Math formula may explain why serial killers kill

[HMSHood]

Math formula may explain why serial killers kill
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/18/math-formula-may-explains-why-serial-killers-kill/

That's rather interesting.

 

[Donjeta]

I think the explanation lacks some factor.
Why don't everybody's neurons fire in a log-log pattern so they must go and kill somebody in a gruesome manner?

 

[~n/t~]

I like the "Puppets of Biology" term.

"Certain patterns can occur randomly in nature without meaning anything. While it is interesting in itself that the case of this one serial killer fits a power law distribution, it would be incorrect to draw conclusions from that," Pustilnik said. "If [the authors] can expand their data set and it can turn out to be a more statistically valid model, then it might be an interesting line of research on recurring human behaviors caused by an urge or drive and the discharge of an urge or drive."

If and when they can accurately predict natural disasters, maybe I'll listen to what these experts have to say about serial killers.

 

[otto]

It seems to me that it's possible to find connections in all sorts of strange places, apply a couple of logarithmic functions to those connections and get a straight line. I sure wouldn't use that as a reason to jump to conclusions.

 

[passionflower]

All I know is that serial rapists,killers are not wired like us!
Wouldn't it be great to just look at a person and know they were dangerous.......
maybe in the future!

 

[Reader]

I certainly don't like this idea:

According to Pustilnik, neuroscience research demonstrating that a psychopath is merely a victim of his own faulty biology cannot be used in court as an argument for his innocence. It is admissible, however, as evidence that a jury should be lenient during sentencing.

"When we're trying to figure out 'how blameworthy is this person?', I can imagine that a serial killer could use this finding at sentencing to argue that he was not morally blameworthy, but rather the puppet of his biology," she said."As in, 'the neuron firing pattern makes me do this.'"

To be used as such, though, the result of the case study would need to be generalized across a much larger set of cases to determine whether its finding is significant, or merely a chance correlation, Pustilnik said.

 

[not_my_kids]

This to me doesn't seem much different than the last "predictor". The chromosomal thing with men that was pretty much debunked. I can't remember what they called it, but men with an extra chromosome were "proven" to be more dangerous than others.

That one persisted for awhile, I wonder how long-lived this theory will be?