I should have been clearer. Sorry.

The point I was struggling to make was, these stories are often presented and understood as "science has found THE cause of X" or "THE gene for Y," and that's simply not true. Even some scientists are guilty of this -- B. F. Skinner and his followers were notorious, as I recall.

Just to say, we've got to take these reports with a grain of salt. And while lead may very well contribute to violence, I believe that there have been stronger correlations found with poverty, education, and even youth. But even then, these are merely propensities; the act of violence is still a personal choice.

Gene you said "Oh, and then there's a little something called "free will" or "individual responsibility."" and "But even then, these are merely propensities; the act of violence is still a personal choice."

I agree with majority of your post(s), specifically it's the environment(family, socity, school) that shapes the person. But here's the thing, Free will isn't all that free. It's true, humans have the ability to make decisions but what brings about that decision is the cause not the person's choice. What I mean is, every decision is based on a person's individual experience/knowledge. So When a person LACKS the CORRECT knowledge, they'll inevitably make WRONG decisions. How can you blame someone for doing something wrong when they don't control what there exposed to or given the knowledge to make the right decisions?

Also, you have to think, why would a person( who is deemed mentally "sane") commit violence? Are you saying people are inherintly evil? Of course not. But the legal system and most of society says well...it was there "choice". That idea seems to be an excuse for punishing "evilness", which itself, is a human concept.

I'll better illustrate my point, Let's say we pluck two boys, roughly the same age, one from the an African tribe who has never received formal education and the other boy from a middle class family from the US with a 10th grade education. Now give them 2 indentical test that covers basic math ,verbal and writing skills, what do you think will results? You don't need to setup to experiment to show anything, it's obvious the boy from the US who has been in school will out perform the other boy from Africa. But why is this? The test clearly stated the "choices" but the African boy who hasn't received any education got almost every answer incorrect while the other boy received a near perfecr score. The Obvious answer is the boy from Africa didn't have the knowledge needed to make a accurate choice. So what have we learned? Those who lack knowledge ultimely make incorrect decisions even if accurate choices are presented because they didn't know understand. So can we hold this innocent child responsible for his incorrect desicions shown on the test? The simple answer is no. If the child was given the chance to live in a place where education was available than he would most certainly done better on the exam. But we as a society punish those who lack the knowledge to make correct choices all the time. And just because you tell a person something is wrong, unless they understand, they will simply ignore it.

I'm not saying to let those who unfortunately commit crimes to be let free and simply say "it's not there fault". Instead, these people need mental help. You can't just throw people in prison and expect the problem to go away( oh wait we do that). Because in prison, a lot of the times, the inmate will be mistreated and come out even worse. Rehabilitaion is key to help prevent violence and unless you remove the root cause of violece, it will never go away.

Now I'm well aware there are some genetic factors that may cause someone to commit violence more than someone else but nothing shapes a person's mind more that he or she's aqcuired knowledge(either consciously or subconsciosuly) and experience.

I've probably repeated myself and ranted way to long but that's my view or at least a part.