A team of criminologist not well versed in genetics used a genome - wide associa

Question

A team of criminologist not well versed in genetics used a genome - wide association study to examine the roots of criminal behaviour. they investigated 3,000 adults sibling pairs with decreasing proportions of shared genomes: MZ twins (100 percent), DZ twins (50 percent), non-twin siblings (50 percent), half siblings (25 percent), and first cousins (12.5 percent). A "delinquency scale" ranked participants admission of such escaltion behaviors as painting graffiti, lying to parents, running away, and stealing. the researchers also classified participants by whether they considered themselves to be "life course persistents" (LCP), who have been bad since childhood or "adolescence limited" (AL) people, who have behaved badly. the researchers discovered mostly what they expected: the closer the genetics relationship, the more alike the scores on the deliquency scale. they concluded that genetic factors explained 56-70 percent of the variance for lifelong criminals but only 35 percent for the teen only type. how is the media headline reporting the study - Life of crime is a genes, study claims" - an oversimplication? what do you think the results of the investigation indicate about inheriting criminality.

#1. Why is the media headline an oversimplification?

#2. What does data suggest about the heritibility of criminality?

Explanation / Answer

1] Any two human genomes differ in millioms of different ways. There are small variations in the individual nucleotides of genomes [ SNPs] as well as many larger variations such as insertions, deletions and copy number variations . Any of these might cause alterations in individual traits or phenotypes. Moreover , criminality is not only genetic . In fact the environment in which an individual is brought up also plays a very important role in the development of behaviour patterns. A child brought up with high moral values will not commit crimes even if one or both of his parents might have been criminals. We get numerous examples of such cases. Perhaps , this is why courts are extra careful in handing the custody of a child in cases where parents are getting separated or divorced. The court looks into which parent can give a better environment for the child to develop.

So, the media headline is an oversimplification of the intricacies which go into the development of a child.

2] According to the data, it seems that the closer the genetic relationship between two individuals, the greater is the similarity in their behaviour pattern. So, according to the research data, genes play a great role in development of criminality in a person i.e the tendency towards criminal behaviour is inheritable.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse A
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.