. On the other hand, I have met a few individuals who have no tangible empathy or sympathy, and cannot perceive that their actions will affect their or others lives adversely, no matter how much you try to teach them. I call them Neoconservatives (I joke...).
All kidding aside, punishing someone who cannot see their actions as wrong, or even realizing the adverse consequences their action will have on theirs or others lives is pointless and cruel. By better understanding and possibly treating the extreme cases instead instead of locking them away for life or killing them, possibly we can also help the ones that are not so severe to not commit a crime in a time of weakness and throwing their life away, when they could have been a productive member of society. I understand this brings up questions about free will. But at the very least, I can imagine a juvenile or first time offender gladly give up some of their own free will if it gave them back some humanity and gave them the freedom to live in society instead of being locked away from it. I realize I am getting into Anthony Burgess / Clockwork Orange territory (It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. ... It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questionsâ¦) but that example, as deep and disturbing as it was, again presumed that people actions are purely a matter of choice, and in the real world not everything is black and white. Often times there is a gray area. And sometimes, there are new discoveries and ideas that completely redefine the color scale.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Igor] Now that brain that you gave me. Was it Hans Delbruck's?
Igor: [pause, then] No.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Ah! Very good. Would you mind telling me whose brain I DID put in?
Igor: Then you won't be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I will NOT be angry.
Igor: Abby Someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Someone. Abby who?
Igor: Abby Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Normal?
Igor: I'm almost sure that was the name.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [chuckles, then] Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?
[grabs Igor and starts throttling him]
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Is that what you're telling me?
He discusses exactly this intersection of our growing understanding of how brain function determines the choices we make, with a legal system that works of notions of 'responsibility' and 'choice'.
But to put his position in a nutshell - don't worry about it so much! There is nothing wrong with having a vague and fuzzy line - even one that constantly moves - dividing 'responsible choice' from 'pre-determined outcome'. As our understanding shifts, so does the line. As we understand more, it becomes possible in more cases to say 'actually this person is not responsible for their actions, any more than if they had been forcibly drugged'.
Of course the price someone pays for claiming they weren't responsible in a particular situation is that we become sceptical of their ability to take responsibility for other situations, which means we may decide to jail them, medicate them, forcibly educate them, or otherwise treat them as second class citizens. Nothing wrong with that, we do it all the time. If you say you can't help speeding because of biology and experience, don't be upset when we take away your licence.
The fact is, people want to take responsibility, even if only because of the privileges that come from doing so. So you don't need to worry about where the line 'really' should be drawn, or whether it should be got rid of all together. People aren't going to get rid of it just because it moves!
Your basic error is overextended reductionism. Just because something ( 'responsibility' ) doesn't exist at one level of description ( 'neural behaviour' ) doesn't mean it doesn't exist at a higher level ( 'social interaction' ). If you think otherwise, just remember that while in quantum mechanics there is no such thing as a solid object, you can't walk through walls.
I know! That's not a nice thing to say about researchers. Especially when the study's results have not yet been replicated on other researchers.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And if so, are we allowed to shoot them right then, or should there be licenses and a season?
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Because dogs are animals and the danger to multiple human beings outweighs the animals life because rabies is an infectious disease and thus can spread to others and must be contained. And the only way we know how to treat rabies before it becomes incurable (and knew at what point it becomes incurable) was by keeping the dogs (and humans) alive.
A State sanctioned murder is morally worse than a sociopath's, because we know better.
Revenge is NOT justice.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
It's not about revenge, it's about that person proving themselves, through their actions, that they do not deserve the right to live.
Knives are more personal.
if genetics didn't make us who we are, then dogs could talk and trade stocks. But they can't, because they are dogs, and they are dogs because of their genetics, epi-genetics, and biology.
OMFG! There is a fallacy here - just because language has some genetic basis (perhaps Chomsky's LAD), doesn't mean that everything has a genetic basis. In fact, even language acquisition has a very strong environmental basis, or do you think you know the words and concepts you do because they are programmed into your genes! Of course - they are learned
The brain is a huge information storage and processing device, and is designed to transmit that information to other brains. In effect, it's a better information transmission device than DNA (sex being the first conversation, some billion years ago). That information changes the brain, and the brain changes itself. This information, and these changes have a profound effect on our behaviour.
I play chess, and there's this saying: "between the opening and the endgame is this little thing called the middle-game". It's actually the most important part of the game to understand.
