Defending Jacob

“Precisely how the electrical signals and chemical reactions occurring second by second in the human body make the leap to thought, motivation, impulse—where the physical machinery of man stops and the ghost in the machine, consciousness, begins—is not truly a scientific question, for the simple reason that we cannot design an experiment to capture, measure or duplicate it. For all we have learned, the fact remains that we do not understand in any meaningful way why people do what they do, and likely never will.”

—PAUL HEITZ,
“Neurocriminology and Its Discontents,”
American Journal of Criminology and Public
Policy, Fall 2008

The same genetic sequence in one individual may produce a completely different result in different individuals and different environments. What we’re talking about here is just a genetic predisposition. Predisposition is not predestination. We humans are much, much more than our DNA. The mistake people tend to make with a new science like this one is over-determinism. We’ve discussed this before. We are not talking about the genes that code for blue eyes here. Human behavior has many, many more causes than simple physical traits.”

It is a childish realization, I admit—no one worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessed—but after all, we were children.