[acb-hsp] Sandusky Hot-Wired for Pedophilia?

[peter altschul]

Was Jerry Sandusky Really Hard-Wired to Be a Pedophile -- 
Couldn't He Have Stopped Himself?
  Robert M.  Sapolsky, Alterationet 16, 2012
  If you're a neuroscientist, one of your heroes is almost 
certainly the 2nd century Roman physician Galen.  In his time, 
the prevailing wisdom was that the "mind" -- language, memory, 
emotions b was centered in the heart, while the brain was some 
sort of useless packing material inside the skull.  Galen's 
experience as team physician for the gladiators led him to 
conclude otherwise.
  Galen noted that when someone came in with a brain injury b 
like, say, a trident embedded in his head -- other things often 
didn't work right.  Depending on which part of the brain was 
damaged, the man might have a paralyzed limb or he might have 
lost sensation or the power of speech.  His memory might be 
impaired or his personality altered.  From studying these 
unfortunate warriors, Galen drew a shocking conclusion: The mind 
resides in the brain.
  From that insight came others, including one that we're still 
grappling with today: the notion that behavior is a brain 
function and that abnormal behavior comes from an abnormal brain.
  In the centuries since Galen, understanding of the brain has 
grown tremendously.  In recent years, it's gotten a huge boost 
from increasingly fancy tools: functional brain imaging, 
neurogenetics, manipulation of neural stem cells, brainst-puter 
interfaces.  And all the information that has come from these new 
measurement tools and approaches keeps underlining Galen's key 
point -- that the full range of behavior is anchored in the 
functioning of the brain.
  This knowledge has helped us understand the brain, but it has 
also required us to think in new and inflammatory ways about free 
will and how much of it we really have.  And that in turn has 
raised questions about everything from our own everyday foibles 
to terrible criminal acts.
  Consider the case of Jerry Sandusky and his nightmarish 
behavior.  In the aftermath of his conviction came a brave, 
important opinion piece on CNN.  Writing under the provocative 
heading of "Do pedophiles deserve sympathy?," James Cantor of the 
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto explained 
how there tend to be neurobiological differences between 
pedophiles and everyone else.  The disorder, he noted, runs in 
families at a higher than chance level, raising the specter of 
the involvement of genes that influence brain function.  
Moreover, pedophiles have higher-than-expected rates of brain 
injuries during early childhood.  And particularly complex 
findings suggest that many pedophiles experienced in-utero 
abnormalities in hormones that help regulate the development of 
the brain.
  Does this raise the possibility that the neurobiological die is 
cast -- possibly even before birth -- and that some people are 
destined to be pedophiles? Precisely.  As Cantor concludes: "One 
cannot choose to not be a pedophile."
  Uh oh.  Does this mean that a child molester may not be able to 
control his behavior? Is Sandusky-z-monster actually 
Sandusky-z-broken-nervous-system? Cantor denies Sandusky that 
biological out: "One cannot choose to not be a pedophile, but one 
can choose to not be a child molester." In other words, even if 
one has neurobiologically based abnormal urges, it is a criminal 
act to give in to them.
  So, how does that work? In Cantor's view, a pedophile has 
sexual urges that are "biological" and cannot be changed.  But 
there are also things he can control, character traits such as 
self-discipline, motivation and virtue.  And those things can be 
mustered to resist the urge to act on his pedophilic desires.
  That reasoning can be carried over to all sorts of things.  A 
person might have a family predisposition toward alcoholism but 
makes a decision whether to take that first drink.  A person 
might have a plain face but makes a decision about whether to get 
that massive, hideous nose ring.
  But this kind of thinking presupposes a weird dichotomy.  We 
can't help our individual swirls of biological yuck and squishy 
brain parts filled with genes and hormones and neurotransmitters.  
But somewhere within each of us, perhaps in some secluded corner 
of the brain, a command center exists that is independent of 
biology.  And this completely separate part of us enables us to 
resist abnormal urges that have arisen from an abnormal brain.
  A lovely thought, but that's not how it works.  
Self-discipline, impulse control, gratification postponement and 
emotional regulation are all just as much products of biology as 
anything else that emanates from the brain.  The same types of 
evidence that allowed us to understand the role for biology in 
such things as abnormal sexual urges have also demonstrated a 
role for biology in giving in to those urges.
  Consider these examples: There's a part of the cortex that, 
when damaged, produces someone who knows the difference between 
right and wrong yet still can't control his behavior -- even 
murderous behavior.  There's a gene that influences risk-taking 
and sensation-seeking behaviors.  There's a microscopic parasite 
that can burrow into the brain and form cysts that cause people 
to become more impulsive.  There's a class of stress hormones 
that cause neurons to atrophy in a part of the brain that is 
central to executive function and long-term planning; by early 
elementary school, children raised in poverty tend to lag behind 
in the maturation of this brain region.
  Findings like these present a huge challenge in reconciling the 
criminal justice system with what brain science is teaching us.  
I sure don't know how to do it.  We can't simply lock up people 
because their brain chemistry suggests they are predisposed to 
criminal acts, nor can we exonerate people who've committed 
crimes simply because of their brain chemistry.  But the more we 
understand about these things, the clearer it is that we can't 
just ignore them.
  I, for one, am glad that increasing numbers of legal scholars, 
theologians and neuroscientists are working collectively to 
consider these questions.  But the issue even transcends such a 
large and consequential topic, challenging each of us to 
reconsider how we think about our triumphs and failures, our own 
peaks of self-discipline and troughs of self-indulgence.  
Ultimately, findings like these force us to touch something that 
you wouldn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole, that big ol' 
philosophical elephant in the room -- the issue of free will.
  It cannot be that our thoughts, emotions, urges and itches are 
the exclusive province of biology, while what we do with them is 
entirely in the biology-free province of good and evil.  If we 
are going to incorporate biology into thinking about human 
behavior -- as logic demands we do -- then we have to consider 
how it applies to all our domains of behavior.  There are no 
separate categories.
  Robert M.  Sapolsky is John A.  and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor 
of Biological Sciences and Professor of Neurology and 
Neurological Sciences at Stanford University.  His most recent 
book is "Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals.
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