Good vs. Evil: The Fine Genetic Line

A study earlier this year found that saints and sinners both tend to find a moral balance, the former by breaking rules and the latter by following the rules. 

Carry that theme to the extreme, and you might think, at least, that a sociopath and an extreme altruistic do-gooder are opposites personality-wise.

Increasingly, however, research suggests you'd be wrong.

"After all, the chances of a serial killer running into a burning building to save a child are pretty slim, right?" writes Andrea Kuszewski at ScientificBlogging. "And wouldn't a hero-type be one of the last people likely to break rules?"

Not so, according to a new study Kuszewski cites. 

"Personality has consistently shown to be extremely heritable," she writes. "However, the same genetic material arranged and weighted in a slightly different way, may at times express as vastly different phenotypes: the 'extremely good' and the 'extremely bad' individual."

In fact, scientists say natural selection leaves us all at least a little bit crazy — a byproduct, perhaps, of our oversized brains. One might wonder to what extent nurturing determines whether a person ends up on this or that side of the line.

In The Water Cooler, Imaginova's Editorial Director Robert Roy Britt looks at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond. Find more in the archives and on Twitter.