INTRODUCTION

First let me express to you my gratitude and deep appreciation for allowing me the privilege to speak today. It is a humbling experience to be asked to say something of value and insight to an audience whose members have made important contributions not only to criminology, but also to philosophy, the natural sciences, political science, art, poetry, and music. Indeed, I recognize the varied contributions to humanity and to self-discovery that each of you make because, together, our work extends beyond these individual disciplines. Many social scientists today embody the true spirit of the Renaissance period and that spirit is fundamental not only to the advancement of science but to our humanitarian struggles.

-slide <Thank You>

--slide <luv bio but annoying>

Like the Renaissance thinkers of the past, we are now in a position to question prior disciplinary claims, and, more importantly, to question prior claims of truth built on authority and not on science. By any measure, however, this is a very difficult process to undertake. And if history is any teacher, we are likely to find that the roadblocks to progress are not external to the academy, but internal. Let me repeat that for the sake of clarity: the roadblocks to scientific progress are internal to the academy.

----- <slide roadbloacks / moving forward>

And please do not mistake my use of the term “progress” with the next iteration of regression models or other methods that we invent to offset our lack of quality data. By moving forward, I mean building a

knowledge base that is sound, reliable, and that serves as the basis for greater theoretical precision and increased accuracy in prediction. <>These goals, in my mind, represent the theme of this conference: Unitas Multiplex, or unity in diversity through purposiveness. Indeed, after I looked up what Unitas Multiplex meant, I suddenly realized how the theme perfectly describes biosocial criminology.

In this talk I wish to discuss 3 points. ---<Slide on Three Points>

The first point is that we have not learned from the mistakes of our past and because of this, social science is NOT always self correcting. We cannot seemingly reconcile the competing forces of history, political ideology, and science. Yet to move forward, it is important that we realize that past mistakes do not necessarily doom our future. Biosocial criminology offers a mechanism not only for the advancement of a scientific criminology, but for a broader inter-disciplinary reconciliation.

The second, interrelated point I wish to make is that despite reams of data, despite hard scientific evidence, and despite evidence drawn from multiple disciplines, biosocial criminology remains perilously perched within the discipline.

As Simon Cole approvingly tells us, “biosocial criminology remains marginalized by mainstream criminologists” and that “he and other mainstream criminologists are likely simply to ignore it.” “Biosocial criminology,” he says, “remains stigmatizing. It…stigmatizes without stigma.” “Even mainstream sociologically-oriented criminologists tend to criticize biosocial criminology as biological determinism and social Darwinism in new clothing.” Let me add that this criticism is comparatively mild.

Yet Cole’s criticisms are not new. In fact, few realize that an earlier version of biosocial criminology existed in the early to mid 1970’s. Writing in 1986, Segal stated “biosocial criminology has been a potent force in criminology since the mid-1970’s.” Indeed, previous biosocial scholars produced reams of evidence, authoritative bibliographies, numerous journal articles, anthologies, and edited books. Even so, empirical evidence was not enough to overcome our disciplinary malaise and biosocial criminology all but disappeared.

The final point I would like to make is that a biosocial approach—one that is interdisciplinary, dynamic, longitudinal, and focused on understanding the life-course development of serious, chronic offending offers our best hope to building a useful scientific base—one that will better inform our intervention efforts and one that will reduce human suffering.

To move forward, let me clear up any misunderstanding about what biosocial criminology is, and what it is not.

-SLIDE defining biocrime<

Defining Biosocial Criminology

Biosocial criminology is not a theory but theories fall within its boundaries.

Biosocial criminology is not a secret plot to revive the specter of a 19th Century Italian anthropologist, it is not a harbinger of a new Fascist state, nor is it dogma. It is instead a modern effort towards scientific consilience. It is a paradigm of synthesis, one that draws on other “hard” and “soft” sciences.

And finally, the paradigm prioritizes understanding the complex interplay between genes, the central nervous system, measurable phenotypes and subjectively important environment sources of variance.

By its very nature, the paradigm is inherently dynamic, longitudinal, and falsifiable. Hypotheses drawn from the biosocial paradigm will be proven wrong—and we see this as a net positive.

