Scientists just got closer to understanding the genetic roots of crime

[Mistame]

No because I mentioned them (or at least did not omit them) as "circumstances" above. Like Connal said the genes need something like abusive parents to activate. The poster I replied to literally said genetics have "nothing" to do with crime. This is a ludicrous notion.

And when they do a "study" that shows that every single person that's ever committed a crime has this magic "gene", I may be a little more receptive. Also, I didn't say genetics play no role in behavioral patterns, I merely made the observation that the commission of a crime itself has nothing to do with "genetics". While people with a certain gene type might be a little more receptive to that type of behavior given the right external stimuli, the gene itself is not responsible and without the aforementioned stimuli, is utterly irrelevant. Not to mention an individual's ability to control their own behavior or the fact that the commission of a crime isn't dependent on such a "gene" or even said stimuli. Someone can literally just one day say, "Fuck it. I'm going to do <something>". There's no logic or reason behind it. No science and certainly no "gene".

As far as ludicrous notions go, the notion that we can "genetically control behavior" is just bat-shit insane.

[Independent voter]

If you know a child has it, it might be worth telling the parents and giving them some tools to mitigate it. Maybe even explain to the kid when they reach the right age, tell them they are going to have to try a little harder then the general population.

[Kraenen]

And when they do a "study" that shows that every single person that's ever committed a crime has this magic "gene", I may be a little more receptive. Also, I didn't say genetics play no role in behavioral patterns, I merely made the observation that the commission of a crime itself has nothing to do with "genetics". While people with a certain gene type might be a little more receptive to that type of behavior given the right external stimuli, the gene itself is not responsible and without the aforementioned stimuli, is utterly irrelevant. Not to mention an individual's ability to control their own behavior or the fact that the commission of a crime isn't dependent on such a "gene" or even said stimuli. Someone can literally just one day say, "Fuck it. I'm going to do <something>". There's no logic or reason behind it. No science and certainly no "gene".

As far as ludicrous notions go, the notion that we can "genetically control behavior" is just bat-shit insane.

Prediction based on genetics and upbringing, not controlling them. But who knows. I mean if you change a gene which controls hormones, wouldn't you end up with different emotional behavior as we see in pregnant women? Crime is a behavior, and a serious infraction of moral codes, it has a significant correlation with certain things like genes and type of parenting.

Just look at the bolded and you'll see you actually agree with me, you're just not going far enough.

- - - Updated - - -

not necessarily. And I say this because other factors have to be involved for the "genetics" to actually make it happen. And even if said gene is not present, people can still be criminals. Thus how much can genetics really have to do with it?

edit: I would further add that "abuse" is a strong word, and it means different things to different people, and different things constitute abuse to different people. IE some people consider spanking abuse, where others see it as discipline.

First 2 sentences - pretty sure I've mentioned this and never actually said "it's all genes". People can still be deemed criminals for anything, so it might not be a useful term. What we're really looking for, I think, is anti-social, un-empathetic, 'borderline' behavior.

Okay, but the research has a pretty good idea of child abuse (described however that may be in operational terms) and its relation to anti-social behavior.

[Mistame]

Prediction based on genetics and upbringing, not controlling them. But who knows. I mean if you change a gene which controls hormones, wouldn't you end up with different emotional behavior as we see in pregnant women? Crime is a behavior, and a serious infraction of moral codes, it has a significant correlation with certain things like genes and type of parenting.

We should not be "changing genes", especially considering that it would most likely be involuntary. You can't assume that the presence of a gene is indicative of future behavior any more than you can imprison someone for a crime they might commit. That's also an infraction of "moral codes".

Just look at the bolded and you'll see you actually agree with me, you're just not going far enough.

Perhaps. Your posts seem to imply that the gene is the root and external stimuli is the catalyst. I'm saying that a "criminal gene" would be nothing more than another factor; No more significant than the external stimuli. Neither are required for the presumed behavior and neither indicate definitively that said behavior would propagate, especially considering free will.

What we're really looking for, I think, is anti-social, un-empathetic, 'borderline' behavior.

Fuck people. And fuck "feelings".

