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Re:Crime is a Family Affair by tptacek on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @05:38PM (#18287739)
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.
Re:Crime is a Family Affair by nostromo on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @06:02PM (#18287909)
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).

Re:Crime is a Family Affair by tptacek on Tuesday October 23, 2018 @06:22PM (#18288016)
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.