Your opinion is horrendously uninformed, and belongs to the category "doesn't know he doesn't know". Your "thesis" would nullify the extraordinarily well established science of learning. If you're really interested in the whole nature-vs-nurture thing, then study developmental psychology.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
A researcher on the team suggests the finding could have considerable implications in the world of criminal justice, where such scans could one day be presented as evidence in a trial."
Isn't there some way this information can help prevent the crime, in the first place?
2) kill them (barbaric, innocent people will die as well, also not really a solution), or when it's available 3) correct what's physically wrong with them (barbaric, innocent people will be "corrected" as well, also not really a solution).
Fixed that for you. Cut off my arms and legs and I'm no longer a harm to anyone. Cut my brain and I'm no longer the "me" I was.
Meh, belief in God is just the need for an ultimate parental figure in mammals. It's embedded.
In any case, we are not robots programmed by the structure and chemistry of our brains.
How do you explain instincts then? They are pre-programmed knowledge not learned through the environment.
Everyone still has the ability to choose their actions, and for everyone with a disorder that "forces" them to commit a crime, I'm sure you can find someone with the same feature who lives a normal life. Brains are not computers, you cannot expect to hack them for a quick fix to interpersonal problems.
But freedom is nothing other than the ability to evaluate the past and present and decide on a potential future. The term freedom is ironic in itself since we are only free to choose the things that we think of at the time of choice. The things we think when making the decisions are based on pre-programming in our brains, and experience in our environment in our past and present. We are not really "free" but we are free within the bounds of our thoughts.
I generally don't feed the trolls, but this viewpoint, popular in the scientific community in the 1800s has been widely discredited. For a fascinating read on the history of "scientific racism," including these studies of cranial abnormalities, you can read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man."
Chapter two opens: "Appeals to reason or to the nature of the universe have been used throughout history to enshrine existing hierarchies as proper an inevitable. The hierarchies rarely endure for more than a few generations, but the arguments, refurbished for the next round of social institutions, cycle endlessly."
Gould goes on to systematically take apart these studies piece by piece. It started with scientists working to prove their own racist assumptions about rankings of various racial groups and continued with the unquestioning use of flawed methodology. You repeat this conclusion-first type of thinking in your post.
A nice counterexample is the fact that people can be born without large portions of cerebral cortex or have it removed at a young age for epilepsy and still lead normal lives. Brain size is not a very useful measure of function. I have smart friends with little heads.
As for your attempts to link race with violence, I think that the stronger correlation is not with race, but with poverty. You could also throw in some counterexamples here like various genocides (Europe, Native Americans), or the employment of slavery by certain ethnic groups to demonstrate their moral inferiority. Its not that Caucasians are morally inferior, just that they have been in power lately and more able to commit these offenses, just as other ethnic groups have been out of power.
As for your comments about IQ, I really don't know what to say, but I have no idea how you draw your conclusions. Lets assume for fun that the IQ test is actually a useful measure and that your uncited data about IQ differences was actually measured by someone. Then you have correlation, not causation. Then you get to look at other possible reasons for this correlation, say, such as the Japanese educational system versus a situation in many parts of the world where kids can't afford school because they have to work to contribute to the family and they would have to pay fees they cannot afford to attend inadequate schools.
Because dogs are animals...
Sometimes I'm not so sure people aren't animals either.
A State sanctioned murder is morally worse than a sociopath's, because we know better.
Revenge is NOT justice.
So you are saying that instead of killing people who will remorselessly kill as much as they get the chance* to, we should spend thousands of dollars a year securing them and keeping them alive in a high security prison, where we'll have to potentially staff extra to keep them away from other inmates?
* Chance dictated by whatever sort of trigger that particular crazy happens to have. It varies from person to person and we will have no clue the extent of it. It could be anything from people who wear hats to people who post on websites with the handles 'P0ltergeist333', 'dyingtolive', and 'Anonymous Coward'.
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The brain is constantly changing. So don't imagine is as static. Things like that can grow, change, and go away. And every input on the senses, or other thing that creates a signal, which will be traveling trough the neurons, is changing it a bit. (Or else we would be unable to remember them!)
