| | The idea that criminality is genetically inherited is crap ("Crap" is a technical term indicating a theory or idea which is so full of errors that are so obvious that is shouldn't need anything more than that label among thinking people).
This idea flies directly in the face of human choice. These are the kind of human acts that are the product of a choice. Not like the acts we differentiate as involuntary, like the beating of the heart. If there are no such things as choice-based acts, then Dean's posts are, by his premises, making genetically required movements of his fingers on the keyboard that have nothing to do with what the rest of us think of as choices and values. Or are his thoughts actually his and not just genetically inherited thought-genes from his parents?
I've read the twins study - it was poorly done and it only finds serious supporters among those who want to use it to support a position that people's thoughts, values, 'choices' are all determined - that we are puppets of our genes.
What we are talking about here are correlations - not causation. There is a significant correlation between genetic inheritance and upbringing - but it is correlative not causal. A child is raised by the parents, learns from the parents, lives in the same neighborhood as the parents, and attends the school in that neighborhood. That means that kids' values are learned and chosen from what is presented by his peers and his parents in that neighborhood.
If every child with criminal parents became a criminal that would be evidence of something solid and we would need to look at it. But that is not even close to what we see. The highest portion of criminal parents do not produce kids that become criminals. That is not only born by studies, but I've worked as a child protective agent in South Central L.A. for 5 years. People can, and do, surmount the effects of the environment - because they make choices. They are able to do this because their genes created a machine capable of choice - not this absurd idea of thought-genes.
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Eye color comes from the pigment which is present in different amounts in the iris. There are a two genes that are located at different loci, one which codes for brown eyes, and the other is recessive and codes for blue eyes. There is also a recessive pair that code for green eyes.
There are two genes located at different loci. One gene, called B for simplicity, confers brown eye color, and it is dominant over the b allele (recessive) which gives rise to the blue eye color. The other gene, named G, also has two alleles: G (dominant for green) and g (recessive) for lighter greenish colored eyes.
The single DNA strand donated by each of the parent form the genes used to begin the embryo. The actual creation of the eyes is done during embryology. This complex process of transcribing the DNA sequence via RNA into the protein molecules that will form the cells that create the eye.
That this is the creation of what can grow into an eye. There is no way this process can be envisioned as some magical black box out of which a genetically encoded thought will pop out. This is what Dean and others are claiming as a belief - that thoughts and values are a product of our genes. Genes for pickpocketing? For antitrust violations? For murder? For tax evasion? What are the tri-nucleotide sequences that we have identified as the codons which pair to generate the RNA that creates the polypeptides that somehow are processed in embryology to represents a criminal thought that will spring into action in, say, 15 years when the embryo has become a teen?
Look at the absurd epistemology that would require. A thought is planted in the mind before birth? How does such conceptual activity take place since concepts must first be based upon sensory experience of concretes that the embryo hasn't yet sensed.
And what about the people in North Korea where the law is all backwards, do 'criminals' over there have genes that are backwards - i.e., in favor of freedom to such a degree that they have no choice but to violate those laws? Would we measure their bone structure, muscles and intelligence averages to see who is pro-freedom? I hope that people can grasp the fact that genes don't understand laws and political boundaries.
All nonsense.
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