A Neuroscientist Uncovers A Dark Secret | Hacker News Reader

A Neuroscientist Uncovers A Dark Secret

npr.org

97 pointsAaronontheweb38 comments

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.

> 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.

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?

Thanks for the thought provoking discourse.

You make a solid point. My analogy was certainly over-simplified.

It's interesting how some assertions sound good on the surface but have greater implications when you start to really dig deeper into it.

HN-quality reply.

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.

Good analysis. How do your observations apply in the case you mention in passing, i.e. the case of much (dare I say most) human conflict (be it political or otherwise) which has little or nothing to do with any objective truth?

You use "answer" and "truth" interchangeably, are they the same in all cases?

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.

Don't forget the size and homogeneity of the governed.

Should small people be governed different than tall people?

(Sorry, could not resist.)

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

The Overton Window seems relevant here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

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.

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"

Here are the research articles about the effects of oxytocin on human social behavior: Trust: http://www.socialbehavior.unizh.ch/static/home/heinrichs/dow... 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.).

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?

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.....

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

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

Reminds me of Minority Report.

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.

Much more like Gattaca, in my opinion. Minority Report was about fate and crime, whereas Gattaca was about potential (and the implications for fate and crime).

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.

"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.

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?"

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.

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.

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...

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"

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.

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

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.

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

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

Would you still value civil liberties then?

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.

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.).

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.

I still don't understand what you are trying to say. We already have laws dealing with mental illness. If a person is determined to be an imminent danger to themselves or others, we act proactively to treat them. I don't think that is particularly controversial, provided the assessment is competent, objective, and has a high standard.

It's clear that few people fall into this category, since most people navigate life fine without being committed. "Having serial killer genes" does not and will never qualify.

Don't liberals hold...

I really hope you learn that saying things like this points out to people that you are willing to stereotype a huge number of people of whom you are completely ignorant. Also, there wasn't really an issue here. It was a human interest/science story about a scientist learning he is similar to the people that he has studied. Interesting story without an issue being focused on.

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

Do they? There are several definitions of "liberal" out there, but none of them appear to match up with what you are saying.

A classical liberal is certainly in favor of civil liberties. Science? Maybe, maybe not.

By the American definition, liberals tend to be in favor of some kind of liberties, but often favor strong government controls and intervention in the economic sphere.

And science? I imagine that acceptance of the scientific consensus on global climate change trends liberal in the U.S. On the other hand, I imagine use of homeopathy and other unproven "alternative" therapies does, too.

On the gripping hand, I really couldn't say what they mean by "liberal" in Canada.

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

And genetics, yes. This is something be careful about.

I didn't realize either of those things were exclusive to any one part of the political spectrum. Assuming you're talking about US politics, I'm fairly certain it'd be safe to say a belief in civil liberties is an American value across the political spectrum ("we hold these truths to be self evident"... etc).

And anyone with a brain "believes" in science..

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