Which means that this can be fixed in the same way. You "just" have to know what signals to create on the senses, and in which strength, to create the changes that the patient wants*. Which is where the hard part starts. ;)
___ ;) to go separate ways (e.g. move to somewhere else, leave you alone).
* Yes. What the patient wants. This is often arrogantly "overlooked" But frankly, what we as a third person want, is completely and utterly irrelevant. Because right and wrong is *always* relative. All you can do, is force him (e.g. with a Gatling
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
They know that your brain is constantly rewiring itself. Perhaps some non-surgical and non-drug therapy could be developed.
Free Martian Whores!
In terms of this discussion, that doesn't really matter. While the AC may have been trolling, it would be interesting to see if this abnormality was more or less prevalent in different ethnic groups. If it is, then individuals in those groups could receive additional screening at birth to spot this disability and begin receiving treatment to overcome it.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
You can by definition not fix anything in the body with a knife! All you can do is destroy things.
Which is so primitive, that the sole fact that it is not seen as a horrible method from the dark ages, is shocking and disgusting.
Now for your homework, imagine something that would *actually* fix that part of the brain, and restore the "normal" functionality. ;)
For bonus points, try to define "normal" and elaborate on why something should be seen as "better" and for whom.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
and guns are much safer to use on psychopaths as well - you do not have to get close to them.
wake up and hold your nose
Now that we know what defines a psychopath, we should test everyone and lock up the psychos.
Oh wait, a little knowledge IS a dangerous thing...
Futurist Traditionalism
I like throwing the "correlation != causation" flag as much as the next guy, but this is the brain we're talking about. If you scramble the mental meat used for certain functions, it will affect the ability to perform those functions.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The brain is complex enough that we cannot definitely specify the exact functions with sufficient precision.
And if you remove the meat that performs those functions, the results may be unpredictable (without actually trying it); we're just guessing.
Available knowledge about the human brain is clearly incomplete, the recent discovery of the abnormal structure is even evidence of that.
The problem is likely a lack of connections rather than too many connections.
...
So, psychopathy is probably not the addition of something, but the lack of something, and that's probably difficult to put back with a knife.
Except that the brain is very complex, and sometimes one signal inhibits another. In other words, too many connections in one place may result in the same thing as too few connections in another, if the signals are mutually-inhibiting. For example, maybe it is a too-strong signal regarding how an action would affect the first person, which inhibits caring about how it would affect the other person. Your reasoning that psychopathy is the lack of something rather than the addition of something seems (to me) no more scientific than the theory of bodily humours.
It still seems entirely plausible to me that removal or reduction of certain connections could reduce psychopathy -- of course I'll wait for further studies and/or experiments before I form a real opinion one way or the other.
"Anyone who believes in free will is implying that his brain doesn't obey causality "
What a bunch of crap, free will is not antagonistic to science. Certain definitions of it are. But lets be frank, when people talk about "Free will" they talk about the ability to control themselves. If I tell you to lift your arm there are two actions: You can lift it or not lift it.
Whether or not you choose to lift it and call it pre-destined by fate is irrelevant, if I asked you to stab someone and you stabbed someone because I told you to, the whole concept of free will is foreknowledge and ability to know the consequences of your actions.
Think of the person who commits murder. That person must first entertain the thought of murder before it can be carried out. In this state, the thought of murder in the person's mind is only a concept or idea, a potential probability. However, once the person makes a conscious choice (or decision) to carry out the murder, he is held responsible for it.
Saying that we all just "can't help it" is nonsense. I'm sure there's an equation cognitive processing ability that determines how able one is to realize and grasp reality and make choices in it.
Committing a murder takes planning and entertaining a high degree of complex thought before the act is even carried out, the murderer has until the last second to stop what he is doing and retract his behaviour.
The only time when actions are excusable is when one is reacting out of surprise/fear/being attacked, if a bear suddenly attacked you and you couldn't get away your reflex would be to fight it and get away from it or at least hurt it enough to get it to stop, even if that means mortally wounding it.
You expect me to believe in thinking meat?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
It's funny how an entire discussion on sociopaths sounds like it was written by sociopaths.
A sociopath is not necessarily going to be violent... and yet people on here are talking about them as if they were animals to be put down. If a person is born a sociopath, but follows the law, what's the problem?
As for your attempts to link race with violence, I think that the stronger correlation is not with race, but with poverty. You could also throw in some counterexamples here like various genocides (Europe, Native Americans), or the employment of slavery by certain ethnic groups to demonstrate their moral inferiority. Its not that Caucasians are morally inferior, just that they have been in power lately and more able to commit these offenses, just as other ethnic groups have been out of power.
