Defending Jacob

“Precisely how the electrical signals and chemical reactions occurring second by second in the human body make the leap to thought, motivation, impulse-where the physical machinery of man stops and the ghost in the machine, consciousness, begins-is not truly a scientific question, for the simple reason that we cannot design an experiment to capture, measure or duplicate it. For all we have learned, the fact remains that we do not understand in any meaningful way why people do what they do, and likely never will.”

— Paul Heitz, “Neurocriminology and Its Discontents,” American Journal of Criminology and Public Policy, Fall 2008