--Original published at KatiesPerspectives
The TED talk I chose to watch was ‘Jim Fallon: Exploring the Mind of a Killer.’ I chose to watch this TED talk because I have always been interested in exploring forensics and the workings of the minds of the world’s most well-known killers. Although this wasn’t a long speech, it was packed with information and I found it very easy to listen to. Besides it being interesting and engaging, Jim Fallon, the speaker, was really easy to listen to in the sense that he didn’t use huge words that were hard to understand. If there was ever a time that he said something that wasn’t obvious to the average person, he made sure to explain what he was talking about. In this speech, Fallon compared and contrasted the brain scans of the brains of the worlds most famous killers from John Wayne Gacy to David Berkowitz to Charles Manson. He was able to note a number of similarities but only a few obvious differences within the brain scans. This helps to support his point in that it’s possible that there are physical/genetic reasons why people turn out to be killers.
Something that I thought was very interesting was when Jim discussed the issue of the physical interworking of the mind that made men and woman different in the way that they think about such issues. Due to genetics and interactions with environments, it’s known that epigenetic effects of the brain and damage to the orbital cortex and the interior part of the temple could have some effect on whether or not they are a killer. Its also interesting that the gene (the MAO gene) which is inherited from your mother, it explains why men are sometimes more violent or likely to become killers. Parents can pass down 2 X chromosomes to their daughter (thus, this gene is properly “diluted”) while the son can only get 1 X chromosome from their mother (thus, they have a greater chance of having this sort of MAO gene.)
James (“Jim”) Fallon spoke a lot about how he got his start and developed his interest in studying the minds of killers. He said how he was relatives with one of the murderers from the very first solved and documented murders in history. He then went on to talk about how he was asked to review brain scans and give his scholarly input on what he thought about them (without knowing that they were brain scans from the brains of killers.) Having this background knowledge is not necessarily important to the purpose of the study, but it is definitely very interesting.
Although this was a short video, I felt like I learned a lot and what was said was well spoken. This was a generally laid back lecture and it was very easy to listen to and packed with information. I would be interested in learning more about how much the interworking of the minds of killers has to do with genetics and the relationship between the two.