If eugenics is valid, should we use it?

[madmusic]

There is a new trend in genetics. Well, not new since it is part and parcel to the old early 1900s eugenics that resulted in Buck v. Bell. It never died and is now gaining new force within the legal community. Is that a good thing? For example, there is this review:

The "Why's" of Crime and Criminality

Why Do Criminals Offend? A General Theory of Crime and Delinquency
By Robert Agnew (2005).
Los Angeles: Roxbury.

Why Crime? An Integrated Systems Theory of Antisocial Behavior
By Matthew B. Robinson. (2004)
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Reviewed by Anthony Walsh, Ph.D., Criminal Justice Department. Boise State University, Boise, Idaho 83725, USA.

Both Matthew Robinson's Why Crime? and Robert Agnew's Why do Criminals Offend? begin by asking the same question and both attempt to answer it by offering us a new theory. These books are the latest additions to a growing number of monographs published in the last decade taking an integrative biosocial view of criminology (see, for instance, Fishbein, 2001; Rowe, 2002;Walsh, 2002; Walsh & Ellis, 2003). What is heartening to those of us who have taken this position for most of our careers is that Robinson's previous book, Justice Blind (2002), marks him as a bona fide liberal, and Agnew's sociopolitical ideology appears to be left of center also. It is heartening because many social scientists hold the belief that anything but strict environmental interpretations of criminal behavior are racist, sexist, classist, or at least illiberal. If those holding such views would remove their blinders and take the time to learn something about behavior genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, as Robinson and Agnew clearly have (Robinson more so than Agnew), they may be surprised how far to the left they can be dragged by biosocial perspectives.

....

Experiments with rhesus monkeys have shown that peer raised monkeys (read "fatherless, gang raised children" for humans) have lower concentrations of serotonin than parentally raised monkeys (Bennett, et al., 2002; Kreamer, et al., 1998).

Robinson's discussion at the organism level of analysis focuses on temperament and personality. He begins by noting that temperament is the basic building block of our personalities, and that differential temperament is largely a function of differential autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning (p.104). Individuals with a hyperactive ANS are easily conditioned (socialized); those with a hypoactive ANS are socialized only with difficulty. The latter are risk takers and sensation-seekers, which can land them in trouble in environments lacking prosocial outlets for such behavioral proclivities. Agnew makes a similar point, stating that individuals with a hypoactive ANS will show less emotional reaction to stimuli (important in the acquisition of a conscience), have a greater need for thrills and excitement, and less fearful of punishment (p. 142). Robinson also discusses intelligence, mental illness, drug use/abuse, and diet/nutrition in this chapter.

EDIT: http://human-nature.com/nibbs/05/awalsh.html

What do you think? "Liberal" or not may not be the point. Maybe the real point is the threat of cloned neocons.

[Cleita]

1. That's downright scary.

It will pick on minorities, who most likely will go to jail and overlook the criminals that can afford to get away with their crimes. This is more Nazi thinking coming our way via the nutcases out there who think they are in charge.

[Swamp Rat]

2. Mira aquí:

:scared:

War Against the Weak
by Edwin Black

How American corporate philanthropies launched a national campaign of ethnic cleansing in the United States, helped found and fund the Nazi eugenics of Hitler and Mengele — and then created the modern movement of "human genetics."

In the first three decades of the 20th Century, American corporate philanthropy combined with prestigious academic fraud to create the pseudoscience eugenics that institutionalized race politics as national policy. The goal: create a superior, white, Nordic race and obliterate the viability of everyone else.
How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to legislated segregation and sterilization programs. The victims: poor people, brown-haired white people, African Americans, immigrants, Indians, Eastern European Jews, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the superior genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists. The main culprits were the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune, in league with America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, operating out of a complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. The eugenic network worked in tandem with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the State Department and numerous state governmental bodies and legislatures throughout the country, and even the U.S. Supreme Court. They were all bent on breeding a eugenically superior race, just as agronomists would breed better strains of corn. The plan was to wipe away the reproductive capability of the weak and inferior.