[Kraenen]

We should not be "changing genes", especially considering that it would most likely be involuntary. You can't assume that the presence of a gene is indicative of future behavior any more than you can imprison someone for a crime they might commit. That's also an infraction of "moral codes".

If we have a 95%+ prediction of criminal behavior, maybe we should. Although as I mentioned you might be changing some gene which handles another function. And on top of that we could (as I mentioned) screen people for these genes, then give them social assistance to minimize any impact from money or parenting on their criminality.

The presence of a gene is like the capability of something growing. If you water it, give it the right nutrients, it'll activate. That's why it can be used as a piece of the puzzle of predicting behavior.

Perhaps. Your posts seem to imply that the gene is the root and external stimuli is the catalyst. I'm saying that a "criminal gene" would be nothing more than another factor; No more significant than the external stimuli. Neither are required for the presumed behavior and neither indicate definitively that said behavior would propagate, especially considering free will.

That would be a good way of putting my view. I think what we're debating over is why would people be criminal or anti-social while not having any genes or environment/upbringing to influence it? I'm trying to think of an example to begin with.

[anyaka21]

If we have a 95%+ prediction of criminal behavior, maybe we should. Although as I mentioned you might be changing some gene which handles another function. And on top of that we could (as I mentioned) screen people for these genes, then give them social assistance to minimize any impact from money or parenting on their criminality.

The presence of a gene is like the capability of something growing. If you water it, give it the right nutrients, it'll activate. That's why it can be used as a piece of the puzzle of predicting behavior.

That would be a good way of putting my view. I think what we're debating over is why would people be criminal or anti-social while not having any genes or environment/upbringing to influence it? I'm trying to think of an example to begin with.

The problem, IMO, with your line of thinking though is that it clearly isn't the ROOT of criminality. Even in the study, not everyone in prison has said gene, at least 3 in 10 do not. And according to the link, that varies between 40% and 70%. Where, within the general population, it's 33%... Hardly massively overwhelming as the study seems to suggest.

Thus, there is a lot more information that is needed that can't be explained away by a gene being a root cause of criminality.

[Mistame]

If we have a 95%+ prediction of criminal behavior, maybe we should.

Altering human genes is a can of worms that should not be opened. Ever. And again, you cannot take action on a crime that hasn't happened. Additionally, someone could have the gene, be raised in a criminal-inducing environment and even be nurtured into crime and still make a conscious decision not to. In fact, free will makes the whole point moot.

Although as I mentioned you might be changing some gene which handles another function.

Yeah, like it could be a gene that actually serves as a buffer to such behavior because of some other flaw and changing it could force that behavior out.

[Hooked]

Only a scientist would need to research this, I already knew this answer when I was 5.

[Christan]

gene studies can only tell us so much, humanity has known for a long time that the most common factor, of someone becoming a violent criminal, is simply being male.
now, not all people with the y chromosome are criminals, but a huge margin over someone who has a double X it's obviously a factor.

not all people with other genetic traits will become criminals either, some may become good cops/security guards/military, etc.
what they should do is combine nature(genetics) and nurture, testing people crime free at the same ratio of the population in said area being criminal/law abiding

if there's a 1000 law abiding citizens for 1 criminal, and the genetics studies shows there is only 1 person with a genetic trait for every 1000 law abiding citizens, THEN there is your correlation.

Take a crowd of 100 people of the street, and chances are just one to three of them will have ASPD. Take 100 people from a prison, and you can expect 40 to 70 of them to have the disorder.

so they did, sort of, but i REALLY hate that wording in a "scientific study" makes it seem like made up hogwash. there is guesswork, no averages, no numbers, just, guesswork.

also as is said before, before you can find correlation you have to keep the ratio the same, if you test 100 people in a prison for 10000
then you have to test 1000 people in a city of 100000, 10k for a mil, so on. though with 3/100 and 40-60/100 floating around, about 20x higher chance to find someone with that disorder in prison, based off an extremely small sample size, even then is disturbing, unless they had talked to prison doctors, and pulled those inmates willing for testing who already showed signs of said disorder, versus random people on the street.

this is not an actual study...so much has been left unclear, to the possibility of being done flat out wrong.

