The Future of Criminology | Brian Boutwell | TEDxSaintLouisUniversity

Summary

The speaker argues that criminology has been misguided by an overemphasis on environmental factors in explaining crime, neglecting genetic influences. Citing studies on identical twins and adopted children, the talk suggests that genetics play a significant role in human traits, including criminal behavior. The speaker advocates for a biosocial approach to criminology, integrating biology and social sciences, to improve treatments and prevention strategies, leading to a more effective and humane criminal justice system.

Takeaways

• 🩸 The speaker acknowledges the need for a 'bloodletting' in the field of criminology to address deep-rooted problems.
• 🌐 The issues within criminology are not isolated but have spread to other social sciences like sociology, psychology, and economics.
• 🧬 The traditional approach to studying crime has been to focus solely on environmental factors, neglecting genetic and biological influences.
• 🔍 The speaker argues that scientists should be open to changing their views in light of new evidence, but this is not always the case.
• 🤔 The historical figure Cesare Lombroso is mentioned as someone who considered both biology and environment in understanding crime, despite being now largely discredited.
• 🧬🌿 The speaker emphasizes that both genetic factors and environment contribute to phenotypic variation, including behaviors like criminality.
• 👥 Research on identical twins raised apart and adopted children raised together provides evidence that genes play a significant role in behavior.
• 🧬 A meta-analysis of twin studies across 39 countries showed that all human traits are heritable, challenging the notion that environment is the sole predictor of behavior.
• 🔍 The speaker points out that ignoring genetic factors in social science research can lead to incorrect conclusions about cause and effect.
• 🛤️ Criminology is at a crossroads and must decide whether to continue with the status quo or embrace a bio-social approach to study crime.
• 🌟 The future of criminology lies in becoming a bio-social science, integrating fields like behavioral genetics, molecular genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology.

Q & A

What is the main issue discussed in the talk?

The main issue discussed in the talk is the outdated guiding principle in criminology that focuses solely on environmental factors when searching for the causes of crime, neglecting the role of genetics and biological factors.

What does the speaker suggest is the solution to the problem in criminology?

The speaker suggests that the solution is to integrate biology and genetics into criminology, making it a bio-social science to better understand the causes of crime.

Why does the speaker mention other social sciences?

The speaker mentions other social sciences because the problem of neglecting biological factors is not confined to criminology but has also affected sociology, psychology, and economics.

What is the significance of Cesare Lombroso's work in the context of the talk?

Cesare Lombroso's work is significant because he believed that both biology and environment mattered in understanding crime, which aligns with the speaker's argument for a bio-social approach in criminology.

What is the thought experiment the speaker asks the audience to consider?

The thought experiment is to imagine cloning two individuals and placing them in different environments to see how similar or different they are after decades, highlighting the impact of genetics versus environment.

What does the speaker find fascinating about identical twins raised apart?

The speaker finds it fascinating that identical twins raised apart are remarkably similar in intellect, personality, and even small idiosyncrasies, suggesting a strong genetic influence.

Why does the speaker's personal experience with adoption resonate with the research on adopted children?

The speaker's personal experience resonates because he and his adopted brother were raised in the same environment but had significant differences in personality, intellect, and interests, illustrating the impact of genetics.

What was the groundbreaking finding of the meta-analysis published in Nature Genetics?

The meta-analysis found that all human traits are heritable, with no trait having a weighted heritability estimate of zero, indicating that genetics plays a role in all human characteristics.

What is the potential consequence of ignoring genetic factors in social science research?

Ignoring genetic factors can lead to incorrect conclusions about cause and effect, making research findings unreliable and potentially leading to a confounded understanding of human behavior.

Why is it crucial for criminology to embrace a bio-social approach according to the speaker?

Embracing a bio-social approach is crucial because it allows criminology to adapt to the changing scientific landscape, improve treatments, prevention efforts, and rehabilitation strategies, leading to a more humane criminal justice system.

What challenges does the speaker foresee for biosocial criminology?

The speaker foresees that biosocial criminology will encounter pitfalls and challenges, such as needing to course-correct and navigate potential objections, but believes that these are part of the scientific process and that the direction is correct.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 The Issue with Traditional Criminology

The speaker begins by acknowledging that the first part of the talk might be uncomfortable, as it will challenge the current paradigm in criminology. Traditionally, criminology has focused on environmental factors as the primary drivers of crime, relegating biological factors like genetics and hormones to a secondary role. This approach has been ingrained in the discipline for decades and is taught to students. However, the speaker suggests that this guiding principle is outdated and incorrect. They argue that scientists, who are supposed to be open to new evidence, sometimes resist changing their views, leading to stagnation in the field. The speaker also points out that the problem is not confined to criminology but has spread to other social sciences. They introduce the idea that both genetic and environmental factors are crucial in understanding crime, using the example of identical twins raised apart to illustrate the significant role of genetics.

