INTERESTING TIMES

 "Find someone that's undeserving of your compassion and give it to them."
--Chris Picciolini, ex-white-supremacist,
who says that people who are doing monstrous things are simply broken and need help

This hypothesis may not be as well supported as evolution but there has been a lot of research since the 1970's that supports it.

DONOHUE-LEVITT HYPOTHESIS = The theory that legal abortion reduces crime by reducing the number of unwanted births, neglected and abused youth. As the theory goes, those troubled children grow up to be the next generation of criminals. Research shows that children of women denied an abortion require more public assistance including psychiatric services and foster homes, and engage in more criminal and antisocial behavior than their wanted counterparts.

Most crimes are committed by males aged 18-24. Roe versus Wade (legalizing abortion) was passed by SCOTUS in 1973, and 18 years later the country experienced a significant decrease in crime. One of the justices had offered the rationale that a family unready to support a child should not be required to have one. States that had already legalized abortion had earlier reductions in crime, and higher abortion rates correlated with greater reductions in crime. Australian and Canadian studies have detected a correlation between legalized abortion and reduced crime overall. Of course all of these interpretations have been challenged, and more research is needed. Among other possible contributors to decreasing crime is the removal of lead from gasoline in the same year as Roe vs Wade. Lead ingestion lowers intelligence and increases impulsivity and aggressive behavior.

Morality is moral
only when
it is voluntary
--Lincoln Steffens, journalist

The level at the high bridge putin was 5.32. That's medium, or maybe medium-high. It was just right. The group was 10 kayakers including Joey, Craig and Michael that I've paddled with before. Several of the group were men who'd been in the "fast group" on Opal yesterday, or were just plain old new. Ken, Ben who works at Nike, Bradley, etc. I rode with and followed Bruce. Joey instructed both Craig and I to follow him, and when I told him that on the ride up it got him going. He's a cell biologist at age 60 with an illustrious career that discovered (with others of course) kinesin which is this very cool little walking protein that goes up a track inside our neurons. Axonal transport. He was interesting to follow on the river, reminded me somewhat of Dick with the way he would give instructions and then set out to lead. He wasn't easy to follow, either. I could never tell what he was going to do next, and he would paddle really hard to make difficult moves. One thing is for sure, if you start your beginners out following him, they will get to be better boaters fast. After a while I learned to hang back and see generally what channel he was headed down, and then read the close up water for myself. I cut a lot of corners and took one tenth as many strokes, and enjoyed it more. Funny how different people's river styles can be. I guess I'm lazy.
( about the river and more random train of consciousness )

Children born today with a diminutive level of worry--those whose emotional physiology underreacts to stress, novelty, and threat--grow up to become criminals much more often than average. Criminality has long been known to be partially heritable, and a worry volume set to "low" in the reptilian brain is part of the mechanism.
--Lewis, Amini and Lannon in A General Theory of Love p49

What interests me in their assessment of the value of risk aversion and its opposite as mentioned above, is that these physicians note no value in being a risk taker, only increased criminality. They mention that "Many of our ultralow-anxiety ancestors were bitten by snakes, gored by tusks, and fell out of trees. Those premature deaths shifted the gene pool toward higher trepidation." By my own observation, people who are less risk averse are more likely to be found in sports such as whitewater kayaking, backcountry skiing and paragliding. This is where I've found several of my dearest friends, and they are not, by and large, criminals. Also, Dr Thom continues to tell us that entrepreneurs are risk takers, much different from the rest of the population. The statistics show us that most entrepreneurs are male, which begs the question, are men more likely to be risk takers? I think so. And I don't think that this disposition is any guarantee of criminality, though it certainly does increase the odds that rules and laws will be taken with a grain of potassium. Another question: if it is so, then why are males less risk averse? I think evolution offers answers to that one also.

Yep. Radovan Karadzic had been in hiding for over a decade, after leading the Bosnian Serbs in the 1992-5 war. They forced quite a few Bosnian Muslims into concentration camps. I have no idea how many died. Karadzic was a psychiatrist. In Srebenica, 1995, some 8,000 Muslim boys and men were massacred, and Karadzic is supposed to have orchestrated that. It gives me pause to think that someone who has training in human nature is capable of leading such disastrous action. And then, after whatever the war did to him and those around him, he tried to be a good person under a new name.
( a little more )

Daily Diet for a Life of Crime:
Breakfast: nothing (asleep)
Mid morning: nothing (asleep)
Lunchtime: 4 or 5 cups of coffee with milk and 2½ heaped teaspoons of sugar
Mid afternoon: 3 or 4 cups of coffee with milk and 2½ heaped sugars
Tea: chips, egg, ketchup, 2 slices of white bread, 5 cups of tea or coffee with milk and sugar
Evening: 5 cups of tea or coffee with milk and sugar, 20 cigarettes, £2 worth of sweets, cakes and if money available 3 or 4 pints of beer.

from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/17/prisonsandprobation.ukcrime
It turns out that low levels of omega 3 fatty acids make people violent.
Who'da thunk it?
( British jails maxed with people who don't eat well )