Human Nature: Science, Technology, and Life.

Genes, Murder, and Bad Driving

Can crimes and crashes be blamed on bad genes?

On Friday, Nature reported details of an Italian case in which a court, for the first time in Europe, reduced a criminal sentence based on a genetic theory of behavior. According to the report:

Pietro Pietrini, a molecular neuroscientist at Italy's University of Pisa, and Giuseppe Sartori, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Padova, conducted a series of tests [on the defendant] and found abnormalities in brain-imaging scans and in five genes that have been linked to violent behaviour—including the gene encoding the neurotransmitter-metabolizing enzyme monoamine oxidase A (MAOA). A 2002 study ... had found low levels of MAOA expression to be associated with aggressiveness and criminal conduct of young boys raised in abusive environments. In the report, Pietrini and Sartori concluded that [the defendant's] genes would make him more prone to behaving violently if provoked. ... On the basis of the genetic tests, Judge Reinotti docked a further year off the defendant's sentence, arguing that the defendant's genes "would make him particularly aggressive in stressful situations". Giving his verdict, Reinotti said he had found the MAOA evidence particularly compelling.

Scientists interviewed by Nature say this kind of genetic determinism is too crude and tenuous to justify sentence reductions. Genes operate in relation to each other, not independently, and they produce different effects depending on environmental factors and population differences such as ethnicity. My colleague Dan Engber, who alerted me to the Nature report, has made similar points about brain scans and neuro-determinism. I'm highly sympathetic to his indictment of the field.

Despite these criticisms and the skepticism of judges, Nature reports that according to a database maintained by Nita Farahany of Vanderbilt law school,

in the past five years there have been at least 200 [U.S.] cases where lawyers have attempted to use genetic evidence to support the idea their clients' were predisposed to violent behaviour, depression or drug or alcohol abuse. In Britain, there have been at least 20 such cases in the past five years.

And don't be surprised if the next target of genetic determinists is car crashes. Neuroscientists from the University of California at Irvine have just laid out the case in a paper in Cerebral Cortex, accompanied by a catchy press release. The release is titled, "Bad driving may have genetic basis, UCI study finds." It reports:

People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it—and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. ... The driving test was taken by 29 people-22 without the gene variant and seven with it. They were asked to drive 15 laps on a simulator that required them to learn the nuances of a track programmed to have difficult curves and turns. Researchers recorded how well they stayed on the course over time. Four days later, the test was repeated. Results showed that people with the variant did worse on both tests than the other participants, and they remembered less the second time.

The release explains how the gene works:

This gene variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor during activity. BDNF keeps memory strong by supporting communication among brain cells and keeping them functioning optimally. When a person is engaged in a particular task, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will surely become fodder for defense attorneys in civil and criminal cases involving crashes or dangerous driving. And these lawyers won't be alone in their interest. In the press release, Steven Cramer, the neuroscientist who led the study, says, "I'd be curious to know the genetics of people who get into car crashes. I wonder if the accident rate is higher for drivers with the variant."

I bet every auto insurer would like to know the same thing.

I'm counting on Engber to pick apart the study and the press release. Let's hope the authors are oversimplifying the impact of genes on behavior. Because if the link between genes and driving performance is solid enough to justify reduced sentences and damage awards, it's hard to see why insurances shouldn't be allowed to test and charge you accordingly.

Anti-Theft Drugs

Can a drug cure the urge to steal?

It looks that way. In the April 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry, scientists from the University of Minnesota School of Medicine report:

An 8-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of oral naltrexone for kleptomania. Twenty-five individuals with DSM-IV kleptomania were randomized to naltrexone (dosing ranging from 50 mg/day to 150 mg/day) or placebo. ... Subjects assigned to naltrexone had significantly greater reductions in ... stealing urges (p = .032), and stealing behavior (p < .001) compared with subjects on placebo. Subjects assigned to naltrexone also had greater improvement in overall kleptomania severity ... Naltrexone demonstrated statistically significant reductions in stealing urges and behavior in kleptomania.

It sounds like an April Fools' joke. But it isn't. In an interview with Reuters, the study's lead author explains that naltrexone "gets rid of that rush and desire" to steal.

Naltrexone is better known as a drug for alcohol or drug addiction. Many of us, while accepting these addictions as diseases, continue to regard theft as a matter of personal responsibility. Should we rethink that distinction? If the same drug relieves both conditions, should we take kleptomania more seriously as an illness?

The floor's open.

Blacks, Gays, and Michael Steele

Four months ago, this column looked at the overwhelming black vote for California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. Why would one group, having endured discrimination, vote against the rights of another?