Altering human genes is a can of worms that should not be opened. Ever.

saying ever is a bit harsh... how about until we can run simulations of their life, likelyhood of choosing crime over a set number of conditions, millions of conditions, etc, health, everything, literally, runa full simulation of their life, and make changes that would make it, and society better.
also, it would have to be freely available to EVERYONE, free of charge, but come on, with quantum computing, us delving deeper into understanding of the brain, and genetics, etc...there may come a point where that is possible.

subject has a 10-80% chance of a life of crime if any of 10^7th to 10^30th conditions are met throughout their life, if we change these genes, we reduce that to 2-5% if these(different set) of conditions are met, and we decrease the likely hood of xyz genetic diseases, raise their IQ by a possible 10-30 points if XYZ conditions are met, etc etc...
tell me that wouldn't be awesome?

screw gattica though, it would HAVE to be available to everyone, generation after generation, even to the point of in utero modifications, for those wanting a natural birth, but still willing to better society.


(plus, can be no zombie outbreak without either some heavy genetic modifications, or bio testing itself, the world needs a good REAL LIFE zombie outbreak)-semi joke

[Hooked]

gene studies can only tell us so much, humanity has known for a long time that the most common factor, of someone becoming a violent criminal, is simply being male.
now, not all people with the y chromosome are criminals, but a huge margin over someone who has a double X it's obviously a factor.

not all people with other genetic traits will become criminals either, some may become good cops/security guards/military, etc.
what they should do is combine nature(genetics) and nurture, testing people crime free at the same ratio of the population in said area being criminal/law abiding

if there's a 1000 law abiding citizens for 1 criminal, and the genetics studies shows there is only 1 person with a genetic trait for every 1000 law abiding citizens, THEN there is your correlation.

I don't think that's accurate, I think the amount of testosterone production is the major cause, some groups of women produce more than some groups of men. Low IQ plus excessive testosterone production is the combo that kills.

[derpkitteh]

i wish we'd put more work into this.

this kind of crap is why i wish we'd use deathrow and lifers for experimentation. we'd learn about this so much faster with that large of an experimentation crop. then we could create things to change it, so that humanity would never have criminal inclinations ever again.

[Christan]

I don't think that's accurate, I think the amount of testosterone production is the major cause, some groups of women produce more than some groups of men. Low IQ plus excessive testosterone production is the combo that kills.

well, found a non-paywalled STUDY, that has been done,
http://users.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Lauritsen_CRIM_09.pdf

the study doesn't take all forms of violence into account.
go to page9, for a graph (multiple offenders vs single offenders) this is how many people involved int he offense not recurring offenses
about 12% of single offenders were female, and around 20% for group offenders.

however

. Multiple-offender incidents make it more challenging to produce
male and female offending estimates because victims of such incidents are
not asked to provide separate counts of male offenders and female offend-
ers.

so that 20% may include male+female offenders, and is less accurate than the 12%


not even reading the whole article, having it say men are over 8 times more likely than women to commit those violent crimes, is a HUGE difference

while this

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is wildly overrepresented in prisons. Take a crowd of 100 people of the street, and chances are just one to three of them will have ASPD. Take 100 people from a prison, and you can expect 40 to 70 of them to have the disorder.

takes people incarcerated, versus people who may or may not of been incarcerated, and does not have any kind of ratio/scaling of testing,
the sample sizes, are extremely unbalanced as well as small.

lets take that at face value, 40-70% of incarcerated people have this gene,

what portion of the incarcerated population is male?
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics...ate_gender.jsp

tells us, 93.3%

which tells us, even if 40-60% of a randomly selected prison population has this gene.
almost double that...has the Y chromosome.

therefor, the gene this thread is based off of, is worth half as much, as being male, when it comes to commiting crimes.

so...yeah, it is pretty much accurate.

i wish we'd put more work into this.

this kind of crap is why i wish we'd use deathrow and lifers for experimentation. we'd learn about this so much faster with that large of an experimentation crop. then we could create things to change it, so that humanity would never have criminal inclinations ever again.

main problem with that is we can BARELY change the dna for a single strand, even using revolutionary tech like CRISPR
experimenting on someone with that many cells? is impossible right now,

unless you are talking about forcing them to give up genetic material, to grow test tube babies with the changed dna?
those babies would have never commited a crime, so as soon as the ovum is fertilized, no...it even BEING fertilized, becomes a huge huge moral debate.

unless you are talking about experimenting, as in lobotomies? shock collars, some sort of training to make offenders never even be able to commit said crime?