Point 1: Social Science is not always Self-Correcting

---<Slide Self Correcting>

It is an article of faith that science is self-correcting, that prior errors will be caught, exposed, and altered. This is sometimes true in the hard sciences, especially if looking over large historical periods. However, it is hardly true of the social sciences and of criminology in particular. We have, as Ferguson and Heene (2012) state, a “Vast Graveyard of Undead Theories” as evidence.

There are, as other scholars—chiefly John Ioannidis (2005)-- have noted, technical reasons why most social science findings are likely wrong and why science is not self-correcting. These reasons are important but I want to situate this issue in the broader history of science and in the very real impact human nature has on scientists.

Let me assure you that I’m speaking here of a historical and very human truth—and that truth is simple: We really don’t like the truth, especially if it is at odds with our own biases or if it departs from the narrative offered by authorities (and, in this sense, we are the authorities).

Most learned people, for example, will point to certain Renaissance scholars as an illustration of what awaits those who challenge claims based on authority. Indeed, we remember the names of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei in part because of their lasting contributions to science and partly because of their martyred status.

However, we forget that other scholars, not just the Church, supported the Ptolemaic system of planets and supported the expulsion of Copernicus and Galileo. We also forget that when the proverbial shoe was on the other foot, that Galileo returned the favor to Kepler—the man whose work in astronomy would take decades to understand and would, eventually, replace Copernicus.

The history of science in general and of the social sciences in particular, shows us that “Though the scientific enterprise may be open-minded….the individual scientist is very often not” (Kuhn, XXXX, p. 348). Kuhn, in his essay on the function of dogma in research, also notes that:

--SLIDE >

From Galileo’s reception of Kepler’s research to Nageli’s reception of Mendel’s, from Daltons rejection of Gay Lussac’s results to Kelvin’s rejection of Maxwell’s, unexpected novelties of fact and theory have characteristically been resisted and have often been rejected by many of the most creative members of the professional scientific community. The historian, at least, scarcely needs Plank to remind him that: “A new scientific truth is not usually presented in a way that convinces its opponents…; rather they gradually die off, and a rising generation is familiarized with the truth from the start.”

The same processes have haunted science since. Paradigm shifts have occurred because certain perspectives became scientifically popularized by powerful figures.

I’ll note two examples: First, when the radical behaviorists took over psychology, they went on to marginalized cognitive psychologists. These psychologists, in turn, found it difficult or impossible to publish their work in journals and they found that disciplinary reward structures didn’t favor their scholarship. The behaviorists, including Skinner, fiercely protected their disciplinary territory and thus saw no need for interdisciplinary efforts.

The great “cognitive revolution,” or as Miller (2003) called it “the great counter-revolution,” almost didn’t happen. Only the confluence of several disparate events along with the declining personal influence of behaviorist scholars, allowed room for the cognitive revolution to occur. The cognitive sciences are an archetype for biosocial criminology. They are truly interdisciplinary in their approach and they seamlessly integrate biology into their studies. I’ll note too that they have built a remarkable, scientific understanding of how the brain works, how it influences our perceptions, and—this is important—how to treat cognitive disorders.

Contrast the development of psychology to the development of sociology. As the historian Mary O Furner (1975, p. 18) tell us, “The first postwar social scientists were concerned citizens from various walks of life, brought together by a common interest in helping people…….” These individuals were enthusiastic about using the new social sciences to reduce human suffering and to push a socially progressive policy agenda. Theirs was a paradigm of social advocacy and social instigation.

Conversely, professionally trained scholars in the budding field of economics saw it as their role to create new knowledge and to gain an understanding of complex social dynamics. Their paradigm was one that elevated OBJECTIVITY IN science.

The clash of paradigms between advocacy and objectivity resulted in a temporary truce where limited advocacy roles were allowed. It was during this time period when American scholars would petition to create other social science disciplines, sociology being the foremost. Economists, who had fought tenaciously to earn a place at the academic table, however, were not enthused by the idea of granting status to sociology. As part of a negotiated process, however, economists eventually agreed to no longer stand in the way—as long as sociology gave up all attachments to biology.

