Often, it is said that a genetic code " predisposes" one to certain characteristics. Rarely is a genetic direction deemed a total determinant of a certain result.
Even if you lean in a given way, you may be more or less prone to the behavior...most behaviors lie along a spectrum. Think of the spectrum of autistic disorders.
We have been fans of the show "Dexter" for several years. This final season, the psychopaths are coming out of the woodwork, revolving in a storyline around a psychologist who studied and wrote about many of them. She was involved in the creation of the title character as a serial killer with a code, of only killing killers.
There is a section of the brain that houses empathy, and one element of the story is that someone is killing serial killers, then removing that brain segment, delivering it to her in a jar of preservative. It is an intriguing element of the human condition that we might eventually be able to study brains and predict behaviors. Scary, though.
On a side note, I heard something today about teachers predicting certain problems, something to do with authorities wanting to lay hands on the school records of the Sandy Hook massacre killer. They think if they study them, maybe they can learn how to avoid future attacks of this kind.
As a former teacher, I can't say. That I could predict every kid that eventually had problems getting along with the rest of society, but every one that I thought would, eventually did.
