Hannah Critchlow
Hodder & Stoughton
WHEN Bradley Waldroup was accused of murder, his attorney sent his DNA to a genetics lab. The results changed his fate. The lab found he had a rare variant of the MAO-A gene that is strongly associated with violent behaviour in people who – like him – were abused as children. Instead of receiving the death penalty, Waldroup was sentenced to 32 years in prison in 2009.
At stake in the case was the issue of free will, considered at length in by a University of Cambridge neuroscientist. From murder to what we eat, Critchlow explores the influence of genetics and environment on our thoughts and behaviour, trying once again to deflate public notions of unlimited agency and capability.
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Although that vision of “free will on steroids” may have personal and societal benefits, ranging from self-affirmation to civic responsibility, Critchlow refuses to give free will a free ride, especially where she believes the science is stacked against it.
Take the familiar ideas about the deep evolutionary roots of dietary preference, such as our insatiable craving for sugar and fat, efficient energy sources for survival when food was scarce. Less familiar, but equally key, is the way children are predisposed in utero to like certain foods. As Critchlow explains, the child’s reward system develops there, inclining the fetus to flavours present in amniotic fluid. Together with genetics, such early conditions have lifelong health implications, playing a far bigger role than conscious choices in determining, say, obesity.
“The more we learn from neuroscience, the more sense it makes to have a system that treats criminality as it does public health”
Love is also fated for Critchlow. Mate selection owes a lot to scent. Critchlow cites the sweaty T-shirt experiment. Women had to rate the allure of men’s T-shirts, preferring the perspiration of males whose immune systems contrasted with their own, and whose DNA might therefore add to the defences of any offspring. “The women could literally sniff out Mr Right, with optimum genetics in mind,” says Critchlow.
Society does us a disservice by uncritically embracing free will, Critchlow argues. In particular, she questions a criminal justice system that does not respond to the latest science. The more neuroscience teaches us, she says, the more it seems we may be better served by a system “that treats the problem of criminality as it does public health”.
But if the world is deterministic, what is the point of trying to solve our problems? A discussion in the book with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams leads to an intriguing response. He holds that our relations with each other can’t be deterministic because our minds are fundamentally unconstrained. Critchlow argues that by “debating our differing realities, we will collectively get to a more nuanced and robust set of beliefs that better serves our needs”.
Even if individuals turn out to lack free will, our collective future may be open – and we can all benefit from Critchlow’s book.
