Word: xyy
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...recent debate with Jonathan Beckwith, under the auspices of the Harvard Medical Society, was intended to clarify some of the issues raised by his attack on the study of children with an extra Y chromosome (XYY). Your reporter unfortunately added to misconceptions about the study by stating that "A Boston study began in 1969 to inform the parents of babies with XYY chromosomes that males with two Y chromosomes may exhibit criminal tendencies." This distortion is large enough to require correction...
...Boston study began in 1969 to inform the parents of babies with XYY chromosomes that males with two Y chromosomes may exhibit criminal tendencies...
Publicity by a group called Science for The People last year forced the cessation of the study. The relation between XYY chromosomes and criminal behavior is unproven, the group maintained. Therefore the XYY study might act as a "self-fulfilling prophecy" by influencing parental relations with an XYY baby that might otherwise mature normally...
...Jonathan R. Beckwith '57, professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and a leader of Science for The People, attacked the XYY study, and "much of human behavioral genetics," as a pseudo-science, which attempted to perpetuate unproven ideas in the public mind...
Beckwith added that a conversation with the parents of one of 15 XYY children identified in the study "confirmed all the worst fears we had about the study...