[derpkitteh]

main problem with that is we can BARELY change the dna for a single strand, even using revolutionary tech like CRISPR
experimenting on someone with that many cells? is impossible right now,

unless you are talking about forcing them to give up genetic material, to grow test tube babies with the changed dna?
those babies would have never commited a crime, so as soon as the ovum is fertilized, no...it even BEING fertilized, becomes a huge huge moral debate.

unless you are talking about experimenting, as in lobotomies? shock collars, some sort of training to make offenders never even be able to commit said crime?

studying everything about them and working with their genetic code, whether it causes loss of life or not, until we eventually master the ability to permanently alter genetic code in humans.

then, when the treatment is perfected, it becomes a mandatory procedure performed on newborns/young children, before such things take root.

[Christan]

studying everything about them and working with their genetic code, whether it causes loss of life or not, until we eventually master the ability to permanently alter genetic code in humans.

then, when the treatment is perfected, it becomes a mandatory procedure performed on newborns/young children, before such things take root.

(small edit, added a bold to quote) supersplicers don't exist, they are considered FAR sci-fi, beyond impossible. while things like creating a slipstream around a ship, of time moving faster, would allow a ship going x speed to the inside observer, actually be going faster than light to the outside observer, being possible. even wormholes, granted the energy to create one even grapefruit sized, is more than our sun uses in a year. as being possible, super splicers, no one even has any idea, it's pure concept, like aliens invading earth, far flung scifi.
no, it would have to be done to the egg, seconds after fertilization, before it starts multiplying.
---


thing is, we wouldn't be able to see the results of any changes, other than to raise a child with said changes, which is where the moral outcry will come from
parentless children born and raised by scientists, i mean, how does this even work, if the child has rights, then we'd be creating a whole swarm of parentless children for the state to raise, not having parents themselves, etc.

or, the flip side, we could get changes to the dna done, raise said children, to the point of being able to map out whether they'd commit crimes, and if not kill them off. slaughter them.

remember, when trying to effect changes like that, you can not have a single test subject, maybe even hundreds wouldn't work, we are talking about thousands of genetically modified children, and the process being repeated on the ones that don't show any negative psychology, not just repeated but having the children raised differently, to make sure nurture didn't have anything do do with it, which means abusing them as abusive parents would have, having them in a drug filled / neglected etc environment..

this, for multiple generations of children, in a large enough sampling to be considered actual data, instead of chance.
by the end of it, 1000's of children turn into 100k etc...

so, does the state raise them, or since the genetics were used from criminal parents, is it okay to kill them?
or are you under the assumption we can change a single strand of dna, and know how it will turn out already?

as i said, can't be done, the moral outcry from the populace would be enraged towards any studies, they wouldn't be funded, and actually would likely to get shut down if self funded with the scientists arrested.

possibly, when we come up with quantum super computing (what supercomputers are now, compared to what the silicon chip was initially, as to what quantum computing is/will be soon - and what could be considered quantum super computing, multiple or orders of magnitude faster, with more bandwidth/ FLOPs/ lets say, quintigintillion hertz, rather than gigahertz, who knows... impossible with current tech though.

but with something like that, maybe we could know what a small change would result in, over a lifespan, and add in all the health changes other changes etc from it.
currently, we would need LIVE test subjects, born from single eggs since we don't have a super-splicer, to change dna in an adult.
(not to mention, even if we did, that adult could ACT his way, into believably/non-criminal psychology, so wouldn't be as accurate as raising eggs into adults.)


what' i'm trying to say, is we could study the genetic code to the ends of the world, and we may surely find some that are guaranteed to make criminals, and possibly get the tech to make sure children are not born with that.

but, opinion here, what happens if such genetic disorders, are what brings about great generals, people willing to fight for what's right etc, the non-criminal violence that is needed in this world(unless the genetic changes are world sweeping)

in that case, most of the world becomes passive plebes proles, leading up to the point those who had not had the changes done, are at a significant advantage over those who did think the leaders vs populace in 1984 / Orwellian style? but rather than lied and mind-@#%^ed into submission, they are born that way, accepting what they're told because any type of fighting for what they believe is right(right or wrong side of the law) has been genetically stripped from them.

or aliens come(rofl) and they find a sedentary/passive population easy to control or terminate for slavery/terraforming?