Ultimately, 60,000 Americans were coercively sterilized — legally and extra-legally. Many never discovered the truth until decades later. Those who actively supported eugenics include America's most progressive figures: Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

American eugenic crusades proliferated into a worldwide campaign, and in the 1920s came to the attention of Adolf Hitler. Under the Nazis, American eugenic principles were applied without restraint, careening out of control into the Reich's infamous genocide. During the pre-War years, American eugenicists openly supported Germany's program. The Rockefeller Foundation financed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the work of its central racial scientists. Once WWII began, Nazi eugenics turned from mass sterilization and euthanasia to genocidal murder. One of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute doctors in the program financed by the Rockefeller Foundation was Josef Mengele who continued his research in Auschwitz, making daily eugenic reports on twins. After the world recoiled from Nazi atrocities, the American eugenics movement — its institutions and leading scientists — renamed and regrouped under the banner of an enlightened science called human genetics.

http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/

[Selatius]

4. Honestly, what made Woodrow Wilson so damn progressive?

Was it because he provoked the first Red Scare? Was it because he all but liquidated the anti-war movement and persecuted socialists? Was it the Sedition Act and the Espionage Act? What's progressive about silencing voices of dissent?

[Swamp Rat]

10. Things that make you go 'hmm'

Silent Sentinels: "Mr. President, what will you do for Woman Suffrage?" - probably nothing had it not been for those courageous women.

[madmusic]

8. Black's book really pissed me off

I first learned about eugenics here, bought that book, and now have about 20 books on eugenics and the history on The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. The movement never died but only went underground. Looks like it is starting to gain the courage to surface again.

[Swamp Rat]

12. I saw him give a lecture on Book TV right after I moved back to the USA

Made me think about going straight back to Brasil.

It's happening again...

[Heidi]

18. One of the best books I've ever read.

I've been recommending it at DU for more than a year. "War Against the Weak" pissed me off _and_ broke my heart. A very dark, but true, accounting of our country's role in the eugenics movement.

[loyalsister]

44. It is a delicate conversation

The dialogue has been quite antagonistic.
People who were historical subjects of the eugenics movement find themselves on the defensive.
When they are at odds with the people who usually support them, there is some tension. Progressives resent finding themselves within constraints of maintain support from competing loyal interests, and seem to be most likely at this point to choose.
But, things like the Shiavo may have had different meaning when viewed through the eyes of a person who is a part of that history.
Progressives have been disappointingly dismissive. I think that they could have been more creative.

There are opportunities for better conversation.
There are questions that could be a part of our dialogue.
1.Why do we first and formost have a right to die- via directive order, yet no right to stay alive?
As the wealthiest, most technologically advanced country in the world, are our priorities skewed?
but I digress..

[madmusic]

6. Glad I'm not the only one that thinks it's scary.

Chapter 1 Better Babies
"If a hog is worth saving, why not a baby?" commented Mary Watts during the 1912 Iowa State Fair. And, by the time the next Fair rolled around, Watts, who was president of the Iowa Congress of Mothers, had gotten the organizers to designate a tent where physicians could evaluate babies in some of the same ways that judges were evaluating livestock. "If there is a standard for calves and colts, why not for babies, in order that each mother may strive toward (that standard) for her child," wrote Outlook Magazine in 1913.

http://www3.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/hsbioethics/units/cases/unit4_1.html

Chapter 2 Carrie Buck & The Lynchburg State Colony
The director of Virginia's Lynchburg Hospital was looking through old office files in 1980 when he came upon some startling records: from the 1920s until 1972, his hospital had sterilized some 4000 patients. Most had no idea that they were being sterilized. Most had not given their consent for the surgical procedures that the hospital put them through.

The hospital, called at various times the Virginia State Epileptic Colony and Lynchburg State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, was the largest institution of its kind in the United States. It opened in 1910 and became a dumping ground for several sorts of people, including Virginia's poorest residents, teens from broken homes, and those whom state officials considered socially inadequate. Many of the people in these categories were labeled with a vague term-feebleminded.

