"Throughout the past 30 or 40 years most criminologists couldn’t say the word ‘genetics’ without spitting."

"Today the most compelling modern theories of crime and violence weave social and biological themes together.”

What caused the subsidence of the formidable fear of anything that sounds like eugenics? Is it the discovery that genes "express themselves differently depending on the environment"? There's the report of a study with "the astonishing result":

In boys not exposed to the risk factors, genetics played no role in any of their violent behavior. The positive environment had prevented the genetic switches — to use Mr. Pinker’s word — that affect aggression from being turned on. In boys with eight or more risk factors, however, genes explained 80 percent of their violence. Their switches had been flipped.

If genes seal an individual's fate, we don't even want to hear about it. But if genes merely create risks, and society can "flip the switch" off, then the research supports all sorts of policies and spending programs to avert the risk. With this new twist, there is support for the research.

By the way, I'm never astonished by research that yields the result that research ought to continue in a direction that government will fund because it tends to show that more government is needed.

IN THE COMMENTS: kimsch said:

Do they really want to go there? This research could also imply that sexual orientation could be genetic but turned "on or off" depending on "risk factors"...