05:02

🧬 The Power of Genetics in Human Traits

The speaker shares their personal journey of understanding the role of genetics in human behavior, starting with the surprising similarities between identical twins raised apart. They then contrast this with their own experience of being adopted and noticing the differences between themselves and their adoptive brother, despite growing up in the same environment. This leads to a discussion about a groundbreaking study published in Nature Genetics, which found that all human traits have a heritable component. The speaker emphasizes the importance of considering genetic factors in social science research, as ignoring them can lead to incorrect conclusions about cause and effect. They argue that much of the existing knowledge in criminology could be flawed due to unmeasured genetic influences.

10:04

🛤️ The Future Path for Criminology

In the final paragraph, the speaker outlines the critical decision point that criminology faces. They warn against continuing with the status quo, which they believe will lead to obsolescence and failure to adapt to new scientific advancements. Instead, they advocate for embracing biosocial sciences, including behavioral genetics, molecular genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. The speaker argues that criminology must become a bio-social science to survive and thrive. They suggest that this approach will lead to better treatments, prevention efforts, and rehabilitation strategies, ultimately resulting in a more humane criminal justice system. Despite acknowledging the potential challenges and difficulties, the speaker remains optimistic about the direction forward, likening it to a compass pointing true north, even though the path may be fraught with obstacles.

Keywords

💡Criminology

Criminology is the scientific study of crime, criminal behavior, and the criminal justice system. It seeks to understand the causes of crime and develop strategies for crime prevention and control. In the video, the speaker critiques the traditional focus of criminology on environmental factors and calls for a more comprehensive approach that includes biological and genetic factors.

💡Environmental Factors

Environmental factors refer to external influences on an individual's behavior, such as social processes, education, poverty, and upbringing. The speaker points out that criminology has historically emphasized these factors as the primary drivers of criminal behavior, often overlooking genetic influences.

💡Genetic Factors

Genetic factors are the inherited characteristics from one's parents that can influence traits and behaviors. The video argues that genetic factors play a significant role in criminal behavior, a perspective that has been undervalued in traditional criminology.

💡Phenotypic Variation

Phenotypic variation refers to the observable differences in traits among individuals within a population, such as height, weight, and behavior. The video explains that these variations are the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

💡Identical Twins

Identical twins are siblings who share the same genetic material. The video discusses research on identical twins raised apart, which shows remarkable similarities in their traits and behaviors, suggesting a strong genetic influence.

💡Adopted Children

Adopted children are raised in a family where they do not share genetic material with their adoptive parents. The video uses the speaker's personal experience with his adopted brother to illustrate the differences in traits despite a shared environment, highlighting the importance of genetic factors.

💡Behavioral Genetics

Behavioral genetics is the study of how genetic and environmental factors interact to influence behavior. The video suggests that incorporating behavioral genetics into criminology can lead to a more accurate understanding of the causes of criminal behavior.

💡Molecular Genetics

Molecular genetics is the study of the structure, function, and behavior of the genetic material at the molecular level. The video implies that advancements in molecular genetics can provide insights into the genetic basis of criminal behavior.

💡Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that examines behavior through the lens of evolutionary biology. It seeks to understand how进化心理 is relevant to the video's theme as it provides a framework for understanding behaviors, including criminal tendencies, as adaptations to ancestral environments.

💡Biosocial Criminology

Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary approach that integrates biological and social factors to explain crime. The video advocates for biosocial criminology as the future of criminology, suggesting that it will lead to more effective treatments, prevention strategies, and a more humane criminal justice system.

💡Heritability

Heritability is a measure of the proportion of variation in a trait that can be attributed to genetic differences. The video cites a study that found all human traits to be heritable, challenging the notion that environmental factors are the sole or primary cause of criminal behavior.

Highlights

The science of crime has been guided by the belief that environmental factors are the primary causes of crime.

The speaker argues that this guiding principle is outdated and incorrect.

Criminology students are taught that the environment is the sole determinant of criminal behavior.

Identical twins raised apart show remarkable similarity in traits, challenging the environmental determinism theory.