Colony officials were intent on weeding out those whom they felt would contaminate the purity and soundness of the white 'race.' They assumed that "like produces like" and thus targeted those whose likenesses they did not wish to see perpetuated. Their reasoning was that, by sterilizing 'unfit' people, the state's burden of unfit individuals-people who would need institutionalization, often for life-would eventually diminish.

http://www3.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/hsbioethics/units/cases/unit4_2.html

There's more at that site.

[benburch]

3. Bush's ancestors were deeply involved in the eugenics movement.

And look at how badly HE turned out!

[madmusic]

9. That sounds all conspiracy theory

But it's not.

[benburch]

16. I know. It sounds made-up.

But you can document it.

[AlienGirl]

5. So some risk-taking traits are linked to neurology...

The minimum way to interpret this is that some neurological set-ups predispose people to seek stronger adrenaline rushes and more attention. These set-ups may or may not be hereditary.

Even if the neurological basis for risk-taking is heritable, it isn't necessary to conclude that criminal or anti-social behavior is heritable; one person with a high risk-taking drive may rob convenience stores for thrills, while another with a different environment and other choices available, may climb mountains and yet a third may take up public speaking.

What needs to happen is we have to figure out how to use the brains we have, instead of trying to breed brains without characteristics we think of as undesirable.

Tucker

[rucky]

13. what AlienGirl said.

The Democratic party could use a few more of these "risk-takers".

[lindisfarne]

7. Two identical twins (same genes), separated at birth, raised in different

environments by different parents; both would be termed "risk takers and sensation-seekers" by Robinson. One commits crime; one has no record of crime.

Twin studies like this have been done and have shown that both nature (=genes) and nurture (=environment) interact in very complex ways to produce a human being.

It's not all environment (some kids raised in horribly abusive environments never commit crime and grow up to be about as well-adjusted as anyone), but genes certainly do not predict who a person will become, either.

Environment without a doubt can influence brain development (throughout life), which can influence how a person mentally reacts to a situation. For exsample, we know that chronically high levels of cortisol caused by being under constant stress change change brain chemistry and result in depression. (see http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=brainBriefings_depressionAndStressHormones).

What we have known for a long time is that a hugely disproportionate number of people sitting in jails grew up in abusive situations. Maybe we should focus on getting ALL kids out of these abusive situations. That would be the best way to improve our society.

Just which traits would one want to get rid of? Astronauts, explorers, even some scientists are certainly "risk takers and sensation-seekers". Do we want to rid the world of these sorts of people?

[Raksha]

14. We don't want to leave the decision to the neocons,

that's for damn sure.

Re >>Just which traits would one want to get rid of? Astronauts, explorers, even some scientists are certainly "risk takers and sensation-seekers". Do we want to rid the world of these sorts of people?<<

If it were possible, they'd breed their own class for risk-taking or even criminal tendencies, and "the rest of us" for docility! Hell, maybe they've been doing that all along with their own class, in an informal kind of way. Do the persistant Nazi tendencies in the Bush family reflect nature or nurture?

[madmusic]

15. How?

Excellent post! And I agree, but how do we get ALL kids out of these abusive situations?

If we take kids out of an abusive environment, the foster care home might even be worse, and often is. Same if one or both parents go to prison. The solution is often as damaging as the problem.

Imagine what Iraq is like, and some parts of the inner cities are like that too, where gun shots are expected, many fathers are in prison, and children often have to fend for themselves while mom works. What about those kids? Many rural areas are similar in that children aren't taught the value of positive pleasure. Middle class homes too where both parents have to work.

If we spent as much on this as we spent/will spend on the war, we might have a chance, but how? Put Prozac in all the water? I'm not trying to be funny (ok, that's a lie) but really, how? Seriously, liberalism in the U.S. has always been half-assed and we never put enough money into any social program to really make it work. Then when it failed, liberalism was to blame.

