The Neuroscience of Psychopaths

Throughout the past few years the scientific study of criminology has been combining their studies with neuroscience. These two scientific communities have come together to study the correlation of biology in the brain and criminal activity. In several studies there have been major differences between the brains of violent psychopaths and healthy ‘normal’ brains.

The definition of a psychopath is, a person who engages repeatedly in criminal and antisocial behavior without remorse or empathy for those victimized. In recent studies of the human brain, scientists would take CT (Computerized tomography) scans, these scans are a type of x-ray that show different 3D cross sectional views of the brain and it’s functionality.

It was found that in comparing CT scans of psychopaths as compared to healthy brains there were obvious differences between the two.

brain scans
brain scans

As shown in the image above, the ‘normal’ brain is eliciting an emotional response, while the scan of the psychopath’s brain is completely inactive in the frontal lobe. Within the frontal lobe is the amygdala, which control emotional responses, and the hippocampus which is responsible for memories and emotional ties. These portions being dark, shows that in the brain of a psychopath, they not only don’t feel emotions, but they don’t have any emotional ties, memories, or responses at all.

These findings put into perspective just how blatant the difference can be between criminals and the victimized. The biggest issues in trying to prosecute these individuals however, is that they can be born without this feeling of empathy, or through their childhood and environmental exposure can be turned into criminals. Without knowing directly what causes this neurological response, treating it is extremely difficult, and the prosecution of these criminal individuals is difficult as well. Because yes, these people can be kidnappers, rapists, and murderers, all cut and dry violent crimes, but the severity and time span of their punishment by law comes into question when the point is broached, whether or not they were able to control themselves.  

To put it further into perspective let me ask you this, if you were unable to feel compassion, empathy, passion, or remorse for your actions, would you think it fair for you to be sent to prison for your criminal actions? Would you argue that without understanding emotions you couldn’t fully understand your actions? These are the questions scientists have been researching through clinical trials and brain scanning of convicted criminals, jury members, criminals themselves, and the families of those individuals as well as those who’ve been victimized.

Q4 Art Slide Show

​This quarter was adventurous as always.  I liked this quarter's theme a little more than the other quarters because I was a little more free.  For the Rodin Museum Garden drawing, I was out and was not able to go with the class.  I ended up going on my own time and drawing my own representation.  For the four hour art pieces, each week I wanted to draw somewhat of a new themed drawing.  For the first week I wanted to put two different drawings in one.  I started with the wood house.  Then on a separate piece of paper I drew the head of a dragon.  The dragon was a little more complicated, so I used the dragon head on the other sheet of paper and traced it onto the one with the house.  The second four hour drawing involved more of what I have learned in art throughout the year.  It used shading, shapes and a lot of time.  That one probably took me the most time (4 hours - 47 minutes). The last drawing was one that I just created as I was drawing.  I saw some pictures online and tried to draw them without tracing.  They turned out a lot more proportional than I imagined. Then once both of the creatures were finished, I added the versus symbol and made it somewhat of a fight event or video game fight. Many of these drawings took a lot of trial and error.  That is why some of these exceeded four hours.  
Overall a good quarter.  I have put in a lot of time to these drawings and will hopefully use these skills I have learned in the future.  

5 Minutes of Science -Brittany Cooper

​Science -  HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV is a virus that spreads through body fluids that affects specific cells of the immune system. AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV/AIDS attacks key parts of your body. Mainly your CD4 Cells. CD4 Cells also known as T- Cells are “helper” cells, which fight against infection . You can contract HIV/AIDS through unprotected sex/sex with an person who is infected. Women who are pregnant and tested positive for the virus have a high risk of exposure of infection to their baby. As well as any exchange of bodily fluids.

