Contrary to simple positivism, identical twins raised in the same household actually are only 85% likely to have IQs within one standard deviation of each other. Obviously, something else is at work and the traditional name for that is free will.
That is the answer to the challenge posed by Kaplan at the head of this paper. How is it that some people react to a stimulus one way, but others do so another? We have numbers for statistically significant groups, but they tell us nothing about individuals.
While ¡°intelligence¡± was offered as an indicator of criminality in the 19th century, today, we like to think that we have a more sophisticated understanding of what makes someone socially deviant. When we look at extroversion, impulsivity, etc., we find that MZTs are about twice as likely to have similar scores on a set of measurements than are DZTs. However, being neurotic, dominant and inflexible may or may not make someone a criminal. The classic case of psychological profiling in a criminal investigation was psychiatrist James Brussels¡¯s identification of ¡°mad bomber¡± George P. Metesky. Introverted, very neat, educated, Catholic, suburban and a ¡°button down¡± middle aged man, Metesky¡¯s criminality seemingly has nothing to do with his personality. We accept it is obvious that impulsivity can correlate with criminality, but does neatness count?
The link between criminality and aggression may be intuitively obvious, but it deserves inspection. Not all violence is criminal and not all crimes are violent. However, the chemical basis of aggression has been firmly established. Similarly, we know that impulsivity correlates to the presence of certain chemicals in the brain. Consequently, it is no surprise that in addition to well-established agents such as serotonin, there exist a multiplicity of such chemicals whose levels (or ¡°imbalances¡±) not only predict, but nearly demand aggressive conduct of a kind often prohibited by law. Not surprising then, is the finding that aggressive behavior in an adopted child correlates closely with similar aggressive behavior in the biological, not their adoptive, parent. [Lee.]
And yet, as any ancient Greek philosopher could have pointed out, there is space between the atoms. ¡°Behavioural genetic studies determine the lower limit of biological contribution to temperament and behaviour. Genes cannot account for all of the biological contributions to behavior, nor can they dictate the interaction between the environment, the brain, and personality [Lee].¡± In other words, the numbers do not completely describe the events. This fact is the central theme of the 1980 symposium, ¡°Individuality and Determinism¡± sponsored by Sidney W. Fox. A series of papers and presentations by academic researchers created an edifice of proof that the genetic definitions of who and what we are determines that each of us must be a unique individual. It is impossible metaphysically and ontologically for any two people to be identical. Materialist determinism demands that each of us be unique. Among the papers and presentations were "Individuality in Bacteria and Its Relationship to Higher Species" by Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., and "Molecular Genetics and Individuality" by William J. Rutter.
The most subtle article came from Koichiro Matsumo, who showed that the second law of thermodynamics demands that each successive iteration always be different from its parent state. Furthermore, Matsumo claimed, material aggregate open to material flow constrains the number of degrees of internal freedom. In other words, physical reality limits the kinds of changes that anything can undergo without outside input. These two principles the demand for change and limits to change are the dynamic interplay that makes every entity in the universe unique.
Marotta, ibid
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