Sure, nature/nurture makes sense, but what are these guys suggesting as the solution? Eugenics? Someone found that it would take generations, many, many, many generations, to weed out the unfit, because so many "normal" people could carry the dormant "unfit" gene. So is their plan to use genetic engineering at birth? And would that weed out people like our Founding Fathers who did a little "risk taking" during the revolution?

[lindisfarne]

19. A good start would be paying social workers more and spending

more on social workers.

The problem isn't liberals being half-assed - it's that liberals have to fight against half-assed selfish, money=grubbing conservatives to accomplish anything. Unfortunately, we also have the Xian Americans who believe in "spare the rod-spoil the child" and the line gets mighty blurry from one slap to one hit with a belt to one hit with an iron rod.

Even more important is to change our society. Financial stress certainly contributes to some abuse. Financial stress results, in part, from a minimum wage that is an absolute joke. It also results from cutting back aid to poor parent(s) with child(ren). Surely there's a way to ensure they do some job, but also there is quality childcare available nearby. All states should ensure that all kids have good health insurance - one less thing to cause financial stress, and abuse is more likely to be noticed.

Educating people about the problem can be very effective, if they know the child will have a safe place to go. There are alternatives to foster care: old enough kids (16+ or so) could be emancipated and provided with shelter, food, and some degree of adult supervision (perhaps in small group-home situations). Family members sometimes don't take in related children (especially when there are several) because they cannot afford it - pay these family members.

Provide free contraceptives in clinics and widely publicize this - get rid of any kind of parental consent laws. Not only can you screen from STDs, you can delay a young girl having a child at too young an age.

People also need to speak out when they see a child being abused. It's often best to do so in a way that's supportive: "You must be near wits end. Can I help you?" Although I've seen parents act in ways that are more childish than the 3 year old they were parent to. But often, we are not supportive to the parents we know well - just giving them a night off by watching their children, even if the kids are monsters, can help. And sometimes, the parent needs coaching, help with parenting. Some communities do have classes for this; far more communities need to. The kids get a chance to play with other kids, and parents get a chance to talk, learn that other parents have the same problems, find out how they are dealing with the problem.

You're absolutely right about the inner-cities: we need to do away with racism and classism in the US, too. Unfortunately, we're moving more and more toward a classist society under Bush where the very rich get richer and the rest get poorer.

[oscar111]

23. many good points, Lindis. Well said

i wish i heard more DUers make those points.

[madmusic]

25. And so we are back to not enough $

And if the experts can't agree on maltreatment being a cause, the Right can resort to "They are just plain evil."

This PDF is an example. The Effects of Maltreatment and Family Structure on Minor and Serious Delinquency. And a lot of liberals really don't care anyway.

[lindisfarne]

26. We're not short $; we're spending it wrong. We're paying the price

to build and maintain prisons, rather than paying to support families with young kids and provide extra-familial support structures as they get old.

The abstract for the article you link to: (one study never proves anything but there are plenty of others which back this one up)

Abstract: This study explores the influence of maltreatment on serious violent and property delinquency as well as on minor misbehavior offenses among a sample of White male delinquents.
A recent influential study concluded that this relationship has been exaggerated and
found it to be nonexistent for serious offending after the effects of family structure were factored in. This article points out some of the deficiencies in that research and demonstrates that when both delinquency and maltreatment are measured comprehensively, the relationship is robust controlling for type of family structure, verbal IQ, family size, and birth order. Although it was found that the variables impact differentially according to the type of delinquency being examined, in every case, maltreatment was found to account for significant independent variance. It was also found that delinquents from homes broken by desertion were the most maltreated
and the most delinquent.

[madmusic]

27. Thanks. Fixed.

[Selatius]

22. Liberalism, leftism, or whatever isn't the problem

The problem is the government. People want things to be done, but the nature of our government is one of being inconstant and recalcitrant. We cannot even get our elected officials to balance the budget. If it were that easy to remove politicians and even recalcitrant parties from power, we would have done so several times over because of the government's failings in carrying out the will of the people it is supposed to represent.