I'm not so sure about this supposed link between poverty and violence. There's a lot of dirt-poor people who would never think to resort to violence (which unfortunately is part of why they stay poor and oppressed in some places), and there's been lots of rich people who have (such as the Max Factor heir who raped a lot of women). I think violence is probably much better linked to sociopathy, which occurs in all races and economic groups.
Sometimes I joke to people, semi-seriously, that there's two kinds of sociopaths: 1) stupid sociopaths, who usually wind up in prison, and 2) smart sociopaths, who become lawyers, politicians, and CEOs.
As for how this compares to race, I think if this were studied seriously, the only thing that'd be found is that certain races tend to be poor because of history, and children who grow up poor tend to not be as smart (since instead of getting a good education at a very young age to stimulate their mental growth, they're busy picking crops or whatever). Then, since there's far more less-intelligent people in those groups, the sociopaths among them tend to resort to violence far more often, rather than being devious liars and working their way into becoming President. So, in the USA, black people from the ghetto and white people from the trailer park tend to commit crimes and go to prison far more often, while blacks and whites and others who comes from middle-class households don't.
It would be interesting if you could fix sociopathy with a knife.
Well, you can but firearms are generally more effective and easier to employ ;)
"Have you ever taken the Voight-Kampff test yourself, Mr Deckard?"
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Even if we are entirely the products of our genetics and biology - mere biological automatons - that automaton is making choices in real time, weighing alternatives (well, most of us), making judgements based on the external data and stimuli. That near-automaton that you seem to envision might be shackled to its actions in response to that external stimuli or data, but the stimuli and data still matter.
Laws exist for multiple reasons, and one of those is to act as a deterrent to certain behaviors. Your automaton may "choose" to react to a given stimulus in a predetermined way, but the existence of a deterring law will be a factor that is part of the mix of genetics and biology. For many of us poor automatons, such deterrents are very important. For others, they are not. The fact that a given automaton does not "value" that deterrent sufficiently to prevent unwanted behavior does not diminish the law's value, as it still deters other automatons.
The punishment associated with breaking a law is the deterrent, so even poor automatons that were pre-ordained to commit a crime must still receive the punishment, or the law is no longer a deterrent for the rest of us.
Does this mean that soon sociopathy or psychopathy will be listed as a handicap? And...and...how do you make something more accessible to psychopaths? I can just see it now...W3C WAI recommendations to accomodate narcissism. A mirror in the top right corner? Nicknames and avatars? Oh wait a minute...
Seriously, though, I think most of the world satisfies the DSM definition of psycho/sociopath. Does that mean most of the world is brain damaged? Something is not right with this finding.
Lots of laws themselves are antisocial; the Jim Crow laws in the US in the early 20th century, for example. As Spock's dad would scream when he's got the Vulcan alzheimer's, "ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! *sob*"
There's a distinction in the English system between "mala prohibita" and "mala in se". The first is laws like 'smoking a joint is wrong'. The second is 'killing your neighbor is wrong'. The second were the laws that made Common Law.
When the phrase "ignorance of the law is no defence" was coined it referred to "in se" crime, and I can't find the original quote at the moment, but it went on to explain that nobody could possibly be expected to know all of the prohibita law (which is orders of more difficult today).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And who has the right to decide who lives and who dies? And by what authority?
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
So you are saying that instead of killing people who will remorselessly kill as much as they get the chance* to, we should spend thousands of dollars a year securing them and keeping them alive in a high security prison, where we'll have to potentially staff extra to keep them away from other inmates?
First off, it has been known for decades that it is much more expensive to execute prisoners than to incarcerate them. Here is a collection of stats that are very well attributed:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
Between the cost of the death penalty and the subject of the article, it makes complete sense to me to try to study them and try to find ways of rehabilitation and prevention.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Fair enough. I still think a regular prison is too good for them though. I think that something along the lines of superjail might be more effective.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Fair enough. I still think a regular prison is too good for them though. I think that something along the lines of superjail might be more effective.
From a 'feelings' perspective, I can agree with you and some of the other posters. However I really don't think that's constructive or relevant.
Science requires objectivity. To view the subject objectively, you have to remove the feelings from the equation and view it like an anthropologist viewing a primitive culture. Only then can you make a rational decision based upon facts.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
I think the idea that "such scans could one day be presented as evidence in a trial" is frightening. A real bad idea. A trial try to determine if somebody is guilty of committing some illegal action. Not if he could be a psycopath.
