Friday, June 27, 2008

Unnatural Selection: Chapter 16

Is there a link between genes and criminal tendencies? This chapter attempts to resolve that question and ultimately concedes defeat, telling you, the Dear Reader, that you are supposed to figure that out, however that is possible.

Besides discussion of heritability of criminal tendencies (e.g. aggression, tenuously linked to a defective MAO gene), there's a box about homosexuality, citing Dean Hamer's 1993 sibling study and Simon LeVay's 1991 autopsy study. Is it nature (genes in one's DNA), or is it nurture (environmental factors)? Again, the question remains at least partly unanswered.

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