Most people support things like better access to education and universal health care. The polls consistently show support around the upper 50s to low 60s, yet we are losing the first and do not have the second, and it appears we will not have either for a very long time despite popular support. What does that say about the nature of our government?

There need to be some constitutional reforms at the very least if we are to tackle societal problems at the federal level.

At this point, I am becoming more and more convinced that reforms will have to be tackled at the state and local level as a last resort given the federal government's apparent unwillingness to address serious problems like poverty and crime. Massachusetts has already moved ahead and tried to implement universal health care for all its citizens, for instance, and several states are examining it as well.

[bananas]

28. How: splice Bt into their genes, and spray heavily with Round-up

Then we will have Round-Up Ready humans,
who can eat pesticideful lettuce without fear of flatulence.

[soothsayer]

39. god i hate monsanto

why not throw some fish genes into us too, so we won't be subject to freezing, like they've done with oranages

[Random_Australian]

11. Load of shite, why do you ask?

(If you want reasons, this terms something that is not usual as bad, (by stats), which is a steaming pile of shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhit.)

[snot]

17. problem w/ eugenics is it presumes we can know what's "better".

But those with sufficient presumption to suppose they do, usually don't.

E.g., many characteristics that might appear inferior at first blush, such as paranoia, may be helpful to the species as a whole even if more often than not they're not so pleasant for the individual who carries them.

[rman]

20. eugenics is not valid.

next question

[BlueIris]

21. Thank you.

Next question indeed.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lindisfarne]

29. One should always define what one means by "eugenics" as it has

been used in some pretty negative ways.

I guess genetic counselling to avoid birth defects could be considered "improvement of human hereditary traits" in a way, but so far in the US, there aren't any laws which prohibit people from having a child, even when there is a reasonably high risk of some birth defect or hereditary disorder being passed on, so it's not a state-sanctioned form of eugenics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics has a good discussion esp. when you get down to the "modern" part.

A similar screening policy (including pre-natal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of thalassemia exists on both sides of the island of Cyprus. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero. Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of Tay-Sachs disease among certain Jewish communities, is another screening program which has drawn comparisons with eugenics. In Israel, at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose the disease before the birth of a baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs the pregnancy may be terminated, subject to consent. Most other Ashkenazi Jewish communities also run screening programmes due to the higher incidence of the disease. In some Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking (shidduch) is still practised, and in order to attempt to prevent the tragedy of infant death which always results from being homozygous for Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim (which was founded by a rabbi who lost four children to the condition in order to prevent others suffering the same tragedy) test young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on this disease or certain other fatal conditions. If both the young man and young woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it is common for the match to be broken off. Judaism, like numerous other religions, discourages abortion unless there is a risk to the mother, in which case her needs take precedence. It should also be noted that, since all those with the condition will die in infancy, these programs aim to prevent these tragedies rather than directly eradicate the gene, which is a co-incidental by-product.



I wonder what term we can assign to "improvement of human trait by cosmetic surgery".

[lindisfarne]

30. Sickle cell anemia reduces risk of contracting malaria. In US, no malaria

currently (used to be in south) so not a desirable trait. But in malaria areas, it increases your chances of survival.

Desirable genetic trait or not?

===================================
Sickle hemoglobin provides the best example of a change in the hemoglobin molecule that impairs malaria growth and development. The initial hints of a relationship between the two came with the realization that the geographical distribution of the gene for hemoglobin S and the distribution of malaria in Africa virtually overlap. A further hint came with the observation that peoples indigenous to the highland regions of the continent did not display the high expression of the sickle hemoglobin gene like their lowland neighbors in the malaria belts. Malaria does not occur in the cooler, drier climates of the highlands in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Neither does the gene for sickle hemoglobin.

