Is murder in the genes or in the environment?
By Beverly Kelley
July 14, 2003
As I was growing up, I concocted a brilliant theory to explain why my father was so much stricter with me than he was with my sister. I figured that he held me, the firstborn, to higher standards/penalties simply because he was new to parenting. Actually, he hadn't yet acquired the haggard look around the eyes that comes with a decade of Father's Days. Also, I had expected some heartfelt appreciation from my sibling -- after all, I was the trailblazer, the intrepid groundbreaker who managed to find every imaginable way of getting in trouble, so she wouldn't have to.
Not only was my sis patently ungrateful, but also my mother politely informed me that my hypothesis was all wet. The reason my dad was so tough on me was because I was (and I could scarcely believe my ears) exactly like him. Sure I'll give him credit for my blue eyes, ear for music and sweet tooth, but I am nothing like him. This was a guy who relished Socialist politics, had trouble curbing a hair-trigger temper and always had to be right.
Ward Weaver III shouldn't want to hear how much he resembles his father either. Daddy Dearest is on Death Row at San Quentin, awaiting execution for slaying Robert Radford, 18, and Barbara Levoy, 23. You may have read about the case: The killer buried the female victim under a slab of concrete in his own back yard.
Now the son is facing trial for a double homicide, Miranda Gaddis, 13, and Ashley Pond, 12. One body was found underneath freshly poured concrete behind his home. The other was boxed up and stored in his tool shed.
The Weavers really make you wonder about the "sins of the father being visited on the children." It would seem that the urge to murder was bequeathed, like a cursed family heirloom, by one generation to the next. In fact, daughter and sister Tammi wrestles with the fear that the Weaver family harbors some sort of "psycho" gene that she might just pass down to her own offspring.
Even before nature and nurture were pitted against each other in scientific circles, philosophers and theologians busied themselves arguing determinism vs. free will. For much of the 20th century, the environment side of the debate gained ground as social scientists evidenced the sway of parenting, schooling and social conditions on personality and behavior.
With the recent explosion of knowledge in the field of genetics, however, the pendulum has swung back to nature, with the promise of a brave new world in which we are our parents. Have you noticed that best-selling self-help books these days start out with, "it's not your fault"?
In "Nature via Nurture," Matt Ridley explains that genes are not simply agents for transmitting certain traits from parents to children. In fact, he allows that genes click on and off, not only to influence various stages of development but also, more importantly, in reaction to the environment. "Right now, somewhere in your head," he writes, "a gene is switching on, so that a series of proteins can go to work altering the synapses between brain cells so that you will, perhaps, forever associate reading this paragraph with the smell of coffee seeping in from the kitchen."
In addition, despite all the hype from the mass media, Ridley maintains there is no such thing as "risk-taking" or "homicidal" or (take your pick) genes. Genes make proteins, not behavior. While studies of identical twins raised apart have confirmed that personality traits can be inherited, those same studies also prove genes are not destiny. For instance, if one twin has schizophrenia, the other identical twin has only a 50 percent chance of developing the mental illness, compared to 1 percent for the general population. This implies there is a significant environmental reason that allows half to escape psychosis.
In fact, Ridley argues that nurture provides such a noteworthy effect on genes that "environmental influences are sometimes less reversible than genetic ones." Although the senior Weaver did not play a direct role in raising his children (he left when the youngster was 4) the son showed up at his father's murder trial every day, listening carefully, even making notes, as the prosecution laid out the details of the crime and cover-up. Then, he allegedly committed his own murders.
"Imitation," wrote Charles Cleb Colton, "is the sincerest form of flattery." It is also, according to education expert Albert Bandura, the best and easiest way to learn.
Although my father didn't teach me everything I know, he taught me a great deal. Especially when he didn't think I was looking.
-- Beverly Kelley, who writes every other Monday for The Star, is a professor in the Communication Department at California Lutheran University and an author. Her e-mail address is kelley@clunet.edu.
www.staronline.com/vcs/opinion/article/0,1375,VCS_125_2107400,00.html
2001 The E.W. Scripps Co., Ventura County Star





