# Seriously, Annie-Xmas, shut up about adoption and serial killers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 12, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652 "2011-05-12T14:42:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/181 "2011-05-16T00:48:10Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Disclaimer: I am not adopted. I don’t think I even know anyone who is adopted. I have no particular feelings or opinions about adoption one way or another. > > I opened this thread because the title was interesting and I’ve always thought of Annie as a completely uncontroversial poster. > > I read the first third of the thread and decided to go-a-googling to see where this all started and what information might be available. > > It appears to me, from my search that the source for the information is a book called “[Adoption: Uncharted Waters](http://www.amazon.com/Adoption-Uncharted-Psychologists-Practical-Therapists/dp/0970288328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305502532&sr=8-1)” by David Kirschner, PH.D, the man who came up wiht the concept of “Adopted Child Syndrome”. > > According to his book, FBI statistics state that 16% of serial killers are adopted, vs. 2-3% of the population. In my search I saw other breakdowns of the facts, but all of them arrived at the conclusion that adoptees are overrepresented to a statistically significant degree among serial murderers. > > The book has been positively reviewed by people who it appears are not in any way hostile to adoption: > All of this leads me to say that it appears the quarrel should be less with Annie than with Dr. Kirschner. From his [website](http://www.adoptionunchartedwaters.com/aboutthebook.php) description of the book: > > I recommend that anyone wondering go to the Amazon link and look inside the book to the acknowledgments and introduction, where the author talks about how he became interested in the subject, as well as the rest of available pages. It’s hard to come away with the idea that this is the pathetic work of a raving madman without a clue. It seems he may have a point, and that his work is designed to help people avoid pitfalls that can lead to profoundly damaging results as a consequence of adoption specifically. > > So, in conclusion, it appears that Annie is not crazy, irrational or stupid, although she might be slightly repetitive and unusually interested in the topic. Rather, she is accepting, vs. rejecting, the conclusions a psychologist/psychoanalyst who has made a study of the issue has come to. You may reject them. But your rejection of Kirschner’s theory is not for some reason clearly correct while Annie’s acceptance is clearly incorrect; it seems that there is room for debate and analysis of the theory. That would be relevant if anyone was denying that there is room for debate and analysis of the theory. Rather, I was requesting that **Annie** not come to conclusions that as far as I can tell even Kirschner has not come to. Nothing in any link **Annie** has ever provided, nor in this text you have pasted here, indicates any kind of a _causative_ link between adoption and serial murder. Absenting any conclusive evidence pointing to causation, it’s simply a lie to say it exists. Considering your own deep regard for the truth, **Stoid** , I would expect for you to be able to see that. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/182 "2011-05-16T01:38:53Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Now here you are promoting his work? There are so few times when I wished that I weren’t an atheist, so I could pray with sincerity. “Oh, please, please God, please don’t let that happen.” ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/183 "2011-05-16T01:42:12Z")
She will stun you with mighty WALLS OF TEXT kapow ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/184 "2011-05-16T01:58:32Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Nothing in any link **Annie** has ever provided, nor in this text you have pasted here, indicates any kind of a _causative_ link between adoption and serial murder. Absenting any conclusive evidence pointing to causation, it’s simply a lie to say it exists. Considering your own deep regard for the truth, **Stoid** , I would expect for you to be able to see that. I disagree. Read this again: > [@](#): > > Examines adoption issues of abandonment, loss, rejection, attachment, bonding, birth-parent fantasies & split-identity; **as reflected in the Adopted Child Syndrome (ACS) and evidenced in extreme cases of adoptees who commit acts of homicide**. Clinical and forensic issues in adoption are explored in high-profile cases. Do you disagree that meaning of the words above could also be conveyed as: _“examines negative consequences of adoption; sums up those negatives as a psychological syndrome (resulting from adoption); uses cases of homicidal adoptees as (extreme) evidence for the existence of the psychological syndrome”_? Or that it could be stripped even further to: _“Shows how adoption can lead to severe psychological consequences that in the worst cases make the adoptee more prone to murder”?_ It seems impossible to take from it anything other than that the book is devoted to making the argument that adoption _can in fact be a causative factor in the development of homicidal tendencies._ Whether the case is _ **persuasive** _ or not, I have absolutely no idea. I haven’t read it, but neither has anyone else participating in this thread, I don’t even know if Annie is aware of the actual details of the argument. So simply rejecting the argument as untenable out the gate, without any familiarity at all with the details of the argument, is not particularly impressive as an argument itself. The theory exists, the argument for it has been made in depth by someone with extensive experience and knowledge in the area of psychology and the psychology of adoptees,it has been read and received by parties with extensive experience in the area of adoption, and those same people have publicly declared that they find his theories and ideas to be worthwhile. At the very least, I think