Society - There are five ways to get infected with HIV; through blood, semen, vaginal fluids, breastmilk and rectal fluids. It is ILLEGAL if you do not tell your partner your sex status. In many states you can press charges for people who know that they are infected and fail to tell so. Approximately 1 in 7 people are infected with the virus and do not know it. In the USA , about 15 to 20% babies born to HIV positive women who are not taking Anti-HIV drugs are infected. In most cases HIV is spread to the baby in the last week of pregnancy. If the mother has a vaginal delivery and her viral load is high, that increases the risk of transmitted the infection. It is advised that women get C - sections to decrease the risk of transmission.

Self - You CANNOT rely on your symptoms to tell you if you are positive for HIV/AIDS, unless you get tested. And follow through with the test results! in another words, go back and ask for your results. A lot of times people will take the test but not go back for the results because they are scared of the outcome. Have safe sex too!

How To Lie With Statistics Podcast #3

​Here is our third and final podcast about the book How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff. It is on chapters 7-10.

Speakers: 
  • Tamira Bell
  • Angelica Owens


Points discussed:
  • Semi-attached figures: when you can't prove what you want, prove another thing and make them seem the same.
  • Misleading the reader by misleading graphs, charts, and visuals. 
  • Cause and effect: if B causes A, then A cause B.
  • How to Statistiscaluate or manipulate the reader using statistics.
  • How not to fall for the tricks of evil statisticians.
Each topic was discussed by pulling a quote or example of a study from the text and then everyone offered their opinion. 


Podcast 3- 7,8,9,10 - 6-3-16, 11.41 PM

How to Lie With Statistics Pt. 2

This is podcast 2 of a 3-podcast series that dissects the novel, "How To Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff. The book itself explores the various ways that statistics are altered and used outright incorrectly to project a certain image, convey a certain feeling, or produce a certain outcome within the masses. 
In this series, Stephanie Dyson, Dillon Hersey, Maggie Clampet-Lundquist and Sean Morris look into the various themes that comprise the book and dissect what this means, not only for their high school stats class, but for the world around them.


In this podcast: 
We looked at Chapters 3 through 7 for this episode, but used the quotes in the beginning of the book to guide our conversation.Then, we took a look at how Huff explained that graphs can be misconstrued in various ways in The Gee Whiz Graph. From there, we took a look at the farce that is modern media, exploring the ways that news organizations use those various methods all the time to show “statistics” when they’re really not showing anything at all (the graphs we referenced are all pictured below). Lastly, we spoke briefly on the background information you need when thinking about averages so that you can most accurately convey your information. We also brainstormed some new titles for the book by accident, but they're not too shabby. I hope you enjoy this episode. Stay tuned for our final podcast, which will dive into chapters 8 through 10 to finish out the book. 

Music is provided for free by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment's debut album, "Surf", which dropped May 2015.
The Graph Dillon mentioned concerning abortions and cancer screenings. Read the full article here: http://www.stats.org/the-graph-that-launched-a-thousand-news-stories/
The graph Maggie mentioned concerning car crashes across different age groups. Read the full article here:http://www.econoclass.com/misleadingstats.html
The graph Stephanie mentioned concerning Stand Your Ground laws in Florida. Read the full article here: http://usvsth3m.com/post/82779802419/creator-defends-graph-that-appears-to-erroneously-show

How to Lie With Statistics Pt. 3 (Finale)

This is podcast 3 of a 3-podcast series that dissects the novel, "How To Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff. The book itself explores the various ways that statistics are altered and used outright incorrectly to project a certain image, convey a certain feeling, or produce a certain outcome within the masses. 
In this series, Stephanie Dyson, Dillon Hersey, Maggie Clampet-Lundquist and Sean Morris look into the various themes that comprise the book and dissect what this means, not only for their high school stats class, but for the world around them.


In this podcast: 
We looked at Chapters 8-10, closing out the book and the project with out final thoughts on the novel. We also took the chance to connect some of our knowledge gained from HtLwS to other classes that we're taking. Overall, we found the project as a whole to be our favorite math benchmark to date (because we did so little math, but learned so much more than we intended) and were pleased with the ending. Now, it's time to apply all of this knowledge to the real world. 
In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed our podcasts. Look at the next blog post for a compilation of all three!

