From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Aug 05 2002 - 12:36:01 MDT
On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 10:58:40AM -0700, Charles Hixson wrote:
> Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> >It looks like a genetic variation that results in low
> >levels of monoamine oxidase A, which is involved in
> >cleaning up excess neurotransmitters (Anders could
> >probably tell us which ones), correlates well with
> >aggressive and criminal behaviors.
It is serotonin, norephinephrine, and dopamine that are affected.
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/mao.html
http://biopsychiatry.com/mao.htm
(The later page points out that MAO is also a producer of free oxygen
radicals and may be a contributor to neurodegeneration; maybe there is
at least some upside for the people with MAO deletions)
> I wonder what else it's linked to, though. Criminal behavior is also
> linked to having both thumbs, after all. If a particular allele is
> correlated with a behavior that promotes survival, one would expect it to
> rapidly become the most common variant, unless there were some large cost
> involved in carrying it. (Of course, sometimes one would just find an
> allele during the period when it was increasing in prevalence.)
Well, which personality is best? A calm or an excitable one? A
personality with a low trigger for aggression and paranoia, or one with
a high? There is no answer to these questions without taking the
environment into account. In a violent and risky world you are better
off being paranoid and having less empathy than in a safe and
communitarian one. The natural range of human personality is fairly
broad, which is a "safe" strategy for a kin group: there are always
someone with the right kind of personality to fit in, and since people
can also usually adapt the people with "wrong" personality can often fit
in too.
The above mentioned variation is likely more severe than is evolutionary
favorable though; it is likely just a single mutation that has spread
within a family but won't spread very far in the population.
> Or, perhaps criminal behavior isn't contra survival? Certainly some top
> executives (once) at Enron must have found that it paid quite well.
Just look at the number of marriage offerings sent to famous violent
criminals in jail...
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