Sickle trait provides a survival advantage over people with normal hemoglobin in regions where malaria is endemic. Sickle cell trait provides neither absolute protection nor invulnerability to the disease. Rather, people (and particularly children) infected with P. falciparum are more likely to survive the acute illness if they have sickle cell trait. When these people with sickle cell trait procreate, both the gene for normal hemoglobin and that for sickle hemoglobin are transmitted into the next generation.
http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html

[NMMNG]

31. Eugenics,

whatever it's used to "explain", or whomever it's used to promote sanctions against, is nothing more than a festering load of excrement.

[lindisfarne]

34. Genetic counselling and choosing not to have a child because both

parents carry a gene for a disease, etc. is considered a form of eugenics.

It's a poor name given the historical connotations but it is used. Thus my message saying it's important to define what you mean when you use the term ... the OP was a bit unclear.

Read the wikipedia article.

[madmusic]

47. That Black Stork

Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915

It started understandably enough. The book begins:

The Public Death of Baby Bollinger

At 40:00 A.M., November 12, 1915, in Chicago's German-American Hospital, Anna Bollinger gave birth to a seven-pound baby boy. Dr. Climena Serviss, who delivered the infant, quickly awakened Dr. Harry J. Haiselden, the surgeon who headed the hospital staff. Haiselden diagnosed multiple physical anomalies in the infant, including absence of a neck and one ear, deformities of the shoulders and chest, very slow reaction of the pupils to light, and an imperforate anus. X rays reveals prematurely hardened skull and leg bones, and a membrane blocking the lower bowel, although the digestive tract seemed otherwise normal. The rectum extended to within half an inch of the surface. Haiselden concluded that surgery could correct the intestinal defects and thus save the infant's life, but that gross physical and mental abnormalities would remain, and he urged the parents not to request an operation. The Bollingers agreed, and five days later the baby died.

It is difficult to fault to doctor or the parents. The child would suffer until death and the parents would suffer with him. But Martin S. Pernick goes on to write about the slippery slope of later eugenics and the propaganda used through film, some of it straight from Germany after they started their eugenics program.

EDIT typo

[NMMNG]

48. I'm familiar with the wikipedia article

I've cited it before when discussing the eugenics movement. I work with adults who have developmental disabilities and adults who have mental illnesses, populations which have fallen victim to the efforts of the eugenics movement in the not to distant past.

Genetic counseling and choosing not to have a child based on the carrying of a particular gene may be forms of eugenics. However they are not the same as forced sterilizations, forced abortions, imprisonments, institutionalizations, neglect/abuse, segregation, allowing people to die and outright genocide. The former are non-invasive and non-harmful acts done with the consent of the applicable parties. The latter are not.

[GeorgeGist]

32. Since neither are trained geneticists...

or biologists, phuck em.

[Kailassa]

33. Of course I want to live in Clone World.

We'd all be so happy, proud to be ideal slaves for our wonderful masters.

Reactive G/Er refers to the way parents, teachers, siblings, peers, and workmates react to the evocative behavior of the person. Behavior is not only shaped by how others treat us. It is shaped by our own temperaments and personalities that incline us to behave in certain ways, which, in turn, shape how others react to us. People will react quite differently to an irritable and impulsive child than they will to a pleasant and compliant child, and these reactions will serve to reinforce their respective inclinations. It is in this way that what may be small initial genetic differences among people are be magnified into quite large phenotypic differences (Dickens & Flynn, 2001).

I've watched a lot of kids grow up, and seen that the "difficult" kids, the irritable and impulsive ones, often have high potentials.
They are a bigger challenge to parents, sure, but they can grow to be leaders and fighters for change.

Imagine a world where all children were bred to be pleasant and compliant. :puke:

[lindisfarne]

36. Isn't that ritalin/medicated ADHD world? A bit tongue in cheek but we

do overmedicate.