The speaker shares a personal anecdote about being raised with an adopted brother to illustrate genetic differences.

A meta-analysis of twin studies across 39 countries shows that all human traits are heritable.

Ignoring genetic factors in social science research can lead to incorrect conclusions about cause and effect.

The speaker calls for criminology to become a bio-social science to avoid obsolescence.

Bio-social criminology offers tools to advance the field into a golden age of science.

Criminology must adapt to incorporate behavioral genetics, molecular genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology.

Refining our understanding of crime's causes will lead to improved treatments and prevention strategies.

The speaker compares the journey of biosocial criminology to a compass, acknowledging potential challenges ahead.

The potential benefits of biosocial criminology are vast and affect everyone.

The speaker emphasizes that there is no reason not to embrace bio-social sciences.

The talk concludes with a call to action for criminology to evolve and incorporate biological factors.

Transcripts

the first part of the talk is going to

feel a bit like a bloodletting right but

it's a bloodletting with a purpose

because the problems that face our

discipline admit of a solution and by

the end of the talk I'll tell you what

that solution is but along the way other

fields should pay attention because the

malady that plagues our discipline has

it been quarantined to our borders it's

bled over into sociology psychology

economics all branches of the social

sciences

luckily the remedy for us is the same as

the remedy for them so what's the

problem well for decade upon decade now

the science of crime has been guided by

a single edict when you're searching for

the causes of crime

you should look only amongst the

environment things like genes brains

hormones whatever effect those things

may have they come second to social

processes educational attainment poverty

this has been the guiding force of our

field it's what we teach our students

even this very semester now along the

way I'm going to talk about some reasons

why that guiding edict is outmoded and

wrong but surely if there's any amongst

us who can change their mind who can

pivot to a new direction when presented

with new evidence it must be scientists

unfortunately that's not always the case

as the famous physicist max plunk once

pimply remarked science advances one

funeral at a time see the problem is

once certain dogmas and dogmatic people

root themselves into the field of

particular scientific field it often

does take as plunks suggested a string

of eulogies to dislodge

now in a bit of plunky and irony one of

the founding fathers of Criminology

italian physician Cesare Lombroso also

believed that biology and the

environment mattered when you're trying

to understand where crime comes from but

in the wake of Lombroso eulogy came not

in advance but a regression he's now our

fields laughingstock Lombroso

unfortunately for him was both ahead of

his time and a product of it many of his

ideas about crime were wrong but he was

asking the right question why are people

different and is the question we're

still asking today and lucky luckily for

us it's an elegantly simple question

that we can put into an equation and

solve to get the right answer and it's

the only equation in the talk I promise

so if we're interested in why people

differ all right we can look no further

than these two factors if we're trying

to explain phenotypic variation so

variation the things we can see hair

color eye color height weight behavior

personality that variation is a product

of genetic factors and the environment

taken together these two factors genes

and our experiences explain why

individuals in the population are taller

than each other shorter than each other

more outgoing more personable and even

more violent and aggressive but this is

not the equation that criminology

students learn this is the equation that

criminology students learn the

environment is all that matters this is

the one I was taught and for so very

long I was convinced that this had to be

an accurate reflection of the world but

that started to unravel and so I want to

tell you a bit about how that happened

so I want you to do a thought experiment

with me imagine that we could clone two

individuals make them identical to each

other

and put them in different environments

from birth even and then decades down

the road after they had time to develop

we could examine them see how similar or

how different they are now for a wealth

of reasons both ethical and practical we

can't run this experiment but as luck

would have it nature and some rare

circumstances have allowed us to examine

just this type of research question and

that comes in the form of identical

twins raised apart after being separated

at birth as it turns out these

individuals are remarkably similar to

each other not just in their intellect

and personality but even the small

idiosyncrasies that we feel like make us

uniquely us these individuals often had

in common now this was a big development

for me and very fascinating but the the

research point that really stuck in my

mind was the mirror opposite of

identical twins separated at Birth and

reared apart and it had to do with

research pertaining to adopted children

raised together these individuals share

no DNA in common

only an environment now the reason this

struck home was because I lived that

research design my brother and I were

adopted at a very young age and with the

benefit of hindsight I can look back and

see all of the differences between us

that were always there brothers in every

sense of the word except in the

biological sense we loved each other

deeply but our personalities our

intellects our interest in our hobbies

