Sometimes I think Bill James’ opinions are quite plausible (the JFK assassination) and sometimes a little bonkers (the Dowd Report, the Penn State scandal), but he certainly doesn’t steer from dangerous waters. In his latest batch of Hey Bill questions, the baseball analyst, who is also a true-crime historian, answers a query about serial murderers. The exchange:

Question:

What fraction of the population would you say has the potential to become a serial killer, under the right circumstances? If you or I had been subjected to the “right” stimuli, could either of us ever murder a series of strangers, or do you have to be born with your wiring all wrong? And if it is (as I hope) only a fraction of potential serial killers among us with screwed-up wiring, how many of them actually kill people?

Bill James:

Well, I suppose I’ll pay a price for saying this in public, but I have always felt that there was just some very small difference that separated me from the serial murderers, some “switch” in my makeup that was different. . .but just one switch, or just two or three switches, nothing big. As to being subjected to the “right” stimuli. . .well, in all candor my childhood WAS very much like the childhood that many of these people have. But whereas they react, as a first manifestation of their condition, by torturing animals, I am just opposite; I could never stand to cause suffering or to see suffering in an animal or to another person; I was always hyper-sensitive to it, rather than insensitive to it. I am certain, in the same way that gay people are certain that they are born gay, that I was born this way and could not choose to be different. . .and I am grateful that I was, as I shudder to think who I would have become if a few switches were flipped the other way. I think, responding to the question “is it only a fraction of potential serial killers among us”. . .I think that all of the switches have to be turned one way for a person to turn out that way, and that there are not that many people who have all 28 switches set in the serial-murderer position. . ..but that there are many, many of us who have 24 or 25 switches pointed in that direction, with just a few that are somewhere else. This isn’t to be taken to imply that I have any sympathy for these people or think that their guilt should in any sense be lifted from them. We all have choices, to do good or to do evil, but the people who choose to do good are not really very much different from those who choose to be wicked.•