It's ridiculous how quickly some are to wave away all of biology in favor of the blank slate theory.

Yes, nurture matters, but so does nature. Declaring this settled science "an attempt to justify hate speech" is laughable.

There is no "settled science" establishing a genetic determinant for crime. The person speaking in absolute terms and "waving away" thing is you, with your invocation of an absolute "blank slate theory".

IMHO it's misleading to say "There is no "settled science" establishing a genetic determinant for crime." - while it's debatable how large that component is, there certainly is evidence that it's very unlikely to be zero.

In particular, the following factors are both quite correlated with crime (and in a way where it's reasonable to assume causation) and also are known to be somewhat heritable:

a) mental disorders such as psychopathy;

b) being prone to addiction;

c) general impulse control and risk-seeking behavior.

Given the available evidence, it would be wrong to assume an absolute lack of relationship between your genes and propensity to crime, there clearly is some (though not necessarily large) genetic determinant for crime - all other things being equal, some newborn babies are a bit more likely than others to go on and commit crimes when they grow up.

Your first two factors are straightforward to concede, but then you add a question-begging (c) that is (1) much more difficult to agree with and (2) happens to be heavily tied up with the same racist rhetoric† the comment upthread is cautioning about. (You also conflate heritability with genetic determinism).

My issue isn't with the claim that there is likely some genetic connection to crime. Clearly, in some extreme cases, there is. My issue is with the extrapolation from extreme cases and from very un-settled science to broad claims about genetic determinism (and supposed unwillingness of others to entertain those claims).

† I'm not saying you're using racist rhetoric, I'm saying you're using rhetoric that is also leaned on by racists; for instance, "black people have a genetic predisposition to high time preference".

The (c) is not colloquial question-begging (or at least not intended so), these aspects (risk-seeking behavior and impulse control) are very specific personality traits that are measurable and have been studied quite much, as they are important for sociology, behavioral economics, etc.

These personality traits (like most personality traits, really) have a clear genetic component. I would consider this as settled science. For a single example, studies show that varieties of dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) influence financial risk-taking propensity, impulsivity (e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1781951/), and pathological gambling. As far as we assume causal relationship from impulsivity and pathological gambling to risk of crime (likely there are studies for that, but I'm not going to look now, this seems a reasonable assumption), this implies that this is one more (of many!) genetic factors that have some (small) influence on the likelihood of committing crimes.

Coming back to your specific objections, can you elaborate the what your issue is with "broad claims about genetic determinism" here? I'm not seeing any serious claims of actual genetic determinism (i.e. that it's "all nature") in this thread, I'm only seeing objections to a "no nature" argument, claims that there is no genetic component. The current established scientific opinion is that the vast majority of personality traits are determined by genetic factors (including e.g. epigenetics) and environmental/social factors and individual variation, with all of these influences being intertwined and each of them constituting a major part of the influence. And this is not limited to extreme cases (i.e. particular genetic disorders), but to all the normal variation of human behavior.

I'm not saying one can read their DNA and determine if they will commit crime or not.

But there are a lot of inherited traits that absolutely could lead one to be more likely to get involved in crime. Things like fight vs flight response, risk tolerance, extroversion/introversion, etc.

Saying "You're 100% spot on that it's not biological" is really absurd. Nothing about humans is 100% non biological. That absolutism is exactly blank slate theory.

In context, the sentiment that you're replying to is discussing a criminologist's concern that a genetic basis for criminality --- which, again, there is no "settled science" to suggest exists at all --- would be construed as racism. At best, you're making the same hyperbolic argument you're complaining about, just in the opposite direction.

Except I'm not. I specifically called out that genetics and environment are both important, in response to someone who declared that genetics play no role whatsoever -- and that arguing otherwise is engaging in hate speech.

You're not even reading the original comment you're replying to accurately, let alone charitably. They said that arguing for biological determinants of crime is at worst a justification for hate speech, not that it automatically is. And it's clear that pleading to biological causes for criminality is often a rationale to justify racism, so they're not wrong.

If bad people use the results of good science for bad reasons, then attack those people, not the science itself.

We can't close our eyes and ears and pretend that genetics plays no role in society (including issues of violence, crime, mental health, addiction, etc).

See, you're doing it again. You've (upthread) made a claim you can't support with evidence --- that there's "settled science" connecting genetics in some useful way with criminality --- and then accused people who disagree with you of "closing our eyes and ears" (rhetorical note: it's hard to close your ears) and "pretending that genetics plays no role".

Again, the context of the thread is that appeals to genetic determination are "in the worst case" coded appeals to racism. And, obviously, they often are. You haven't engaged with that argument, but rather constructed a straw man to attack.

What is true is that if you want to ruminate on possible genetic links to criminality, you're probably need to be careful, because you're treading on ground that has very much been staked out by racists over the last 100-or-so years. Don't get angry at people who point that out to you; get angry at the racists. Or, I mean, move on to some other, less freighted argument.

No it isn't. There deffo is some sort of component to it.

I have never met my Grandfather and Uncle that were thieves and another was a sex offender.

I do however like mischief and I love the feeling of thieving stuff. I used to work in Gambling and absolutely loved the idea of taking money from other people. I also have a lot of affiliate sites and I feel like I am stealing that money.

However to say it is 100% one or the other is also garbage. It is another nature vs nurture argument.

Also "Hate Speech" is another way of saying I don't have an argument. It is just a way of saying "You are bad because I don't like what you are saying". This term is destroying my country (people in the UK have been imprisoned because they have posted rap lyrics on facebook).

https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/23/she-posted-rap-lyrics-to-...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921