very different despite decades together

in the same home this was a bit like

tumbling down a rabbit hole all of the

information I had been taught the

equation that I was led to believe

explained all of the human differences

we observed in the science of crime it

didn't seem to hold anymore but surely

there were some things that were beyond

the reach of genes something well that

belief unraveled entirely for anyone

still holding it

this past year in one of the most

remarkable papers I have ever seen

published in the journal Nature Genetics

and I want to tell you just briefly what

these valiant researchers found so

meta-analysis which is just a large

study of a bunch of studies and this

particular meta-analysis examined twins

we've conducted a meta-analysis of

virtually all twin studies published in

the past 50 years on a wide range of

traits and reporting on more than 14

million twin pairs across 39 different

countries a truly Herculean undertaking

so what did they find

our results provide compelling evidence

that all human traits are heritable not

one trait had a weighted heritability

estimate of zero now just let that wash

across your synapses for a second there

is virtually nothing that is beyond the

reach of genes now why does this matter

for criminology or psychology or

sociology or any other branch of the

social sciences well to understand why

let's look at a basic social science

research design so these boxes are

variables right things that we think

predict one another calls in effect if

you will so perhaps as a psychologist

we're interested in whether or not

corporal punishment or spanking

influences behavioral problems it'd be a

very reasonable guess there is a

mountain of evidence to support it

perhaps as criminologist we're

interested in whether parenting effects

influence criminal behavior later on in

development again a good guess is a

mountain of evidence suggesting that

these two things correlate with each

other in the correlation certainly seems

causal but here's what we often ignore

it genes and we've just seen good

evidence that genetic effects are

pervasive and here's the problem what

happens if they're there

and we don't look for them and we don't

control for them well in 2014 my

colleagues and I wanted to examine that

question and a study led by my good

friend dr. JC Barnes we examine the so

what if you will of genetic effects what

if they're there so what do they matter

well as it turns out if genes influence

the traits that you're interested in and

you ignore them it matters in fact in

inject just a little bit of unmeasured

genetic influence into your study and

all of the sudden your findings will

look very different and in some cases

what seems like cause and effect it's

just an illusion it goes away

now we should note that as a discipline

we've been trying very hard for decades

now we've amassed an incredible amount

of knowledge regarding what correlates

with crime but that issue of unmeasured

genetic influence that I just talked

about what that means

in reality is that all of the knowledge

we're sitting on could very well be one

huge confounded mess until all of the

studies are redone using designs like

twin studies that can pull apart genetic

and environmental influence we have no

idea what they mean now as a field we've

come to yogi Berra's famous fork in the

road we have to make a decision two

paths are presented to us now one is the

status quo we can move ahead we can do

our research publish our findings fund

our grants teach our students win awards

maybe even influence a policy or two but

that would be disastrous and I'll tell

you why because going down that path

will mean obsolescence

it will mean that we fail to adapt to a

changing scientific landscape and even

worse it could mean extinction as other

fields that are less hostile to biology

race past us in the study of crime so

what next

there aren't many biosocial

criminologists in the world and I think

it's fair to say that we are not well

regarded amongst the larger constituency

of criminology but the tools that we

offer and the tools that we use on a

daily basis come with it or bring with

it the advantage of being able to

catapult ourselves into a golden age of

science the new sciences of human

behavior or rather of human nature

behavioral genetics molecular genetics

neuroscience and evolutionary psychology

are the answer to the question of where

we need to go next

criminology simply must be a bio social

science if it hopes to survive now why

does that matter

more broadly well as we refine our

knowledge of where crime comes from our

treatments will improve our prevention

efforts will get better our

rehabilitation strategies will become

ever more effective honing in on the

true causes of crime will lead

inexorably to a more humane criminal

justice system just like honing in on

the two causes of diseases has led

inexorably to a more humane and more

effective science of Medicine so what

are the benefits everything and who

benefits everyone there's simply no

reason not to be a bio social science

now is this guaranteed to be an easy

road and it sounds all very rosy right

now but it's not guaranteed to be an

easy path and it's oscar-winning

portrayal of President Lincoln Daniel

day-lewis uses the analogy of a compass

a compass can point you true north but

it can offer you no advice about the

chasms and the swamps and the deserts

that you inevitably will encounter along

the way biosocial criminology will

encounter some pitfalls we will have to

course-correct

but that's the nature of any science so

there's no guarantee of an easy path

there's no guarantee that we won't

encounter swamps and chasms and deserts

but despite all of that despite all of

the potential problems at least we'll be

headed north thank

you