Response to Mazer

This reading was tough for me to get through. It wasn't because it was a hard read, I was expecting it to be much harder based on what we were told in class but it was relatively easy. The story itself is what was hard to stay focused on. I applaud the men that are part of the Power Team for thinking of a creative way to get their message out there and being so dedicated but I think they aren't the smartest tools in the shed. First, I highly doubt that these tricks are 100% real in any way. Second, if they are in fact 100% real then they are careless and teaching the young demographic they are aiming for bad things. I don't think they should go around breaking obnoxious amounts of ice with their head and bending steel with their teeth and then telling people if they believe in God they can have that strength too. That is going to give kids the wrong message and some daredevil is going to go try to do it because he will think he's protected by God and then end up dead. It's careless for these men to be doing this even when you think about their own risks, anything could go wrong and any time and someone could end up seriously injured or even dead. I think if they want to spread the Gospel they need to do it in a slightly less dangerous way or at least change their message. Mazer herself did an excellent job at displaying what the men are on stage doing, the message they are out there spreading and how effective it seems to be.

Response to Sedaris

I'm not really sure how to respond to this story. When I first read it I felt bad for the narrator because everyone was kind of ganging up on him and teasing him for all these things he felt obligated to do and no one really tried to help him. Everyone just wanted him to stop and that's all that concerned them. I then started thinking that he just had OCD and no one was realizing it but I'm not really sure. I thought OCD because I know people with it have to do certain things and if it isn't done right they need to start all over like he would have to on the ride home. I felt bad when his dad slammed on the breaks in the car so he would smash his nose on the windshield but then he said he liked the pain so from that point on I didn't know how to take the story. I don't know how to react to it. It left me kind of confused and wanting to read more. I didn't really like the end because he got rid of all the of things that made him unique and that bothered me. I like the character better when he was doing weird things to keep himself sane rather than conforming to something like smoking to do it.

More about my topic.

The specific question that I want to answer is whether nature or nurture is more important when explaining deviant or criminal behavior. I want to look at all the different aspects that can explain the behavior and explain why I think one is more important than the other. My working thesis statement would be that biology holds the answer to criminal behavior. I currently know a bit of information about the issue. I'm in a theory class and have learned about a few things in my other Criminology classes. Many Criminologists focus on social theories to explain crime due to bad research done in the biological aspect early in Criminology's history. However, with advances in technology, experts have been able to look inside the body for explanations rather than using body features to determine criminality like they did in the early 19th Century. I know that things like low self-control, low attention span, aggressiveness and sensation seeking can lead to this behavior as well. I also know that disorders like Bi-Polar and ADHD which are heritable contribute to criminality as well as serotonin levels. Other disorders such as psychosis, psychopathy and schizophrenia can also increase criminality There have also been studies done to show that environment toxins and some things we eat can influence our genes in a way that can alter our normal behavior for a period of time. an example of this is what came to be known as the Twinkie Defense, when a guy murdered his wife I believe and then used the defense that he was depressed which caused him to eat unhealthy things that his body wasn't used to altering chemicals in his brain making him act uncharacteristically.  I still need to find out the exact genes that help contribute to criminality and how these genes affect people. I need to look at the level of influence that the environment has on your genes and how much that can change your risk of being deviant. I also need to learn what other biological things can contribute to crime and why some inheritable diseases do. Arguments that oppose mine are things like parents influence behavior more, peers have more of an impact on why we do things, socioeconomic status and social disorganization explain deviant behavior better and formal and informal controls can explain criminal behavior in a broad sense. I've already looked at the books Understanding Violence, Biology and Crime, The Criminal Brain: Understanding Biological Theories of Crime, Criminology A Brief Introduction, and Essentials of Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach. The articles that I've already looked at are All in the Family and Evidence of Genetic and Environmental effects on the Development of Low Self-Control, and H.J. Eysenck in Fagin's Kitchen: the Return to Biological Theory in 20th Century Criminology.