[madmusic]

50. You joke, they are serious

THE MOFFIT DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY OF CRIME

Although the number of early starters in the population of interest may only amount to 5-10% of the total, such children and adolescents usually account for more than 50% of referrals to authorities and mental health services. Their behavior is disruptive not only to authorities, but to their peers, and for this reason, they experience significant amounts of peer rejection. Not only does this limit their chances for "getting ahead" on the basis of normal, lasting relationships, but their poor interpersonal or social skills are combined with three other prominent features, as follows, and discussed in separate paragraphs below:

* hyperactive-impulsive-attention problems
* conduct problems
* below-average intelligence or low-IQ

The first feature -- attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- refers to a complex set of behaviors characterized by three central features: (1) excessive motor activity (cannot sit still, fidgets, runs about, is talkative and noisy); (2) impulsivity (acts before thinking, shifts quickly from one activity to another, interrupts others, does not consider consequences of behavior); and (3) inattention (does not seem to listen, is easily distracted, loses things necessary for essential tasks). ADHS should not be confused with ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) which has the following cluster of symptoms: (1) arguing with adults; (2) refusing adults' requests; (3) deliberately trying to annoy others; (4) blaming others for mistakes; and (5) being spiteful or vindictive (Kosson et. al. 2002). ADHS afflicts as many as 20% of American school-age children, boys more than girls (by a ratio of 9:1), and blacks more than other ethnic groups, for debatable reasons ranging from speculations about genetic predisposition to the possibility of exposure to hazardous toxins in black communities. Many people afflicted with ADHD never "outgrow" it, and theories about the continuity of learning disabilities into adulthood are also controversial. The most common treatment is methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin, but it has mixed effects, and a successful treatment regimen for ADHD has yet to be found.

Conduct problems refer to the variety of symptoms found in the diagnostic category of Conduct Disorder (CD), and among delinquent youth, these are usually "co-occurring psychopathologies" that exist between one or more of these symptoms and ADHD symptoms. In fact, Bartol & Bartol (2004) report on research indicating that as many as 50% of disruptive children exhibit having the symptoms of CD half the time and the symptoms of ADHD the other half of the time. According to the APA, the central feature of CD is a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that violates the rights of others, and early-onset CD generally begins before age 10. Symptoms of CD include stealing, fire setting, running away, truancy, destroying property, fighting, telling lies on a frequent basis, and being cruel to animals and people. It is the consensus of scholars that conduct disorder (CD) is roughly the juvenile equivalent of adult antisocial personality disorder. Conduct disorder typically gets worse as the child gets older, and it is often misdiagnosed as a learning disability (because there are frequent problems with school assignments) whereas someone with a "true" learning disability may not be conduct-disordered. CD afflicts about 16% of the male population and about 9% of the female population. (bold is mine)

Below-average intelligence or low IQ refers to a lower cognitive ability and slow language development that, at times, is called by other names, such as "neuropsychological dysfunction" or impairment of "executive functioning." Low IQ is strongly associated with an early age of onset for Conduct Disorder (CD) and has a relationship to delinquency which holds even when socioeconomic status (SES) is controlled for. An 8 to 10 point difference is usually found on any standard intelligence test comparing delinquents with nondelinquents (see http://faculty.ncwc.edu/TOConnor/301/301lect04.htm">Lecture on Mental Deficiency and Crime). There are some interesting findings regarding ethnic differences in how low-IQ is related to delinquency, as low-IQ whites tend to follow a "susceptibility" pathway to the typical personality disorders, and low-IQ minorities (blacks, Latinos, and Asians) tend to follow a "school failure" (being held back) pathway to lower "emotional intelligence" which results in decreased empathy and violent misreading of emotional cues from others.



http://faculty.ncwc.edu/TOConnor/301/301lect06a.htm

So we have born criminals and we can predict who will be maybe by age 10. This guy is a Associate Professor of Justice Studies (Bachelors degree) and Applied Criminology and he teaches. Anyone who browses his site and has studied eugenics will get a heavy duty daja vu feeling. For example, click on his "Lecture on Mental Deficiency and Crime" link. I've searched for the new Eugenics Record Office, but with email and symposiums, that is the wrong way to look for it. It's everywhere within a segment of the criminology community, as it was during the Progressive Era, from Cold Springs Harbor to San Diego, California. But it's back.