Hence, if we are to believe Furner’s analyses, sociology was born with an inherent predisposition and structural motivation to purge biology from the discipline. The purge would have to wait, however, as the Progressives of the day, including many sociologists, merged their fledging understanding of Darwinian theory with their newfound power and social prestige. These joint forces ultimately lead to the eugenics movement—a movement that encompassed all of North America and much of Europe.

--slide <advocacy v objectivity>

Yet the core tension between advocacy and objectivity paradigms remained unresolved. What settled it was the 1960’s and 1970’s—a period in American history denoted by massive social strife, political upheaval, and the purge of conservative professors from many of the social sciences. The social sciences, especially sociology, would embrace left-wing political advocacy and by default, would challenge

paradigms that threatened accepted narratives. Biology would be one of those paradigms.

Politics, social advocacy, and science make strange bedfellows. Many sociologists and criminologists see no distinction between the three but those outside the academy—especially those who do not share political values, do. As a result, knowledge on the development of serious offending across the life-course has been seriously constrained. Sadly, our efforts to understand how to affect change have been largely isolated and disparate, and our research has remained comparatively underfunded.

---<slide on research funding>

Consider that US Federal research expenditures dedicated to psychology exceeded $2 billion, the social sciences collectively received about $1.2 billion, with sociology receiving $132 million. Criminal justice research came in at $49 million. In the US we spend almost 2.5X as much money to study alternative medicine than we do to study crime (National Institute of Justice, 2010).

So, here we are—still dealing with the messy entanglements of history, personality, political ideology, and science.

In this context, biosocial criminology has reemerged. Armed with data, employing new (to us) methods, and publishing at significant rates, biosocial criminologists have sought to be part of a corrective scientific effort.

When we first started writing, reviewers would usually say that there is no evidence that genes have anything to do with criminal behavior:

nothing, nada, zip. So the first studies we conducted were on the heritability of criminal conduct.

Across several datasets, employing different measures of criminal behavior, and employing a variety of statistical tools, we found that genes not only were associated with variance in criminal conduct but that genes accounted for the more variance in criminal conduct than anything else.

LET ME BE CLEAR: Criminologists can no longer say that genes have no effect on behavior—if they ever really could.

Recently, as many of you may know, there was a debate in our discipline’s top journal. Our critics skewered our “heritability studies,” they called for them to be banned in the field, and they called for overt censorship of study findings. Apparently, many criminologists have taken their criticisms to heart as we are now finding that our research is being rejected by criminological reviewers based on what Burt and Simmons concocted. Certain journals also desk reject everything we send to them—citing B/S

Then along came this:

-slide on 50 years of h2 work

The recent and amazing study by Tinca Polderman and her colleagues presents the world with evidence of broad based genetic influences. Analyzing data from the last 50 years, the study included 14,558,903 twin pairs from 2,748 publications, that collectively assessed 17,804 traits.

---<slide heritability estimates>

While estimates of heritability vary, their remarkable study shows that genetic influences are pervasive and that they often account for half or more of the variance in a trait—including conduct disorder (60%), brain functioning (almost 80%), higher cognitive functioning (70%), intellectual functioning (60%), alcoholism (60%), OCD (50%), and neurological functioning (~80%).

The science, as they say, is settled.

But let’s step back a minute and realize that there are historical forces at work in the criminological reaction to biosocial criminology. After all, biosocial critics are not stupid and some have stellar research credentials.

---<slide historical justifications>

The core criminological narrative is that biological theorizing virtually caused the eugenics movement, Nazism, and Fascism. Thus biosocial criminology is a “dangerous” idea.

Let me propose to you that this narrative has been intentionally selected and reinforced.

There were, after all, many lessons that could have been drawn from the Italian positivists, the eugenics movement, and the use of Darwinian evolution as an excuse to justify barbarism.

---slide on selective justifications

One of the the lessons could have been that concentrated governmental power is inherently dangerous. The Progressives in America, the National Socialists in Germany, and the Fascists in Italy shared in a belief that government was more important than the individual.

Quoting from Thomas C. Leonard, 2005: For progressives, the legitimacy of state control derived from their conception of the state as an entity prior to and greater than the sum of its constituent individuals, a conception that opposed the traditional liberal emphasis on individual freedom and the liberal view that the state’s legitimacy derives solely from the consent of its individual creators. Lester Ward devised the term “sociocracy” to describe the “scientific control of the social forces by the collective mind of society” (Fine, 1956, p. 263).