Answer:

Whites, on balance, have come to believe that sexual orientation, like color, is immutable. Blacks, on balance, haven't. They see homosexuality as a matter of character. "I was born black. I can't change that," one California man explained after voting for Proposition 8. "They weren't born gay; they chose it."

Here are the numbers:

In a 2003 Pew survey, 32 percent of whites said homosexuality was inborn, 15 percent said it was caused by upbringing, and 40 percent said it was a lifestyle preference. Latinos answered roughly the same way. But only 15 percent of blacks agreed that homosexuality was inborn; 58 percent said it was a lifestyle preference. A plurality of whites (45 to 39 percent) said a person's homosexuality couldn't change, but a two-to-one majority of blacks (58 to 30 percent) said it could. The pattern persists in Pew's 2006 survey. A plurality of whites said homosexuality was inborn, and a majority said it couldn't be changed. A majority of blacks said that homosexuality was just how some people preferred to live and that it could be changed.

Now comes Michael Steele, the new chairman of the GOP. Steele is black. In an interview with GQ's Lisa DePaulo, Steele concedes:

Q. Do you think homosexuality is a choice?
A. Oh, no. I don't think I've ever really subscribed to that view, that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. Um, you know, I think that there's a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can't simply say, oh, like, "Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay." It's like saying, "Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being black."

This matches what the nation's leading black Democrat, Barack Obama, has said. In a November 2007 appearance on Meet the Press, Obama declared, "I do not believe being gay or lesbian is a choice."

This is very bad news for opponents of gay marriage. As Proposition 8 demonstrated, blacks have become politically pivotal on this issue. If they follow Steele and Obama in coming around to the idea that being gay is like being black, look out.

Rape, Fantasies, and Female Arousal

Do some women fantasize about rape? Do some become aroused during rape? If so, what does it mean?

Daniel Bergner, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, raises those questions in the magazine's current issue. Obviously, Bergner's a guy. So am I. But the evidence and theories in the article come from women who have been researching female sexuality. For instance, Meredith Chivers, a psychology professor at Queen's University,

has confronted clinical research reporting not only genital arousal but also the occasional occurrence of orgasm during sexual assault. And she has recalled her own experience as a therapist with victims who recounted these physical responses. She is familiar, as well, with the preliminary results of a laboratory study showing surges of vaginal blood flow as subjects listen to descriptions of rape scenes.

Moreover,

According to an analysis of relevant studies published last year in The Journal of Sex Research, an analysis that defines rape as involving "the use of physical force, threat of force, or incapacitation through, for example, sleep or intoxication, to coerce a woman into sexual activity against her will," between one-third and more than one-half of women have entertained such fantasies, often during intercourse, with at least 1 in 10 women fantasizing about sexual assault at least once per month in a pleasurable way.

How could anyone want something done to her against her will? Isn't that self-contradictory? And if she doesn't want it, why would she become genitally aroused?

The answer, some of these researchers propose, is that women's sexuality is split. In one of Chivers' studies, for example, "men's minds and genitals were in agreement" while watching sexual videos. But among women, genital blood differed sharply from self-reported arousal: "During shots of lesbian coupling, heterosexual women reported less excitement than their vaginas indicated; watching gay men, they reported a great deal less; and viewing heterosexual intercourse, they reported much more." Even lesbians, while watching videos of men, "reported less engagement than the [blood-flow monitors] recorded."

Chivers speculates that female sexuality might be split between "physiological" and "subjective" systems. This could explain the rape data:

[T]o understand arousal in the context of unwanted sex, Chivers, like a handful of other sexologists, has arrived at an evolutionary hypothesis that stresses the difference between reflexive sexual readiness and desire. Genital lubrication, she writes in her upcoming paper in Archives of Sexual Behavior, is necessary "to reduce discomfort, and the possibility of injury, during vaginal penetration. ... Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries during unwanted vaginal penetration that resulted in illness, infertility or even death, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring." Evolution's legacy, according to this theory, is that women are prone to lubricate, if only protectively, to hints of sex in their surroundings.

In other words, part of the female arousal system is designed for self-protection and is particularly well-suited to what we now regard as abuse. Sounds horrific, right? But Marta Meana, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, offers an arguably more disturbing theory. She points to research suggesting that 1) "in comparison with men, women's erotic fantasies center less on giving pleasure and more on getting it"; 2) "as measured by the frequency of fantasy, masturbation and sexual activity, women have a lower sex drive than men"; and 3) "within long-term relationships, women are more likely than men to lose interest in sex." These and other findings fit her theory that female desire is driven by "being desired."

