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Searching for Mr. Bad

Searching for Mr. Bad. Coming Full Circle in Biological Explanations. Quiz. Which readings did you do? Rice: “Biological Theories of Crime” Katie Lambert: “How Atavisms Work” Healy: Sampling on the Dependent Variable Cohen: "Genetic Basis for Crime: A New Look." NYT 2011

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Searching for Mr. Bad

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  1. Searching for Mr. Bad Coming Full Circle in Biological Explanations

  2. Quiz • Which readings did you do? • Rice: “Biological Theories of Crime” • Katie Lambert: “How Atavisms Work” • Healy: Sampling on the Dependent Variable • Cohen: "Genetic Basis for Crime: A New Look." NYT 2011 • Goleman: "Storm Brews On Whether Crime Has Roots in Genes." NYT 1992 • Yong: "Dangerous DNA: The truth about the 'warrior gene‘” • Friedland: "A Vision of the Future“ • Ferguson/Beaver "Natural born killers: The genetic origins of extreme violence.” • Jones: "Overcoming the Myth of Free Will in Criminal Law: The True Impact of the Genetic Revolution." • Spiegel: Can A Test Really Tell Who's A Psychopath? • NYT articles describe two conferences on genetics and crime. What happened to the 1992 conference? • Who was Cesar Lombroso?

  3. Essay Question • The thinkers and theories we have briefly visited have taken a number of basic starting points: people basically good, bad, mixed; people never change; a small defect defines the entire person; biology is destiny. What’s your take on human nature? What kind of a thing is a person for the purposes of thinking about social control? Which readings or thinkers do you feel you line up with? Which ones do you seem to reject? • Submit both your first and your final draft of the essay.

  4. Basic Outline • Lombroso – late 19th century – atavism • Appearance reveals character/temperament causes crime • Sheldon – somatotypes – ecto/endo/mesodorph • Causal direction? • 1950s-1970s super-male, testosterone, etc. • 1980s-present genes • Now what?

  5. Partly a Sociology of Knowledge Story • Not a simple forward march of science • Knowledge embedded in socio-political context • what facts we look for, how we interpret facts, how we act on interpretations – • Debates about whether or not to research • Strange bedfellows? Not so simple. • Physical science & right • Social science & left

  6. Caste of Characters • Lombroso • Goring • Sheldon • Gluecks • Sampling and Explanation • New Biology • Genes • Super males & Testosterone • Twin and Adoption studies • Determinism, Naturalistic Fallacy • Modern model of genes, environment, triggers, risk factors

  7. Lombroso (1835-1909)

  8. Revolutionaries and Political Criminals http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Lombroso_1.jpg

  9. Somatotypes

  10. Somatotypes

  11. Useful Distinction • Phenotype: what shows up in the organism • Genotype: what’s in the DNA

  12. “That Powerful Drop”Langston Hughes http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/classes/soc101/alonzo/that.powerful.pdf

  13. Polymorphism: more than one phenotype exists • Polyphenism • Molecular biology : point mutation in genotype

  14. Why is SSSM skeptical about biology? • History of past abuse • Too easy to tell “just so” stories* • Naturalistic fallacy • Biological Determinism • Lack of ethical solutions • Bad policies (e.g., 3 strikes, sex offenders) • Methodological problems * Ajust-so story (akaad hocfallacy) refers to an unverifiable and unfalsifiable narrative explanation for a practice, trait, or behavior (Wikipedia)

  15. Naturalistic Fallacy • Just because we discover that we have a biological tendency to X does not mean that X is a good or desirable behavior.

  16. Biological Determinism • Strong:

  17. There and Back Again… • Lombroso : replace moral judgment with science • Eugenics & search for born criminals rejected • Social environment, learning • Some things are innate • How would legal system deal with biological determinism? • Replacing science with moral judgment

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