[Hooked]

studying everything about them and working with their genetic code, whether it causes loss of life or not, until we eventually master the ability to permanently alter genetic code in humans.

then, when the treatment is perfected, it becomes a mandatory procedure performed on newborns/young children, before such things take root.

So you want to put your filthy hands on unborn children huh?. That's not going to happen.

[Deleted]

So you want to put your filthy hands on unborn children huh?. That's not going to happen.

why not? happens all the time already. ultrasounds and amniotic fluid tests are very common, and you can take cell samples from embryos extremely early on, which is rarer but does also happen if there is reason to do so.

I can certainly see DNA testing become as common as the above in a few decades, when perhaps genes for more diseases are better understood. abortions from such discoveries, ie discovering your child will be severely disabled in the womb, already happen frequently.

From there on, the step from testing for having "real" diseases to testing for high risk for certain diseases at some point in life to testing for socially undesired traits to even designer babies down the line aren't that far between. i'd say it depends more on how cheap/mass producable those tests become then anything else.

[Hooked]

why not? happens all the time already. ultrasounds and amniotic fluid tests are very common, and you can take cell samples from embryos extremely early on, which is rarer but does also happen if there is reason to do so.

I can certainly see DNA testing become as common as the above in a few decades, when perhaps genes for more diseases are better understood. abortions from such discoveries, ie discovering your child will be severely disabled in the womb, already happen frequently.

From there on, the step from testing for having "real" diseases to testing for high risk for certain diseases at some point in life to testing for socially undesired traits to even designer babies down the line aren't that far between, depends mostly on how ones culture views such things, but culture can change quite fast.

I am 100% against abortion for modern humans.

[Deleted]

I am 100% against abortion for modern humans.

I dunno if i knew 100% for certain the quality of life of my unborn child would be horrendous, like severe mental or physical disabiliy or life expectancy under ~20 years orso (all of which have real examples today), i sure hope i would have the strength to abort.

now ofcourse the stuff described in this thread doesn't exactly qualify as such.

[Hooked]

I dunno if i knew 100% for certain the quality of life of my unborn child would be horrendous, like severe mental or physical disabiliy or life expectancy under ~20 years orso (all of which have real examples today), i sure hope i would have the strength to abort.

now ofcourse the stuff described in this thread doesn't exactly qualify as such.

Ok yeah I agree with that, I am 100% against abortion for healthy modern human babies. I can understand aborting defect babies, if they couldn't survive on their own after adulthood.

I saw a show and the parent had a baby that had no top of skull, I was thinking that baby should have been aborted because its impossible he will be able to ever live on his own.

So I am not against aborting defects or rape victim babies.

[anyaka21]

why not? happens all the time already. ultrasounds and amniotic fluid tests are very common, and you can take cell samples from embryos extremely early on, which is rarer but does also happen if there is reason to do so.

I can certainly see DNA testing become as common as the above in a few decades, when perhaps genes for more diseases are better understood. abortions from such discoveries, ie discovering your child will be severely disabled in the womb, already happen frequently.

From there on, the step from testing for having "real" diseases to testing for high risk for certain diseases at some point in life to testing for socially undesired traits to even designer babies down the line aren't that far between. i'd say it depends more on how cheap/mass producable those tests become then anything else.

Selective breeding also happens on a small scale today. With fertilization happening, and sperm donors, people most definitely pick and choose people that could be predisposed towards intelligence and athleticism.

A friend of mine has 2 kids that way, and as a couple they chose from extremely athletic donors, with also having college degrees. Granted this isn't gene manipulation, but it's still manipulation from an unborn perspective.