Genetics Intelligent Design

Oh, not this again! Efforts to prove that criminality is genetic

Spread the love

This time using big data. Say what you want about them, they’re serious: Not sure if these people are “Darwinists,” as the title implies, but they sure place a lot of faith in outmoded ideas about genetics:

Machine-learning algorithms have recently experienced an explosion of uses, some legitimate and others problematic. Still others are downright racist. Several recent examples promise governments and private companies the ability to glean private information from people’s appearances alone. Stanford University researchers have constructed a “gaydar” algorithm that they claim can differentiate straight and gay faces far more accurately than people can.

The researchers claim that their results are consistent with the “prenatal hormone theory” – an idea supposing that fetal exposure to high levels of male sex hormones called androgens helps to determine sexual orientation. Why they assumed high levels of male hormones would determine homosexuality was not clear. The researchers cite this “much-contested claim” that these hormone exposures also result in gender-atypical faces.[9] The problem is, rather than producing objective insights, artificial intelligence (AI) programs often reinforce human biases. These biases, if trusted in practice, can harm already marginalized populations.[10]

One example can be found in China: “University students taking online exams monitored by proctoring algorithms not only have to answer the questions, but also maintain the appearance of a student who is not cheating.” Unfortunately for the students, these algorithms reportedly often make false accusations against minority students, such as those with disabilities who move their faces and hands in atypical ways. Black or dark-skinned students have been required to work under bright lights to have their relevant features more detectable.[11] The most egregious example is the attempt to read faces to identify “criminal types”

Jerry Bergman, “Darwinists Still Attempting to Prove Criminality is Genetic” at Creation Evolution Headlines

Claimed findings from such algorithms are generally bunk. With a large enough database, you can find pretty much any conclusion you want and that is exactly what many researchers do. See, for example, an interview with one of the authors of the The Phantom Pattern Problem (Oxford, October 1, 2020) here.

7 Replies to “Oh, not this again! Efforts to prove that criminality is genetic

  1. 1
    polistra says:

    No need to prove a well-known fact. Criminality, like all other human tastes and talents and tendencies, is partly innate and partly learned. Professional criminals are NOT THE SAME as ordinary people who get involved in criminal activities under peer pressure. Everyone who has been in jail knows this. Every competent policeman knows this.

  2. 2
    polistra says:

    When you contradict this simple fact, you’re taking the Woke side of the argument. You’re saying that human tendencies are just voluntary Identities that can be put on or removed like hats. Gender doesn’t work that way. Math talent doesn’t work that way. Music talent doesn’t work that way. Criminal talent doesn’t work that way.

  3. 3
    BobRyan says:

    Darwinists do not believe in free will. A person has no more choice of committing a crime as not committing a crime. If they truly believed this to be so, they would push for anarchy, since no amount of laws or government will have any bearing on what people do. Darwinists do not push for less government, but more, and by doing so, betray a belief that free will must exist.

  4. 4
    AaronS1978 says:

    The other problem is it’s an example of genetic determinism even though this article really doesn’t have much to do with Jeanette is short of stereotyping a certain luck with an AI

    But the woke also depend on genetic determinism

    Part of the walk is the “born this way” movement

    Which is pushed often by the LGBTQ

    The other idea is not being responsible for your actions blame it on your genes I couldn’t help it

    So it’s actually quite a fine line between the two

    For me it’s screw the woke, genetic determinism is bad

    I don’t care whether they use it or not or whether they don’t use it, I think genetic determinism is the bigger monster

    I agree with you that everything is part genetic part learned

    But I do disagree with the fact that a career criminal doesn’t have a choice and it’s programmed into them to be a career criminal matter what

  5. 5
    mahuna says:

    Polistra @ 1

    Yes. See “The Bell Curve” and ANYTHING by Charles Murray. Americans who grew up in communities of people with Christian, North European ancestry simply have a DIFFERENT (and nicer) view of the rest of American society than people of, oh, Bantu ancestry.
    Murray defines the guiding principles of “urban contemporary lifestyle” as: 1) drop out of high school without graduating, 2) produce children without the benefit of marriage, 3) refuse work when jobs are offered, 4) supplement your government handouts by committing crimes.

    Murray sadly notes that Americans of European descent have begun adopting the urban contemporary life, as long as you don’t mind living as a lazy bum.

    Alternately, compare Haiti with the Dominican Republic. The 2 countries sit side by side on the same island with VERY similar colonial histories before they achieved independence. Haiti is of course a DISASTER, while Dominican Republic is a standard ordinary banana republic. Why? Because a rebellion by the Bantus in Haiti produced a classic African “kingdom” in the Western Hemisphere. And now NOTHING (except expulsion of the current Haitian citizens) can change the disaster that is Haiti.

    But, in general,

  6. 6
    AaronS1978 says:

    I thought bell curve was mostly shot down?
    Are we supporting genetic determinism?
    If so we might as well shoot our opinions straight out the window. They are simply the product of proteins and structures

  7. 7
    mahuna says:

    AaronS1978 @ 6
    “Bell Curve” was “shot down” in the same way and by the same people who “shot down” Intelligent Design.
    Professor Murray (who wrote the first book whilst he was still picking up degrees back in the ’70s) now has a series of books explaining in more detail both the data sets and the fact that, YES, statistics really DO follow a Curve with a Mid-point and Standard Deviations.
    The Social Justice Warriors who believe that certain things (e.g., Evolution) MUST BE True simply REJECT both the data collected from living Americans and any ANALYSIS of that data.
    There are worldwide data sets, which are REGULARLY updated, that continue to confirm that IQ is DIRECTLY related to ethnicity. And so there are of course people of African ancestry with IQs over 120 (i.e., “Genius”), but Africans have a DIFFERENT IQ curve, whose Average = 85 (not 100) and has a standard deviation of 10 (not 15). So a “genius” on the African scale (IQ = 85 +10 +10 = 105) is just barely above Normal on the European scale. Africans with IQs about 130 are VERY very rare. I’ve gone to school with several of these Rare people.
    One of the MANY effects of this difference is that any group of mixed ethnic applicants will ALWAYS produce more European (and Chinese) winners than Africans. I’ve never really looked into this, but I don’t believe there is ANY ethnic group who average IQ is lower than 85… (Oh, people of Jewish ancestry also have their own ethnic IQ curve. And the average for THAT curve is also above 100…)
    Note that the ENTIRE IQ system was set up around WW1 to screen draftees for the American army. This is why the scales set “100” for White Europeans. 100 IQ has no intrinsic meaning. The rest is just standard statistics. Modern (post-1970s) analyses of other ethnic groups (e.g., Arabs) build on the SYSTEM for White Europeans.

Leave a Reply