this means that it is not accurate to portray Annie as: [ul] [li] lying (Steophan)[/li][li] making blatant false claims (you)[/li][li] an idiot (you)[/li][li] stupid (redtail23)[/li][li] pitiful (Cartooniverse)[/li][/ul] and so forth. Since it is a legitimate theory that has been lauded by people in a position to know, I don’t think it’s valid to be on Annie’s case about it as though she’s (insert dismissive judgment of your choice here) and can be considered a fool for giving the idea any credence. The fact that many people have argued against the idea is also not any proof of anything either, since the arguments against it are not informed: no one arguing against it seems to know any details about the theory or argument in support of it. But if your complaint is really that you’re tired of hearing about it, ok, never mind. Or your complaint is that Annie _herself_ has failed to make the case and therefore you find it illegitimate for her to bring it up at all, ok, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/185 "2011-05-16T01:59:36Z")
You are WRONG and THIS IS WHY YOU ARE WRONG and HERE’S THREE MORE PAGES OF WHY YOU ARE WRONG and WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/186 "2011-05-16T02:05:17Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Or your complaint is that Annie _herself_ has failed to make the case and therefore you find it illegitimate for her to bring it up at all, ok, never mind. That right there is the thrust of the OP as I read it. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/187 "2011-05-16T02:17:59Z")
Well, now that **Stoid** is here to school us all on the validity of arguments in a book she’s never read, we can all go home. ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/188 "2011-05-16T02:19:24Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Well, now that **Stoid** is here to school us all on the validity of arguments in a book she’s never read, we can all go home. Can you tell my boss I can go home? They won’t accept my word for it. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/189 "2011-05-16T02:22:21Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Well, now that **Stoid** is here to school us all on the validity of arguments in a book she’s never read, we can all go home. Careful reading prevents mistakes. > [@](#): > > Whether the case is _ **persuasive** _ or not, I have absolutely no idea. I haven’t read it, but neither has anyone else participating in this thread… So simply rejecting the argument as untenable out the gate, without any familiarity at all with the details of the argument, is not particularly impressive as an argument itself. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/190 "2011-05-16T02:31:11Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Whether the case is persuasive or not, I have absolutely no idea. I haven’t read it, but neither has anyone else participating in this thread… So simply rejecting the argument as untenable out the gate, without any familiarity at all with the details of the argument, is not particularly impressive as an argument itself. I’m as familiar as **Annie** wants me to be. I would think that if the evidence for causation exists, she would have been happy to provide it to me one of the several times I’ve asked her for it. Absenting her doing so, I have to believe it doesn’t exist, and so I’ve asked her to stop making a claim that she cannot or will not support. Which I think is SOP for this board, is it not? ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/191 "2011-05-16T02:38:27Z")
> [@Sierra\_Indigo](#): > > Can you tell my boss I can go home? They won’t accept my word for it. Well, _I_ certainly can’t, but **Stoid** certainly can. After all, she can probably find a link to your company’s employees’ manual, but she won’t have to read it. > [@Stoid](#): > > Careful reading prevents mistakes. Oh, the irony. THE IRONY. ETA: I \<3 this thread so much. It’s the trifecta of WTF. ---
**Author:** ![llcoolbj77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb9ed0/32.png) [@llcoolbj77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llcoolbj77)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/192 "2011-05-16T02:39:25Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Well, now that **Stoid** is here to school us all on the validity of arguments in a book she’s never read, we can all go home. Not only has Stoid not read the book, she hasn’t even read the thread. Like the part where Annie concedes, or the part where the almighty book is shown to be discredited by the scientific community. Thread over. Off to read the ZPGZ pit thread. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/193 "2011-05-16T02:42:52Z")
> [@llcoolbj77](#): > > Not only has Stoid not read the book, she hasn’t even read the thread. Like the part where Annie concedes, or the part where the almighty book is shown to be discredited by the scientific community. Thread over. Off to read the ZPGZ pit thread. You CLEARLY are unaware of the power of **Stoid.** She will never, NEVER back down at this point. Settle back to enjoy the pages of WALL O TEXT, with underlining, italics, font size changes, and font color changes. Take some acid, you’ll enjoy the experience more. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/194 "2011-05-16T02:45:14Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > According to his book, FBI statistics state that 16% of serial killers are adopted, vs. 2-3% of the population. The problem is that you are “math challenged” and have absolutely zero idea of what is statistically meaningful. Let’s look at some quick statics from the web, and make a couple of wild ass assumptions. Since these are just ball park figures, we could be off by several factors of 10, but we’ll quickly see that it’s absolutely, completely fucking irrelevant. Number of [kids adopted](http://adopting.adoption.com/child/how-many-people-choose-adoption.html). > [@](#): > > It is estimated that around 120,000 children are adopted by U.S. citizens each year. How many serial killers are there? [According to this site](http://people.howstuffworks.com/serial-killer.htm): > [@](#): > > According to a recent FBI study, there have been approximately 400 serial killers in the United States in the past century, with anywhere from 2,526 to 3,860 victims (. . .) > > Serial murders also appear to have increased over the past 30 years. Eighty percent of the 400 serial killers of the past century have emerged since 1950 Now we have to make a guess at how many are born in any particular year. I’m going simply dividing 320 (80% of 400) by 60 years would be 5, so let’s triple it and say 15 are born each year. According to Stoid’s numbers, (so it must be true), 16% of the serial killers are adopted. That makes 2.4 kids (which you can’t have, but stay with me for just a minute) vs. around 0.4 kids if adoptees had the same 2-3% as the general population. So, we can expect 2 more serial killers out of the 120,000 children born per year, which is 0.002% Statistically meaningless. But of course, trolls don’t care about statistics. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/195 "2011-05-16T02:52:39Z")
Stoid, since you obviously haven’t read the whole thread, here are some of the more relevant parts. > [@pravnik](#): > > Even if there is some correlation between adoption and serial killing (or depression or mental illness), there are a lot of factors to consider that point away from adoption itself being the causative factor. Looking over the list of adopted serial killers, many lists include killers placed in foster care along with the adoptees, and a certain number of children are going to end up in foster care as wards of the state due to early behavioral problems, impuse control problems, and juvenile deliquency consistent with later psychopathy. Children may also wind up in foster care due to early onset mental illness, or may suffer from later problems due to inheritable mental illness from the birth parent (e.g. schizophrenia), or due to abuse in the birth home. In these cases adoption or foster care is symptomatic, not causative. > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by wikipedia > Adopted child syndrome is a controversial term … has never achieved acceptance in the professional community … is not found in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual … David Kirschner, who coined the term, says that … the syndrome only applies to “a small clinical subgroup” … \*n a review of the literature, generally children adopted before the age of six-months fare no differently than children raised with their biological parents. Later problems that develop among children adopted from the child welfare system at an older age are usually associated with the effects of chronic early maltreatment in the caregiving relationship; abuse and neglect. Remember the whole Taubes “Correlation is not the same as Causation”? Now apply it here. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/196 "2011-05-16T02:53:02Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > I’ve asked her to stop making a claim that she cannot or will not support. Which I think is SOP for this board, is it not? As I said, if Annie’s failure to cite her own assertion is your primary complaint, that’s not what I’m responding to. (Although a failure to offer cites in support of one’s assertion doesn’t make it false…) ---
**Author:** ![Sierra\_Indigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sierra\_Indigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sierra_Indigo)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/197 "2011-05-16T02:57:19Z")
It’s like she’s having her own argument. “I DON’T CARE IF THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID OR NOT, I’M GOING TO HAVE THIS ARGUMENT ANYWAY” ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/198 "2011-05-16T02:59:05Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > (Although a failure to offer cites in support of one’s assertion doesn’t make it false…) That’s comedy gold, Jerry! GOLD!! > [@Sierra\_Indigo](#): > > It’s like she’s having her own argument. > > “I DON’T CARE IF THAT’S WHAT YOU SAID OR NOT, I’M GOING TO HAVE THIS ARGUMENT ANYWAY” The patented argument technique of nutbags everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/199 "2011-05-16T03:23:10Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You mean sociopaths who advocate infanticide as a solution if abortion were outlawed? :rolleyes: That’s not sociopathy, that’s fighting fire with fire. If women’s lives don’t matter to them, infant lives shouldn’t matter to us. Seriously, how baby deluded can you be to claim a woman should just roll over and take whatever tyranny is inflected on us? ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652/200 "2011-05-16T03:26:13Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > As I said, if Annie’s failure to cite her own assertion is your primary complaint, that’s not what I’m responding to. (Although a failure to offer cites in support of one’s assertion doesn’t make it false…) Well, in absence of any supporting evidence whatsoever, I’m going to go ahead and make that assumption if you don’t mind… Look, I don’t want to dog **Annie** anymore at this point, but you brought up the fact that I said she was making blatantly false statements and that I said she was making herself sound like an idiot. As far as I can see, if you make an assertion that you are not backing up with evidence you either 1) know that you can’t back it up, in which case unequivocally stating that it’s true IS a falsehood, or 2) you think you ARE backing it up, which means that you don’t understand why you aren’t. I don’t happen to think **Annie** is an idiot (which is why I said she was making herself sound like one, vs. saying she actually is one), nor do I think she’s a liar. BUT I do think that she’s being hyperbolic in order to push an agenda. And I’m asking her not to do that (which, incidentally, she agreed to). . So, I don’t really see a point to your white-knighting on this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seriously-annie-xmas-shut-up-about-adoption-and-serial-killers/581652.md?page=11)