Another lesson could have been that academics should not be given the reigns of power and should not be allowed to operate the machinery of government. Something they are ill prepared to do and something their disciplinary expertise does not prepare them for.

----<slide other lessons>

Yet another lesson could have been that ideology “binds and blinds” us, to reference the work of Jonathan Haidt, and that it can metastasize into a powerful and seductive force, leading even the best and the brightest to “accept science when it suits them,” and reject it when it doesn’t.

Another lesson could have been that enthusiastic support for untested theory will always generate a range of negative consequences in rough proportion to which that theory gains popularity.

Writing in 1965, no other than Sheldon Glueck stated that

The history of criminology, from the time of the precursors of Lombroso down to modern proponents of favorite unilateral theories, amply proves that there is great risk in taking a premature stand on any single theory or fact as an “explanation” of delinquency.

Maybe another lesson could have been that marrying social advocacy to social science is not always quite advisable?

Of course, the only apparent lesson we had to learn was that biological theorizing was dangerous and that, by default, sociological theorizing was not. That’s it.

To be clear, I am not glossing over the sordid history of biological anthropology, the Progressive-era Eugenics movement, or the millions of innocent lives consumed in the wars of the 20th century.

My point is simple: We should not be so selective about what we learn from history.

---<slide predicted in1200>

Surprisingly, much of this was predicted in the mid 1200’s by a Franciscan Friar. He stated:

There are four chief obstacles to grasping truth, which hinder every man, however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win clear title of knowledge; namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority; influence of custom; popular prejudice; and concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by the ostentatious display of our knowledge.

That Friar was Roger Bacon, one of the first European scholars to advocate for the scientific method.

Why have we not learned from Sir Bacon?

The history of science is a history of our imperfect scholarly selves. However, I hope we realize that some have used history as a tool to selectively advance one line of thought over others and that they have used history to arbitrarily label some areas of study as morally good and thus safe, and others as morally reprehensible and unsafe. We should embrace the full complexity of history and not simply those parts we agree with.

---<slide point 2>

Point 2: Biosocial Criminology is Precariously Perched.

Against this often rough and hostile backdrop, let us situate biosocial criminology as it stands currently and project where it may go.

For sake of contrast, I created the following Ngram presentations. For those of you who don’t know, there is this thing called “Google” and it contains all the world’s knowledge. Seriously, Google scanned over 5,000,000 books from across the world, recording every word. Ngram allows us to measure cultural shifts in the usage of words and phrases over time and thus serves as a rough index of what people are writing about. The Ngram database is searchable, so let’s take a look.

---<slide Present Ngram 1 on Biosocial Criminology>

As you can see from the slide, biosocial criminology entered the criminological lexicon in the mid 1970’s. Prior to that, however,

research was conducted but wasn’t so labeled. So prevalent was biosocial research, that several authors stated that “biosocial and genetic influences on criminal behavior can no longer be discounted.” The National Institute of Justice also published a 17-page “authoritative bibliography” on biosocial studies related to crime.

Indeed, biosocial criminology increased in frequency up through 1981, when it began a prolonged decline. I’ve highlighted the period from 1981 through 1989 because two important criminological events transpired: the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the publication of “Crime and Human Nature” by Wilson and Herrnstein—both of which criminologists roundly criticized.

The combination of these criticisms, including Platt and Tagaki’s (1979) seminal assault on biosocial criminology drove biosocial criminology into the hinter lands. By the late 1990’s, use of the term all but evaporated.

Then we reintroduced it.

----<slide ngram with critical theories>

But let’s put this in context:

This slide juxtaposes biosocial criminology against other, radical positions. As you can see, we have never, even today, reached the level of radical theories.

---<slide with social theories>

The next slide includes Social disorganization, general strain and self-control. You can see when these theories came into existence and how they have grown.

----<slide with differential association>

This slide includes differential association………

----<slide with collective efficacy>

And here is the relatively new term of “collective efficacy”

Let me suggest to you that something is seriously amiss.

---<slide all disciplines>

And just to put everything in perspective, here is where we, as a discipline, rank overall.

