King Hazza,

Perhaps some people don't experience the world and its phenomena in the "standard" way. Sometimes its those very people who make a difference because they are capable of taking a novel approach to and grasping things that the ordinary standardised individual is incapable of.

Hazza, Nothing is rock solid in human behaviour and there is so much more to learn about it. But we do know that people are different and it seems clear to me that weak willed have always been around. If there is no place for the weak then perhaps our society is wrong, not the people who were born with that tendency.

I don't know how that you can fairly judge how hard someone is trying. People don't like to admit to being weak so many, especially men, will claim to be deliberately bludging when the truth is that they are unable to cope with normal life.

Also we don't know how clever or not some people are, whether they have some sort of chemical imbalance that affects their thinking or any number of the other reasons that make it seem that lots of people are not trying.

It does nobody any good, especially the weak-willed, to denigrate them and criticise them. Weak people need support and acceptance to gain in confidence and ability. People need opportunities and encouragement and to learn to be able to choose the right things.

*rather than the result of an under-achieving individual who is simply failing to hold themselves to standards plenty of other people do, without even trying.*

Ah Hazza, but people don't get to choose the genes which they were
born with. They have to live with the cards that they are dealt and
they are quite different. A mate of mine did a study on people in
jails who top themselves. What it came down to was serotonin levels.
Those with low levels invariably tried, those with higher levels did
not. It started to make sense to me why another really good friend of
mine, one of the smartest people I've ever known, did in fact kill
himself and felt compelled to. Suicide was all through his family
history.

Just feel fortunate that you wern't born with the gambling gene.
But that is not your choosing, just your good fortune.

Ultimately people get to choose their eternal destiny. They even humble themselves and receive the mercy of Christ or they inherit a tormented Christless eternity. That is by far the most important aspect of free will.

Poirot, Mollydukes, Yabby; what exactly is your point?

Would it be better to play along with Brian Holden's blatantly false theory, and the justifications that would be built on them, so I don't hurt the feelings of the people that his theories would apply to?

Not happening I'm afraid- if telling people hard truths they don't like to hear is 'denigration' then I'm afraid intolerance isn't the only problem our society faces. Especially when it involves justifying behavioral issues or externalizing the blame.
Whether or not they can control it is one issue- but pretending its not their fault is a bad approach.

Mollydukes:"dogs are not programmed to crap on the carpet. It's quite easy to train a dog, even a dog damaged by cruel owners, to do the right thing."

Well der. So, it's free will if the dog takes the dump, but 'training' if it doesn't. Hmm, interesting.

Brian is right about one thing, but for completely the wrong reasons.
There is a revolution on social history coming from personalised genomics, but not for any of the silly reasons he thinks.