"Donohue and Wolfers analyzed data from the 2006 study by the Emory researchers using non-death penalty states as a control group, a basic statistical tool used to study causation not used in the Emory study. When they compared death penalty states with non-death penalty states, they found no evidence of any effect of executions on murder rates, either up or down. Donohue and Wolfers also analyzed the data from the 2003 Emory study that concluded that each execution prevented 18 murders and found that the reduction or increase in murders was actually more dependent on other factors used in the study than whether or not the states had the death penalty. For example, when Donohue and Wolfers slightly redefined just one of the factors included by the Emory researchers, they found that each execution caused 18 murders. "
I think it's funny that the pro-death people are so illogical. Let's argue that each execution prevents 18 murders. Are those murders that would have been commited by the executed? Then it's not really a deterrant, it's an intervention and life in prison would have the same effect. And you know, correlation does not mean causation. Let's say that at the same time the state decided to run this study and execute 50 people, they also tried the broken windows approach to crime, and they rolled out a new social welfare program, and they changed some police procedures, and a new wal-mart opened up in the slums and a new youth recreational facility opened. Did the execution of those 50 people really cause the decrease in crime? Or was it one of the other things?
so you're saying people are bad everywhere and crime cannot be deterred by punishment.
so you're saying people are bad everywhere and crime cannot be deterred by punishment.
No, it can't.
You don't understand crime because you subscribe to some fancy-pants, voodoo crap about how the universe works and our place in it.
We've been over this a lot, you gotta learn that people are not contra-causal and then you can start to understand the nature of crime.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
i'm judge; jury; and executioner here. and i don't have a crime problem here.
a.k.a. God
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Well, the first question is: What are the causal conditionals for a behavior?
I think it's pretty well undeniable that a behavior, or an action is the result of motor functions. Since no actions can be taken without the contraction of muscles. Muscles are operated by motor neurons which receive instructions from the spinal cord, which sends and receives information from the brain via the Brain stem, which consists of the Pons, Medulla, Thalamus and Hippocampus, which leads into the Hypothalamus, Third Ventricle, Optic Nerve, and the Neo Cortex, which consists of two hemispheres, seperated by left and right and connected by the Corpus Collasum. The two hemispheres of the cortex can be divided into four lobes, Temporal, Occipital, Pareital and Frontal. What causes this brain? Evolution.
We needn't go any further, because for our purposes, we've already identified the brain as the source of actions within the human. We can get into external causes when explaining why certain behaviors are performed.
Each of the regions I mentioned perform specific functions in the brain. This is demonstrated through clinical case studies of patients with brain damage. For example, a well known case. A man, most would call "Decent", a loving father, husband and respected co-worker, begins to obsess over pornography, child pornography and wherever he goes, finds himself womanizing and sexually harassing women. He was charged and was due to be sentenced when he walked into the emergency room of a hospital, he complained about his situation, but the doctors initially ignored it, thinking he was trying to get out of going to jail. But during his short stay in the hospital he sexually assaulted a number of nurses and the doctors decided to scan his brain with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), they found a tumor in his frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is an inhibitor for the old brain. The old brain, as it is called, is the portion of brain that we share with most mammalian species, the frontal lobe is really what sets us apart, it gives us the ability to inhibit "animal" drives. It's the reason humans don't behave like chimpanzees. So, in this man, the tumor had messed up his frontal lobe and he wasn't able to control his primative drives, once the tumor was removed he was returned to normal.
This link between brain and behavior is pretty much accepted universally, except among philosophically perverse individuals. It is currently a very productive line of research. But, to actually imagine what it's like to have a frontal lobe tumor, or temporal lobe epilepsy or synesthesia, I don't think it's possible, since all of our sense impressions, thoughts, feelings and perspectives is a result of the organization of neurons and the weights of our 100 trillion synapses.
I don't know you of course but I'm surprised you said that. I know you're interested in the brain, physically but, remembering your conversation about child rearing, I thought you'd lean closer to the idea that society and family mostly create these problems. (Crime, school shootings).
I don't know you of course but I'm surprised you said that. I know you're interested in the brain, physically but, remembering your conversation about child rearing, I thought you'd lean closer to the idea that society and family mostly create these problems. (Crime, school shootings).
My perspective on child-rearing comes from a study of developmental psychology, which is a specialized area of psychology, which incorporates brain science.
The basic idea is that the brain controls behavior, but the brain is dynamic and is trained by external influences.
In Developmental Psychology there is a popular perspective, called the Ecological Systems Theory that explains some of this.
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Comments
so you're saying people are bad everywhere and crime cannot be deterred by punishment.
No, it can't.
You don't understand crime because you subscribe to some fancy-pants, voodoo crap about how the universe works and our place in it.
We've been over this a lot, you gotta learn that people are not contra-causal and then you can start to understand the nature of crime.
i'm judge; jury; and executioner here. and i don't have a crime problem here.
a.k.a. God
I don't know you of course but I'm surprised you said that. I know you're interested in the brain, physically but, remembering your conversation about child rearing, I thought you'd lean closer to the idea that society and family mostly create these problems. (Crime, school shootings).
My perspective on child-rearing comes from a study of developmental psychology, which is a specialized area of psychology, which incorporates brain science.
The basic idea is that the brain controls behavior, but the brain is dynamic and is trained by external influences.
In Developmental Psychology there is a popular perspective, called the Ecological Systems Theory that explains some of this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_Systems_Theory
Philosophically, I could be considered an Empiricist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
But also a Hard Determinist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_determinism
And also an Eliminativist to some degree
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliminativism
I do not believe humans have such a thing as free-will. I think such a concept is absurd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-will#In_science