Music is provided for free by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment's debut album, "Surf", which dropped May 2015.

How to Lie With Statistics - Full Compilation

This is a compilation of a 3-podcast series that dissects the novel, "How To Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff. The book itself explores the various ways that statistics are altered and used outright incorrectly to project a certain image, convey a certain feeling, or produce a certain outcome within the masses. 
In this series, Stephanie Dyson, Dillon Hersey, Maggie Clampet-Lundquist and Sean Morris look into the various themes that comprise the book and dissect what this means, not only for their high school stats class, but for the world around them.

As promised, here is a compilation of all three podcasts in our mini-series. Enjoy!

Music is provided for free by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment's debut album, "Surf", which dropped May 2015.

How to Lie With Statistics Pt. 3 (Finale)

This is podcast 3 of a 3-podcast series that dissects the novel, "How To Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff. The book itself explores the various ways that statistics are altered and used outright incorrectly to project a certain image, convey a certain feeling, or produce a certain outcome within the masses. 
In this series, Stephanie Dyson, Dillon Hersey, Maggie Clampet-Lundquist and Sean Morris look into the various themes that comprise the book and dissect what this means, not only for their high school stats class, but for the world around them.


In this podcast: 
We looked at Chapters 8-10, closing out the book and the project with out final thoughts on the novel. We also took the chance to connect some of our knowledge gained from HtLwS to other classes that we're taking. Overall, we found the project as a whole to be our favorite math benchmark to date (because we did so little math, but learned so much more than we intended) and were pleased with the ending. Now, it's time to apply all of this knowledge to the real world. 
In the meantime, we hope you enjoyed our podcasts. Look at the next blog post for a compilation of all three!

Music is provided for free by Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment's debut album, "Surf", which dropped May 2015.

How to Lie With Statistics podcast 2

Podcast 2- 3,4,5 and 6 - 6:3:16, 9.31 PM
People: Tamira and Angelica
We discussed chapters 3,4,5 and 6. In chapter 3, we discussed the cavities lower with the doakes toothpaste and the tests they did with the pennies. For chapter 4, we discussed about peter and linda different IQ scores and how they think if they have a higher IQ, they are smaller but if it is lower they are retarded. We also discussed the different sampling methods and their outlooks on that. For chapter 5, we talked about the gee wiz graph and the way it is drawn and what it means. For chapter 6, we discussed the pictoral chart. 

How we discussed them was by summarizing each chapter and then picking out what we think was the most important points or just certain things we liked in the chapter. We didn't have any conflicts during the piece and also did not have any questions either. 

Final Podcast, Imani and Amirah

This podcast is about the chapters 7-10. In these final chapters we did the same thing for all of the others which is observe. This conversation was about all of the key things that were said in each chapter. We asked questions and even answered some of our own questions. There was some confusion with what the book was saying but then it was cleared up. 
3rd podcast - 6:3:16, 4.18 PM

Podcast #3 - Ilker, Jamie & Brian

In our final podcast, Brian, Jamie and I talked about chapters 7,8,9 and 10.  In these chapters, we do a lot of connecting.  Everything can be connected back to previous chapters.  Chapter 10 answers many of the questions that we had when we first started the book.  Chapters 7 & 8 talked about other statistical lies.  Chapter 9 basically summed up all of the lies and explained how to lie with statistics.  Chapter 10 was telling us how to find statistical lies so we do not fall for the statistical lies we read about in the book. 

3rd & Final Podcast-How to Lie with Statistics- Tiarra & Lindsey

Hello & Goodbye! It's us Lindsey and Tiarra back with our third and final podcast. In this recording, we cover chapters 8,9 and 10 and then have a goodbye discussion and even discuss the introduction at some point. The format of our discussions are formed around discussing the chapter and what it was about itself, analyzing it, and then having a discussion/question period. We agreed with each other for the most part.It was a great experience and we loved working together and talking about the book.

