--Original published at Phil's College Blog
The Ted talk I chose to watch was Jim Fallon’s talk ” Exploring the mind of a killer” because a student from my high school turned out to be a serial killer a few years ago. His name was Cosmo DiNardo. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and the teachers at my school thought that he was a normal student. However, a few years after graduating he killed young adults from my county. Later, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and other mental diseases. I always wondered why he would do these things, and that is why I was attracted to that TED talk.
Jim Fallon’s talk included how genders influenced the likely hood of who became a serial killer. He explained how the X chromosome is the deciding factor. This is true because the X chromosome carries a gene called MAOA gene. These means that the likely hood of this gene becoming dominant will come from your mother if you are a boy. This is true because a girl has two X chromosomes. For instance, the X chromosome from your mother becomes diluted with your father causing the MAOA gene to be less dominant. This happens because there is to much serotonin in the embryo during the pregnancy so later in life serotonin becomes ineffective to the person. Jim also explained why this gene continues is because the only way the gene activates because of a traumatic event. This causes cultures to be violent because the only ay this gene becomes active is through violence causing a tinderbox of a community ready to ignite.
The thing I found the most interesting about the talk is how the gene largely only affects boys because a girl has the same gene but it is not activated because of the X chromosome of the girl’s father. I would think that the same traumatic event would still activate the gene even though a female has another X chromosome.
I do not fine the presenter trustworthy because he did not perform a experiment about the children in violent communities have a more likely chance to have MAOA activate. He described scientifically and psychologically how this could occur but he never did a study on those children and children outside of that community. That he randomly assigned and randomly sampled.
My research idea is that a safe environment away from violence will decrease the chance of violent actions by the affected individuals.
First, I would select a random group of children that have volunteered for my study from a violent community. Then I will randomly assign the children into non-violent communities, and the other randomly assigned group will be sent to a different violent community. The children’s violence will be monitored by an act of physically or emotionally hurting someone by their host families and their teachers in the perspective schools. After one year, the violent acts will be tallied, and we will see if the traumatic events in their younger childhood years still affected their behavior. However, the researcher will also see if the new environments increased or decreased the behavior of the children . The students in the violent community will always be secretly watched incase their mental health and live is put in serious danger by the host family. Both host families, in either community will give the same treatment to the subjects. Both will provide exactly what is needed to survive, but the family will give no extra affection or neglect. This will truly attest the research to the community the students live in daily.