Another thing would be that it could be used to cure people that have this problem. This would have to be studied carefully but I don't think it's such a bad idea.
But the first one can lead to "screening" people before they have commited any crime. Preventive thought-police? Scary...
--
El Guerrero del Interfaz
I'll just try for the bonus points.
Normal: not a psychopath.
This is better because: psychopathy hurts other people.
This is better for: people who would be hurt by the psychopath.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
In terms of this discussion, that doesn't really matter.
In terms of this discussion it is of vital importance to separate neuroantomical effects from cultural ones.
You could only establish that the genetic factors for this ethnicity are involved in one of two ways 1) normalise for socio-economic status (and any other likely causative factors which are unduly associated with particular ethnic groups), or 2) post-mortem brain analysis.
It is at the level of the individual that prejudice masking as science will incurr an unwarranted finacial cost. Remember the null hypothesis, the ethnicity per se is irrelevant in determinign whether any particular individual will suffer from this impairment or not.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Remember the null hypothesis, the ethnicity per se is irrelevant in determinign whether any particular individual will suffer from this impairment or not.
That remains to be seen. At this point, we don't know what, if any, relation there is between ethnicity and this deformity. There may not be any. But to state that there can't be any ignores things like sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, and cystic fibrosis. They're all genetic diseases that are more common in certain ethnic groups than in others.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Hmm... It looks like the cost is mainly contributable to the appeals system. I've seen video of exicutions in China where they don't cost too much for a gun, a bullet, a soldier. (No, I'm not advicating a military takeover of our justice system. Just an example of followthrough.) So I don't believe you can honestly say the Death Row inmates cost more as apposed to life in prison, but I think you could state that the apeal system is seriously flawed. Where an inmate can continually taunt the family of the dead victim by makeing them relive the details of the murder of their family member year after year. etc...
Seriously, it only costs soo much more because of the appeals. We've lost the "Justice should be swift" that our criminal prosicution system was built on. We no longer have a deterant for murder. (Or most crimes, for that matter...)
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
You're assuming there's a socioeconomic basis for genetic disabilities.
Quite the opposite! What I'm doing is not assuming that there is any genetic basis for behaviour which may be more prevalent in ethnic groups which are also socio-econmically disadvantaged. You're failing to grok something very fundamental here.
That remains to be seen [in response to "the null hypotesis is ..."]
No it doesn't, that is the null hypotesis when you are investigating the question of whether a greater propensity to some behaviour X among a certain ethnic/social grouping has a physiological/genetic basis.
At this point, we don't know what, if any, relation there is between ethnicity and this deformity. There may not be any.
At least not any physiological relation ... that's the gist of what I'm saying.
But to state that there can't be any ...
Who stated that?! What I asked for was whether the data (which for the sake of argument we'll assume is true) had been normalised against socio-economic status. Hopefully by now the importance of doing so "in terms of this discussion" is beginning to dawn on you.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I guess that's fine if killing innocent people doesn't bother you. Just look at the death row inmates that were on appeals in Detroit and other places when DNA evidence cleared them. The appeals process helps to ensure that there was nothing overlooked, and no shortcuts taken. This is especially necessary in an age of overzealous, dishonest police and prosecutors out to make a name for themselves. There was a case where I live of a man who was sent down as a child and spent over 20 years in jail because of an overzealous sheriff and a dishonest prosecutor who hid exculpatory evidence.
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/99999999/NEWS01/71107031
If he had been an adult, he may have gotten the death penalty, and died before anyone knew or bothered to find out the truth. Never mind the real culprit, who was free to murder again.
Then there is the case of that idiot prosecutor in Kern county, California who literally went on a modern day witch hunt (see documentary: Bakersfield's Witchhunt).
When our law system becomes infallible, then we can abolish the appeals process, and not one moment before.
And please no one try to offer the argument of: Well if they're suspected, they must have done SOMETHING wrong. That's just plain ignorant.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Your argument hinges on people needing explanations for things, even demanding consistent explanations (not that we actually know any proven consistent explanation for something half as complex as physics, but never mind about that. Of course if we did, we wouldn't have any use for empirical science). Tell me, do you have a real understanding of the radio waves that make your cell phone tick (for example : can you tell me why your cell phone is capable of receiving 800 Mhz waves when this year's model is smaller than the minimum size antenna that you supposedly need to receive CDMA waves) ?
