

A Neuroscientist Uncovers A Dark Secret - Aaronontheweb
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127888976&ft=1&f=1001

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adbge
It makes sense that one who felt a certain sense of curiosity about the act of
being a serial killer would work in a field that studies them. The conclusion
that the researcher and his subjects share certain traits is, to me, hardly
surprising.

I wonder if the researcher's brain scan is a product of his environment or an
inevitable genetic conclusion.

~~~
dmix
> I wonder if the researcher's brain scan is a product of his environment or
> an inevitable genetic conclusion

I also often wonder if small governments are better for society than larger
governments.

While its common for people to take sides on those matters, it's likely the
answer is somewhere in between the two.

~~~
SamReidHughes
No, it's likely the answer is _not_ somewhere in between the two. The fact
that people arguing different sides, if they're interested in convincing
others, will moderate their opinion, and that they'll also have their opinion
moderated by the prevailing opinions of society, isn't even the cause of this
-- but it does make it worse.

Take, for example, estimates of a physical constant. Suppose two people
independently estimate a constant. The probability that they'll miss on the
same side of the true value is at least 0.5. If the probability of an
arbitrary person underestimating the constant is x (and the probability of
getting it correct is 0, since it's a real number and there is a continuum of
choices), then the probability of both missing on the same side is x^2 +
(1-x)^2, which is greater than or equal to 0.5.

Now take those two people and have them talk to one another. If one of them
convinces the other their measurement method is more accurate, both will end
up agreeing on the same estimate, and thus both will miss in the same
direction. It's very unlikely that somebody will look at another person's
estimates and reasons for them, and then decide to change their estimate away
from that person's. So when they communicate, it's even more likely that the
truth will not be in between their estimates. This effect is much worse with
politics, where people tend to avoid conflict and everybody grows up in a
similar culture.

There is a famous graph somewhere with monotonically increasing estimates of a
physical constant over time. Imagine that here.

Now consider politics. Suppose you've got a bunch of people with different
kinds of opinions. It might be the case that, over time, the objective truth
(when there is one) influences their opinions. Does this increase the
probability that the truth is in the middle? It might decrease the variance of
their opinions -- with evidence about the truth, they'll end up believing
something closer to it. For example, I'd say that evidence about the truth has
caused people to have more accurate opinions about the effect of political
parties claiming to be Marxist. However, they're still equally capable of
overestimating or underestimating the truth.

What conditions might cause the truth to be likely to be in the middle? One
would be where the truth is something people can get an approximate idea of,
except that the variance in the people's circumstances will make them likely
to miss in opposite directions. I suppose this is the kind of situation people
often imagine. There's two assumptions here: that the influence of their
circumstance outweighs the accuracy with which people generally could have
estimated the truth, and that their circumstances would pull them away in
opposite directions.

Right now you could compare big government conservatives versus big goverment
liberals. Is the truth in the middle there? What about slave-owners versus
abolitionists who wouldn't dream of letting their daughter marry a black man?
Is the truth in the middle there? And people who think only male landowners
should vote versus people who think all males should vote?

Given people's tendency to have opinions almost identical to their neighbors',
it's likely the correct answer, for whatever answerable question is being
asked, is far outside the contemporary political spectrum. Or are we the
chosen generation, right about everything?

~~~
psyklic
I think the case for big vs small governments is instead "not enough
information." Big vs. small isn't really as important as are how the gov't is
implemented and the culture/attitudes of the governed.

As far as the brain scans go, science isn't nearly at the point to even hazard
guesses at random high-level behaviors like "will murder." We've really only
had success when behaviors in insects just so happen to be controlled by a
single gene. Here, I doubt there even is a single "murderer" gene, especially
since "murder" is such a random, infrequently displayed behavior.

~~~
lookACamel
Don't forget the _size_ and _homogeneity_ of the governed.

~~~
eru
Should small people be governed different than tall people?

(Sorry, could not resist.)

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dopamine
It is interesting that the author describes three ingredients for psychopathic
behavior, and that he was missing the third: abuse during childhood. In rats,
the quality of maternal care was shown to cause long-lasting effects in the
brains of the offspring, particularly in areas that respond to a
neurotransmitter called oxytocin:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin>

Rats that receive high levels of maternal care when pups have higher
sensitivity to oxytocin in certain brain areas. This is significant because
oxytocin is implicated in prosocial behaviors, such as pair bonding and
maternal behavior.

Recent experiments with humans showed that the inhalation of oxytocin
increases people's ability to trust and empathize with others. So, my guess is
that a 'normal' oxytocin system might be able to counter the negative
antisocial effects of the first two ingredients described in the article. The
author might want to take a look into his own oxytocin system next.

~~~
nopassrecover
Wonder if oxytocin is regulated enough to stop car dealers and pick up artists
from wearing it as cologne. Also can you source the inhalation comment? The
wikipedia article is contradictory e.g. "(for injected cows) It is a mistaken
notion that oxytocin produces extra milk. Although it increases milk flow, it
can also cause painful contractions in the animal's uterus"

~~~
dopamine
Here are the research articles about the effects of oxytocin on human social
behavior: Trust:
[http://www.socialbehavior.unizh.ch/static/home/heinrichs/dow...](http://www.socialbehavior.unizh.ch/static/home/heinrichs/downloads/Oxytocin_Increases_Trust_in_Humans_Nature.pdf)
Empathy/generosity: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2040517/>

Both studies use intranasal inhalers to deliver oxytocin to the subjects. I
doubt that you would be able to deliver sufficient quantities by wafting it in
the air. If anything, it would have a stronger effect on the stop car dealers
and pick up artists themselves, so THEY would trust YOU more :)

About the wikipedia article: when I mentioned the effect of oxytocin on
maternal behavior above, I didn't mean specifically on breastfeeding or
lactation, but on the general care that is given by mothers to their pups
(such as grooming, bringing them to their nest, etc.).

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ggchappell
We've seen articles before here (I _think_ it was HN) that dealt with
psychopathy. But those, if I remember correctly, focused on the lack of a
conscience, noting that some psychopaths are violent, and others are not,
while all have little regard for their impact on others' lives.

I wonder how these two concepts connect up. I seem to remember that tests for
the other version of psychopathy were entirely behavioral in nature. This guy
talks about genes and brain scans, but he is interested primarily in
tendencies toward violence and murder.

So, are we talking about the same thing here, or not?

