Heredity angle

Discuss the September 2015 book of the month Defending Jacob by William Landay
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Jausten11
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Re: Heredity angle

Post by Jausten11 »

As a Biology Teacher by day, I understand how there would be other underlying factors that were genetic, leading one to murder. Though I do agree that it wasn't realistic. Loved the book either way.
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stoppoppingtheP
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Post by stoppoppingtheP »

Yes, I definitely agree that a person cannot have a murder gene.

“there have been so many times
i have seen a man wanting to weep
but
instead
beat his heart until it was unconscious.

-masculine”


― Nayyirah Waheed
Morgan_Malone
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Post by Morgan_Malone »

While I do believe that people can be genetically predisposed to being violent or having psychopathic traits this does not mean at all that the person has to be a murderer. There are statistically many people who classify as psychopaths who live normal nonviolent, crime free lives. So to me the idea that you can say someone is a murderer because they have this certain gene is ridiculous.
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Sarah_Khan
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Post by Sarah_Khan »

I don't believe it's 100% crap, I think a lot of who we are comes from our genes and probably more than we would like to admit. But there are also people who have parents that are murderers and they don't turn out to be murderers so I think it's kind of a combination of a lot of things. So genes do play some role.
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Dominik_G
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Post by Dominik_G »

Although I do believe there might be a genetic factor behind psychopathic and/or homicidal traits, I also believe that simply those do not guarantee that someone will actually turn out to be a murderer, and being convicted solely based on the presence of certain genes is legally not possible - absolutely rightly so, in my opinion. I actually thought this whole story line was a little unrealistic and too much.
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Onyinyechi Obi
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Post by Onyinyechi Obi »

All in all, I find it astounding how far science has progressed. They can identify a single genetic strand that carries a single trait that has been passed down through the generations. At first, I thought it was interesting, but as the book went on, my eyes began to glaze over.
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