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ness or a potential inuence of free (i.e., noncaused) volition. As long as the total variance in criminal behaviors has not been explained or a sufcient cause of a crime demonstrated experimentally, all that modern science has shown is that there are constraints to human freedom, which was already recognized in ancient writings. Nor is Dr Cashmores stance new. It is rather pre-World War II modernistic, the era when Swedens rst professor of forensic psychiatry, Olof Kinberg, gained the attention not only of a wide international readership in criminology but of Swedish legislators, who eventually dismissed the notion of accountability (referred to by Kinberg as transcendental rubbish) and introduced psychiatric treatment as a form of sanction (5). After legal, societal, and ethical drawbacks, legislators still try in vain to disentangle the resulting confusion of science, medicine, and justice, the roots of which are the same as those behind the notorious sterilization campaigns. To the extent that data are interpreted rigorously by the hypotheses they test, science holds unique promise as provider of knowledge about the aspects of the human that may be studied by quantication and models of causation. If abused to address issues that may not be answered by its methods, science becomes scientism, a mere candidate of a worldview. ter1 Henrik Anckarsa Department of Forensic Psychiatry, the Sahlgrenska Academy,University of Gothenburg, 422 50 Hisings Backa, Sweden
1. Cashmore AR (2010) The Lucretian swerve: The biological basis of human behavior and the criminal justice system. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:44994504. 2. Libet B, Gleason CA, Wright EW, Pearl DK (1983) Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain 106:623642. 3. Burt SA (2009) Are there meaningful etiological differences within antisocial behavior? Results of a meta-analysis. Clin Psychol Rev 29:163178. 4. Kendler KS (2005) A gene for. . .: The nature of gene action in psychiatric disorders. Am J Psychiatry 162:12431252. 5. Kinberg O (1914) On So-Called Accountability (Svenska lkaresllskapets handlingar, Stokholm) (Swedish).
Author contributions: H.A. wrote the paper. The author declares no conict of interest.
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E-mail: henrik.anckarsater@neuro.gu.se.
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1006466107