I hope I have convinced you that if biosocial criminology went away tomorrow, that it would be just another blip on the criminological landscape. Nothing would change.

But let’s stop for a moment and consider the ramifications if this area again vanishes.

We will have no systematic connection to other, more advanced sciences.

We will continue to misspecify our causal chains.

We will continue to advance theories of crime that are congenial with our political beliefs and are not based on objective science. If you don’t believe me, here is the connection between political ideology and support for specific causal variables. These data come from a survey of ASC members by Jonathan Cooper and Anthony Walsh:

---<slide political orientation>

As you can see, self-described political orientation almost perfectly predicts support for certain perspectives.

Biosocial criminology, however, is neither left or right, conservative or liberal or radical. It is built on data, it incorporates a variety of investigative techniques, it requires the expertise of scholars in other fields, and it will…….I guarantee you……challenge you. If we wish to dislodge our field from the grip of political ideology and advance it towards a more sophisticated and reliable science, then biosocial is the paradigm to evolve us in that direction.

A reviewer once told me that criminology would be better off without biosocial criminology. I think not. However, I also believe that biosocial criminology would be better off without criminology…and I see that beginning to play out.

Many of my colleagues across the world are now simply bypassing criminology journals and are, instead, publishing in a range of other journals—especially in psychology journals. Sound, empirical evidence on criminal behavior—evidence criminology needs—is more and more being deposited in the journals of other fields. In these journals we find legitimate academic criticism, we find other researchers seeking replication, and we find others without the Lombrosian blinders.

---slide on something to say

My hope is that criminology eventually embraces biosocial criminology. We have something to say about the importance of in-utero and prenatal development, something to say about neurological insults from maternal drug-use, about environmental exposure to neurotoxins (such as Pb), about developing in a stress-filled, abusive, dehumanizing environment, and about the key issues of onset, behavior stability, behavioral regulation, maturation, and even the desistance process. I’m not sure, but did Lombroso talk about desistance? Anyway, we will continue to pursue this line of work even if it means not participating in

the larger criminological community—indeed, even in spite of it….but I hope that does not become necessary.

----<slide point three>

Point 3: We can build a useful science—one that ultimately reduces human suffering.

Until now, I have discussed the biosocial area in historical and empirical terms, slipping only slightly into the personal. Now I wish to reverse that and to argue by analogy. I recognize that argument by analogy is the lowest level of argumentation but it has seemingly worked to keep biosocial criminology out of mainstream criminology, so what the hell….let’s give it a shot.

Dating the Green Cursor

Similar to many of you in the audience, when I started graduate school I was forced to work on a computer terminal that contained only a flashing cursor. During late night rendezvous in a room tucked away from civilization, I developed a close, affective relationship with that flashing cursor. It was attractive to me and in its silence it seduced me.

That beautiful green cursor called to me. If I learned to converse with it, the cursor promised, it would grant me access to knowledge and insight into all of life’s domains. But the cursor teased me with every blip.

My conversations with the cursor were at first frustrating if not maddening and like the Shaman speaking in tongues, the words I used to beg the cursor to summon the spirits of the great VAX (the gigantic mainframe at the other end of the cursor) would come only slowly and

were often incoherent. More often than not, they were greeted with a kind but terse response: SYNTAX ERROR.

Over time, I began to speak the language of the cursor and to illicit more and more responses. It was exhilarating because everything was novel and because it brought into my life discovery.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, good for you. You have inherited computer systems orders of magnitude faster than the VAX I worked on.

But let me suggest to you that while out technical capabilities have increased exponentially, that our curiosity has not and that part of the reason for this is that many have never fallen in love with discovery. Instead, they have been trained to defend a theory.

But defending a theory almost made me leave the professoriate. You see, in graduate school I was exposed to the traditional way of criminological thinking—that is, you define yourself by the theory you support. Was I going to be a strain theorist, a critical theorist, or a control theorist? That was the question. But when I took my first academic job, I found that I still hadn’t answered that question. I couldn’t because I just didn’t believe in any of them. For me, they didn’t match the reality of criminal behavior. Deflated, I had decided to leave academia and to once again enter the military—where I had spent 10 years prior.