[lindisfarne]

51. Psychology/ Neuroscience/ Medical studies & research don't support these

sorts of conclusions.

The right wing is quite good at spinning things, taking bits and pieces of legitimate research and then making completely unjustified conclusions based on them, which look valid only to people who don't have much of a background.

But by giving people a garbage education and teaching them to regurgitate (=standardized tests and evaluation by multiple choice exams) instead of think critically, we in the US have produced a population that can't tell the difference.

[no_hypocrisy]

35. Do you trust the government to set the criteria of whose genes are

inferior as per its prejudices? The eugenics movement, which received its validation through Oliver Wendell Holmes and the Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell, cast a wide net which caught mentally competent and physically fit (but fertile) individuals who happened to be poor and on government assistance (and thus a "drag on the system"). They were sterilized in adolescence, lied to about being sterilized, released back into the public, and could not understand why they couldn't start a family years later. The Lynchburg "Training School" (yeah, like Jerry Falwell) for decades was the epicenter for sterilizing individuals deemed "unfit". All you need is one board member and ANY ONE can be compelled by the government to be taken into custody and sterilized. This is the heart of the eugenics movement.

[lindisfarne]

37. Eugenics has a broad meaning (not all negative): genetic counselling

and choosing not to have a child because there is a good chance the child will have some disease, etc. is a form of eugenics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics has a lot of detail.

Too bad they don't choose another word.

[lindisfarne]

38. double post

[Zynx]

40. Not only no, but hell no.

When people start picking and choosing traits rather than allowing the randomness that nature offers, we are in serious trouble.

[Toots]

41. That explains Rush Limbaugh I guess

:shrug:

[nebenaube]

42. More psychobabble from the unqualified...

Those who study criminology should not bother with the hard sciences, they just don't have to temperament. Eugenics is evil and it's a short downhill, slippery path to the gas chambers (showers) from this standpoint.

[BlooInBloo]

43. Gotta love DU sometimes... Wow.

[Marr]

45. Well, I've got to admit. We could've bred alot of crime out of our society

if someone had been willing to neuter Bush's great great grandfather.

[bobthedrummer]

46. We already have a 21st century version of the Third Reich's Enabling

Acts since the criminal George W. Bush administration was installed.

They just don't use phrases like "life unworthy of life" or "ubermensch/untermensch" but the extremists aren't replacing the ideology supporting genocide.

[madmusic]

49. Ideology: Criminology's Achilles' Heel?

This study, by the same person who did the above review, concludes that most criminologists, be they liberal, feminist, radical, moderate or conservative, agree most on Moffitt's developmental theory, whatever that is, though it is new in the last 10 years or so. It is interesting how Walsh frames the study and how he words it. For example, there isn't anything on the right that is the antonym of "radical," though we might call it "freeper."

The ideological divide in criminology lies primarily between criminologists
who focus on strictly environmentalist theories that give short shrift to individual differences, and those who focus on individual differences and wish to integrate insights from the biological sciences into criminology. The former tend to be radicals and liberals and the latter tend to be conservatives and moderates (Wright & Miller, 1998).

Orlando Patterson (1998:ix) asserts that conservatives believe that only "the proximate internal cultural and behavioral factors are important ('So stop whining and pull up your socks, man!')," and "liberals and mechanistic radicals" believe that "only the proximate and external factors are worth considering ('Stop blaming the victim, racist'!)." Patterson's observation is
reminiscent of the ancient Indian parable of the blind men feeling the elephant, each man describing the elephant according to the part of its anatomy he had felt, but failing to appreciate and integrate the views of the others who felt different parts. Because of this failure, the men fell
into dispute and departed in anger, each convinced of the utter stupidity, and perhaps even the malevolence, of the others.

Source:

Ideology in Criminology (PDF).

HTML

EDIT: fixed paste