~~~
awongh
Yeah, some things I've read have linked psycopathy with an inablity to feel
empathy, and what makes someone a killer is also having poor impulse control.

I feel like to a certain extent that lack of empathy would help your career
quite a bit (like if you were a Berkeley professor) I'd like to know if this
guy exhibits any of the other behavioral traits associated with
psychopaths.....

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oditogre
Interesting, but as the article says, it's a young field. Far too young to
draw any meaningful conclusions, but...certainly interesting.

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mtr
He also gave a TED talk on this very subject:
<http://blog.ted.com/2009/07/psychopathic_ki.php>

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DavidSJ
Reminds me of Minority Report.

~~~
pyre
It only depends on how you look at it. Someone born with any disability has
the cards stacked against them, but it doesn't necessarily define their entire
life. People just tend to focus on it because it's a huge 'difference' that
they, themselves, don't have to deal with.

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abeppu
I'm hoping that parts 2 & 3 will explore the other responsibilities of the
orbitofrontal cortex, and flesh out the discussion a bit more. It's been a
while since I took cognitive neuroscience, but I remember this area also being
involved with decision making, and balancing risk and reward. He didn't become
a murderer, but from the discussion so far, I'm guessing he also didn't become
a drug addict, or a compulsive gambler.

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chopsueyar
"You start to look at yourself and you say, 'I may be a sociopath.' I don't
think I am, but this looks exactly like [the brains of] the psychopaths, the
sociopaths, that I've seen before."

That is exactly what a sociopath would say to an NPR reporter.

------
pyre
I found the conclusion of the article to be a bit much. The entire article
reads as a science/human interest piece on this guy, and then the conclusion
is, "Should we feel empathy towards murderers and rapists due to
neuroscience?"

~~~
ekanes
I don't think he means empathy as in "well, guess we can't fault them for
their behaviour, so let's let them go" but rather that they got a bad roll of
the dice, and that sucks, (but we have to lock them up or control them
anyhow...)

A different but illustrative analogy is a dog who's been abused, or chained in
a small yard, and that dog attacks a small child. I will have _empathy_
towards that dog, and I'll still want it destroyed.

Empathy and societal self-preservation can both exist simultaneously.

~~~
pyre
When I read it, it came across to me as scare-mongering that we'll be "letting
all of these murderers and rapists loose" because the court won't hold them
accountable due to neuroscience, which seemed to come out of no where at the
end of the article. That's why I found it to be so out of place.

~~~
GFischer
Maybe it was editorialized into the article? It doesn't seem to be a quote
from Fallon himself, but more an outlook by the article's author (Barbara
Bradley Hagerty). A Google search of her finds some very negative detractors:

[http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/05/21/outing-barbara-
bradley...](http://atheism.about.com/b/2004/05/21/outing-barbara-bradley-
hagerty.htm)

Though it's mostly ad-hominem, it does quote a verifiable lapse of
journalistic ethic: "a report on the Christian Science Church, in which she
did not disclose that she was herself a former member of the Church"

------
neurotech1
My biggest concern is that he's focusing on one part of the brain, there are
several other parts of the brain, such as the right parietal-temporal area
that result in sociopathy and impulse control problems.

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c00p3r
some genetic frontal lobes deficit or just Asperger's syndrome + childhood
abuse + violent environment = psychopath. That's why no one count psychos in
Russia. ^_^

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amichail
Don't liberals hold contradictory views with respect to this issue?

On the one hand, they believe in civil liberties. On the other hand, they also
believe in science.

These two things tend to clash and will do so more frequently in the future as
scientists learn more about the brain.

~~~
mquander
With respect to _what_ issue? We already have laws for dealing with mentally
ill criminals.

~~~
amichail
What if science gets very good at predicting who will commit crimes?

Would you still value civil liberties then?

~~~
mquander
Absolutely. I value living with relative freedom in a surprising world more
than I value safety or justice.

I feel compelled to point out that few humans would consider it ethical to
punish someone for something they haven't done. I'm sure you don't consider it
ethical, either, so I don't see what the point of this line of reasoning is.

In addition, this has nothing to do with the article, which makes no claim to
prophecies or predictions.

~~~
amichail
Why is it ethical to punish someone after they have committed a crime if they
had little say in the matter?

In both cases, some method should be used to ensure that a crime does not
happen (e.g., using mandatory medication, isolation, etc.).

~~~
extension
There is a critical distinction to be made between mental defects that
compromise one's ability to think rationally vs defects that simply overpower
one's motivation to act in a rational way.

If you can think straight and accurately perceive your environment, you are
responsible for your actions. As a rational being, your plight is to see
beyond all those powerful monkey emotions and do what you know is right.
Welcome to humanity.

If you really are out of your mind and your brain is just playing tricks on
you, you're off the hook morally, though if it can't be fixed then ultimately
you can't play in the human sandbox, sorry.

Since none of us are even close to perfect rational-observation machines, we
have to cut ourselves some slack. How much slack is an incredibly difficult
decision, but that's the decision at the core of our practical ethics.

Without making some distinction between motives and choices, our ethics are
pretty meaningless.

