Fox Mulder
Active Member
Do you have any empirical data to support your claims? There have been many studies conducted which find that SOME, thought not ALL, sociopaths are genetically wired to be the way they are.
When MRI's are conducted on known sociopaths/psychopaths, and they are shown photographs that depict either violence or emotional items, there are anomalies in the way their brains process information. Often when they see pictures that would tug at a normal person emotionally, the parts of their brain that work out abstract issues become active, and the parts of their brains that would deal with emotional issues remain inactive. These studies back up the theory that these sociopaths are not wired to feel emotions and empathy. They have no remorse, no guilt; no conscience whatsoever. And, many of these studies are conducted on people who have had loving and normal childhoods - yet they are still sociopaths.
You have no idea what you are talking about. You don't know me. You don't know what kind of reading or research I have done. And yet, here you are accusing me of pulling this information out of my ass. Did you learn how to be such an arrogant prick from your parents, or was it other influences as you grew up?
No, it is not ridiculous. There ARE some individuals who are sociopaths, and who have been tested and been shown to have anomalies in their brain patterns. It has also been shown that these individuals did not have any type of brain injury or damage that caused these anomalies. So where did they come from? Did outside influence change the patterns in their brains?
Are you a scientist? Because scientists have been arguing for years about nature versus nurture -- and they still do not all agree which is more influential -- so how is it that you can emphatically state that all behavior is learned?
You are not listening (maybe you have a reading comprehension problem). I am not saying, nor did I say, that ALL criminals are hard-wired that way. I said it has been shown that sociopaths (not all criminals are sociopaths) are hard-wired that way. They have no remorse, no feelings, no guilt.
Some people are driven to crime out of desperation or a feeling of not being able to get ahead any other way. Others are involved in crime because of their youth -- and when they have had a chance to mature, they no longer commit crimes.
Maybe if you took a step down from your ivory tower and looked around for a while, you might learn something about the rest of us lowly human beings.(lookie there, I'm rolling my eyes at you now!)
By the way, just google "sociopath" like I did, and you can educate yourself.
Your intiial comment that I took issue with was:
That statement is just flat our wrong and indefensible either through logic or any empiracal evidence.
You are confusing yourself by mixing concepts. You can't equate "sociopath" with "criminal." Are you claiming that criminal behavior is synonymous with sociopathic behavior? Because there are many people who are sociopaths that are not criminals and I would venture to say (although I don't know for sure, I would bet on it) that most criminals are not sociopaths.
I think YOU are the one that needs to Google sociopath and recognize the difference. This started out with rapists. Again, I would bet what drives a rapist to commit a crime is entirely different than what drives a sociopath to commit a crime.
Finally, you haven't sited anything to support your contentions again except speculation. And there is absolutely no study that in any way conclusively establishes a "cirminal" gene or even a "sociopath" gene. The problem is there are far too many variables to make any correlation.
The bottom line is logic would dictate that if a person behavior was controlled entirely by a gene, then people would behave the same in all levels of society in all places, yet the oppoisite is true--that is that people from different environments react in surprisingly uniform manner. That is people raised in stable, loving environments with little or no crime or poverty are far less likely to be criminals than people who grow up in the opposite environment--that should clue you in on how much environment plays a role. Simply because EVERY person raised in a good evironment does not turn out a productive member of society does not indicate it was pre-ordained by genetics. There are far too many variables in every one's environment.
Further, even if I were to accept that there is a "criminal gene", that in no way would imply the end result of that person's life was crime.