Thank you!

Here is the 3rd podcast:

chapters8to10HTLWS
Here is the FULL podcast from chapter 1-chapter 10


FULLHTLWSpodcast

Second podcast, Imani and Amirah

Podcast number 2 - 6:3:16, 3.37 PM
This second podcast is from chapter 3-6. We figured they were pretty much the same, so we combined them into one podcast. We talked about how some of the things talked about in the book relates to us to a certain extent. We made observation about things in class that we talked about already in regards to this book. 

Full Podcast for "How to Lie with Statics"

This is the group's final podcast. Every member of the group (Sattera, Nashay, Amanda, and Adowa) spoke throughout the entire podcast. We all enjoyed reading the book and working together for our final benchmark of the year. The book taught us all plenty of valuable information that we will be able to apply to our own lives. As we were reading chapters seven through eleven we talked about many tricks and deceptions that people use through statics. One of those topics were semi-attached figures. That was about how people use figures that seem alike to trick people into thinking that they're the same thing. For example, in the book they said that nostrum cures colds because it killed 31,108 germs in a test tube. People unknowingly thought that since it killed so many germs in a test tube that it would be able to kill germs inside of humans. However test tube germs and human germs are two completely different. Another thing we talked about was the "before and after affect". Advertisements tend to use before and after pictures to prove how well their product works. However, they use different lightings and filters to make items seem better. I hope you enjoyed all our podcast. Thanks for listening.  
Final Stats Podcast

FULL PODCAST for: "How To Lie With Statistics"

This is our final podcast that is a combination of all four of our podcasts, that is 42 minutes long!

For this podcast, we mainly focused on what the book was trying to portray to us through the authors confusing writing, the illustrations, etc. 
Our shortest podcast was the one about the Introduction, where we discussed what we thought the book was going to be talking about, and what was going to happen.
In our first "official" podcast, we focused on chapters 1 and 2. We mainly pointed out what we read about collecting data sets and how we go about them. We talked about examples used in the book about choosing samples, being bias, collecting data, and other statistical things. For the most part, what we were reading was familiar to us because we just learned about the things talked about in class. 
In the second podcast we talked about advertisements, coin flips, IQ's, and how we interpreted different illustrations in the chapters. We compared what we read to the things we learned in class. One spefic thing was the coin flips. When we learned about coin flips, we thought it would always be 50/50 when flipping, but that wasn't correct. 
In our last podcast, we focused on the rest of the book (to chapter 10). We mainly focused on the titles of the book, and how they correlated to the writing. We also talked about the "bigger picture" which was, what we each thought it meant what the author meant by "How to lie with Statistics". 


Speakers: Isabella Blackwell, Jada Terrell, and Kadija Koita 

LGMD

Science
Limb Girdle Muscular dystrophy affects one shoulder and hips. It makes those area weaker. The disease is a genetic one with over 30 variations. There are some dominant genes and receive genes. This means that people with the genes can pass them on to their offspring. It makes it very hard to walk and complete simple task. Many people are bound to wheelchairs.

Society

There are Genetic screening one can do to see if they have it. Another hing is that if one has trouble standing on the tip of their toes they should maybe ask  doctor.

Self

My grandpa has ALS another type of muscle disease.
Also I learned and thought about LGMD for a scholarship.
Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy
This is a genetic disease
  • Caused by mutations on various genes

  • This leads to over 30 variations of LGMD

  • Very prominent in family with a dominant LGMD gene

  • If a parent has a dominant gene there is a 50% chance it will spread to the children

  • This is a genetic disease

  • Caused by mutations on various genes

  • This leads to over 30 variations of LGMD

  • Very prominent in family with a dominant LGMD gene

  • If a parent has a dominant gene there is a 50% chance it will spread to the children



https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FzW8nGwlxYkchb8vbVa2bRL_c9ACdBsgLnklGOBiw4Y/edit#slide=id.g111d3b436f_0_0