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ABANDON TWIN RESEARCH? EMBRACE EPIGENETIC RESEARCH? PREMATURE ADVICE FOR CRIMINOLOGISTS
Author(s) -
MOFFITT TERRIE E.,
BECKLEY AMBER
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/1745-9125.12061
Subject(s) - child and adolescent psychiatry , advice (programming) , citation , psychology , library science , psychoanalysis , sociology , psychiatry , computer science , programming language
In their original article, Burt and Simons (2014) argued that heritability studies should be abandoned because twin and adoption research is a fatally flawed paradigm. They pointed optimistically to epigenetics research as the way forward. In our view, both recommendations are hasty. This commentary will put forward two contrarian opinions. First, twin and adoption studies still have a lot to offer criminologists who seek the social causes of crime. Second, epigenetics research has very little to offer yet for criminologists who seek the social causes of crime.