Then something tragic and compelling happened. My oldest daughter, who was 10 at the time, developed an eating disorder. The shock, fear, and helplessness one experiences seeing their child ravaged by something so horrible is beyond description. By the time I got her to a doctor, I was told to prepare for her impending death.

The father in me did everything in my power to save her life. The scientist in me caught up on the empirical work and networked together several providers with expertise in eating disorders. Their advice, which at the time seemed malicious, was to do nothing about the eating disorder—that is, to say nothing of it at home. If she didn’t want to eat, don’t make her. I was incredulous. But over time the cognitive therapy, the nutritional knowledge, and the trips to the doctor worked. Today that young girl is a physicians’ assistant, a mom, and again pregnant.

After this episode, I decided to leave conventional criminology behind and to pursue all potential causes without regard for how I felt about them personally. Like those I turned to in need, I wanted our field to be able to supply answers to parents struggling with their child’s behavior.

I’ll be honest, when I first started reading in the area of biology and behavior, I felt dirty. These feelings were affirmed by some of my closest academic friends. They warned me to not say or write anything about genes or biology. The consequences, they told me were akin to professional suicide.

Yet that sense of discovery again emerged. What was there to be learned, to be discovered, and to be put in place to help people?

Today we know that anorexia is highly heritable, between 60-80%, and that many of the endophynotypes and pheynotypes are also highly heritable (Thornton, Mazzeo, and Bulik, 2013). Research on specific genetic markers associated with neurotransmission, metabolism, and energy intake and conservation have produced important mixed-results. Imaging scans now show differences in brain processing relating to anxiety and to food intake that are more common in the brains of individuals with AN. An abundance of research also shows

that certain personality factors (all heritable) tend to cluster in children afflicted with AN, such as perfectionism, harm avoidance, and neuroticism. More importantly, research also tells us that parenting has almost nothing to do with the liability for an eating disorder but that parents can serve as an important source of support and guidance in treatment efforts.

I’m certain most of us here today would cheer at the science that has been done on eating disorders. Few would worry about genetic reductionism, biological determinism, and all the other terms used to delegitimize the biology-behavior connection. Few, too, would want to lay blame on parents for their child’s self-destructive behavior and I guess that even fewer would want to withhold cognitive behavioral therapy out of labeling concerns.

The surprising thing about all of this, however, is that if we replace the term “eating disorder” with “antisocial” or “criminal behavior” then our collective defenses go up and we religiously invoke eugenics and the various delegitimizing verbs that remain in our arsenal.

---<SLIDE WHAT YOU CAN DO>

My friends and colleagues, and especially my intellectual adversaries, there is today great work being done on early intervention efforts, on prenatal prevention efforts, on family interventions, and on not only finding “what works” to change offenders, but to also tailor interventions to unique offender characteristics. We need to know the complex interplay between genes and environment that create liabilities for behavioral problems, we need to know how the brain responds to cognitive and behavioral interventions and if we can tweak those interventions, and we need to know how individuals subjectively and physiologically respond to experiences with violence and aggression. Not to be over dramatic, but the leading cause of parents

seeking psychological help for their children is because their behavior has grown intolerable and uncontrollable. Our research can help these parents and can, with effort, divert children from a life-course of crime.

The path before us is not as complicated as you might guess. You can begin by reading outside our field. There is amazing research being done and, to be blunt, those fields need our help. We know a few things about serious recidivistic problem behavior. Move then to citing external research in your own work. Begin to see the neurological underpinnings of certain concepts, like social bonds and attachments. Seek out collaborative relationships with other disciplines. Did I mention they need our help. Forget your allegiance to theory and begin to test specific biosocial hypotheses, including those that involve genetic confounding. Above all else, be critical because we do not want to fall in the trap of accepting relationships to be true when they are not.

----<slide biosocial criminology>

Biosocial criminology is an expansive paradigm that connects us to other arts and sciences

It is a paradigm for studying all levels of the human condition: from the gene, to the behavior, to the social.

More importantly, biosocial criminology recognizes the unique, inherent differences between individuals and as such, the inherent worth and potential of each person.

I invite you to the world of discovery and to the very real potential that our diverse strengths can be brought together into a research program

that finds its humanist purpose. I invite you to the Unitas Multiplex that is biosocial criminology.

-----<END SLIDE>