So does reproductive logic, according to Chivers:

[O]ne possibility is that instead of it being a go-out-there-and-get-it kind of sexuality, it's more of a reactive process. If you have this dyad, and one part is pumped full of testosterone, is more interested in risk taking, is probably more aggressive, you've got a very strong motivational force. It wouldn't make sense to have another similar force. You need something complementary.

And here's where it gets icky.

A symbolic scene ran through Meana's talk of female lust: a woman pinned against an alley wall, being ravished. Here, in Meana's vision, was an emblem of female heat. The ravisher is so overcome by a craving focused on this particular woman that he cannot contain himself; he transgresses societal codes in order to seize her, and she, feeling herself to be the unique object of his desire, is electrified by her own reactive charge and surrenders. ... [Meana] spoke about the thrill of being wanted so much that the aggressor is willing to overpower, to take.

Does this mean women want to be raped? No. Both theories assume the opposite. And that's a pretty safe assumption, given the logical impossibility of willing a violation of your will. The challenge is to explain the data on rape fantasies and arousal from sexual assault, given that nobody literally wants to be raped. What part of rape or the idea of rape is arousing? And what part of the woman is aroused?

The first theory, lubrication, suggests that rape-related arousal is purely physical and reflexive, leaving the will untouched. Your vagina says one thing, your brain says another, and (this is the crucial part for men to understand, morally and legally) your brain is what matters. But that doesn't explain the data on rape fantasies. Fantasies imply brain arousal. And that, in turn, implies that we should be asking not which part of the woman is aroused, but which part of the rape fantasy is arousing.

The second theory, which Meana frankly calls narcissism, posits a clear answer. We generally define rape as sex against the victim's will. But a woman mentally aroused by a sexual assault fantasy isn't thinking about the victim's will. She's thinking about the perpetrator's. She's imagining being wanted. That's what she wants—and the fact that she wants it exposes the fantasy, by definition, as not really rape. The imaginary act arouses her not because the woman in the scenario doesn't want it, but because the man does.

But if that's what these fantasies are—one person drawing her will from the will of another—what does it say about us? If derivativeness of will is, as some of these researchers posit, a fundamental difference between male and female arousal, what does it say about equality between the sexes? Are women, in this sense, inherently less autonomous?

(Update: My colleagues at the XX Factor, who actually have the relevant equipment, are discussing this topic right now. Meghan O'Rourke has flagged the same question about whether female sexuality is reactive. I'll be interested to see other comments from the focus group.)

The Gambling-Addiction Defense

Chalk up another victory for the gambling-addiction defense.

Yesterday, attorneys for Tim Donaghy, the former NBA referee who admitted to betting on basketball games he officiated, filed a psychological "evaluation" that blames his crimes on compulsive gambling. The author is Stephen Block, a gambling treatment counselor. Sample quotes from the evaluation, as reported by the Associated Press: 1) "In my professional opinion, Mr. Donaghy would never have committed these offenses if he was not a pathological gambler." 2) "His gambling history demonstrates the need to gamble to fulfill the underlying need for 'action.' " 3) "He could not stop himself from gambling." The Washington Post supplies one more: 4) "His judgment and insight were impaired by his gambling behavior."

The plea worked. Today, Donaghy was sentenced to 15 months in prison instead of the 27 to 33 months that had been expected. According to the Post, the judge "said she took Donaghy's gambling addiction into account, as well as his cooperation with the government's investigation." Reuters quotes the judge on Donaghy's gambling addiction: "Although it contributed to his criminal conduct, it does not excuse it." No excuse, but a nice contribution: His sentence gets halved.

I'm not going to sit here and claim that compulsive gambling doesn't exist. But disorders that are powerful and real for some people have a way of being diagnosed in other people who don't share many of the symptoms but just happen to need a legal excuse. In this case, all we have is an evaluation solicited and supplied by the defendant's attorneys.

More to the point—and this is the crazy part—in this case, the crime is gambling. If you plug that information into the evaluation, here's what it boils down to: "Mr. Donaghy would never have committed this gambling if he was not a pathological gambler." No kidding! He committed gambling because "he could not stop himself from gambling," because "his judgment and insight were impaired by his gambling." How do we know his gambling is compulsive? Because of his "gambling history." The circularity is shameless.

And don't even get me started on the idea that Donaghy had a "need to gamble to fulfill the underlying need for 'action.'" An "underlying need for action" pretty well describes the motivation for half the world's crimes.

If you really believe Donaghy's gambling was addictive, don't just make it a mitigating factor in sentencing for the crime of gambling. Abolish the crime. Because a crime can't excuse itself.