Do you even care ? Would you *want* to know ? Would you change your religion if the answer was something like "because Jesus blessed it" ? Would you re-study physics if the answer of the theory you've been taught was "this doesn't work" (this last one is true btw, according to classical physics cell phones should have a minimum antenna of over 16 cm, so current phones should not be capable of receiving CDMA signals) ?
I think the answer to all these questions is "no". You have little or no need for an explanation for the things you use, and the things you do. You can see it works, and that's enough. And you're American. Americans both do things for a reason and demand to be kept appraised of at least some indication of what that reason is. You should visit a country like Jordan, and compare. Or even France. People there have no more idea about the reason for their actions other than "X told me so". And if you're honest : there are a sizeable number of Americans who think the same way.
So the politicians and world leaders who cause all our wars must be the best examples of psychopaths. Scientist that create weapons and weapons makers and sellers also qualify.
You want to be elected? Ok, provide a notarized report on your brain status for the public to see!
I do. Because I say so. (just kidding, not really)
Quite the opposite! What I'm doing is not assuming that there is any genetic basis for behaviour which may be more prevalent in ethnic groups which are also socio-econmically disadvantaged.
We're not talking about behavior, we're talking about a genetic abnormality that correlates with behavior. There's a subtle but important difference.
And I reiterate, assuming there's even a chance that socioeconomic conditions could have anything to do with a genetic trait betrays not only a strong liberal bias, but also a very weak understanding of genetics.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I see my hope was misplaced.
We're not talking about behavior
Violent crime is behaviour. We are talking about violent crime. Can you complete the syllogism?
We're talking about a genetic abnormality that correlates with behavior
You just said you are not talking about behaviour and here you are talking about something correlating with behaviour. What we are talking about is behaviour, a brain abnormality (not necessarily genetic) and the possible connection between the two in regard to gross statistics of a race's alleged propensity to that behaviour.
There's a subtle but important difference.
LOL. Nice try sunshine.
And I reiterate, assuming there's even a chance that socioeconomic conditions could have anything to do with a genetic trait ...
Don't be so dull!. This misunderstanding here has already been corrected once. Nobody here is assuming that socio-economic status determines genetics. Although the clear implication of the your statement, namely that genetics cannot determine socio-economic status, seems less clear. But I'm guessing you didn't actually mean that when you wrote it, did you?
When I write about "separat[ing] neuroantomical effects from cultural ones" I'm in fact assuming that they are separable. That if the data were normalised against socio-economic status, it might actually move closer to revealing a racial propensity to violence. That a genetic basis for such violence is, at least logically, possible. What is difficult about this?
If something seems to you "absurd on the face of it" that should be a strong sign to you that you have failed to read what was written, or that you have failed to understand what was written.
OK, so now I see what's clouding your thinking. This is a political question for you, not a scientific one. So you are arguing against some imagined "liberal," not against me. Aha! And therefor you don't need to read what I've written or make any effort to understand what you read. You simply argue against an imagined opponent to whom you deliberately ascribe indefensible statements. Let me try.
Really it's clear that if we sterilize all black children at birth we would eventually live in a crime-free world. Quicker still would be drowning them at birth.
Oh look, you're preaching genocide!
It's not nice, is it? So can we stick to what is actually written and stop inventing stuff to argue against?
I'm not a geneticist, but I do have formal training inter alia in neurosciences (my first degree was a Psych/Pharm major). You can rest assured that I'm not espousing some kind of hold-our Lamarkianism here. If anything you have read here leads you to believe that I'm assuming that genetics are determined by socio-economic conditions, then you have clearly misread what was written. Is that clear?
You should also know that I'm not arguing from some predefined political position (as you apparently are) but from the point of view of hard science. My original objection comes from scurrilous misuse of some (unreferenced) data. Just yesterday I read something in the paper about the top 10 baby names (here in Australia). They were good old-fashioned names like 'Jack.' Along with this list was a statement that this showed that "Gen Y is more conservative in its choice of names for children." Now how, short of some other metric, does a list of the top 10 names shown anything of the sort?! Or does my objection to this error of thinking constitute "liberal bias?"
It is evident that you have not received any formal training in experimental design, especially with regard to separating nature from nuture. You are ignorant even of the necessi
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke