On Monday, November 12, 2007, long time New Yorker staff writer, Malcom Gladwell, penned an editorial on criminal profiling, likening profilers to psychics. To make his point, Gladwell attempts to take the reader through a series of annectdotal and "what if" tales while heavily relying upon the recently published book, "Inside the Mind of the BTK," by FBI criminal profiler and co-author, John Douglas. Not unsurprisingly, Mr. Douglas, responded to Gladwell's opinion piece. Unfortunately, the New Yorker was only willing to reprint a portion of his response. It is therefore with great pleasure that I have been granted permission to republish Mr. Douglas' letter to the editor, in full.

In her book, "Piercing the Darkness: Undercover with vampires in America today," Katherine Ramsland describes her encounter with a minister who preaches by day and engages in vampiric activities by night. The man notes, "I think of the vampire as I think of gay males. A fluid fiction." and then proceeds to explain, "the works of Oscar Wilde, whose Portrait of Dorian Gray exposed and flaunted the gay charade."

Our brains are designed to recognize patterns. We continuously assess our surroundings, predict outcome, and adjust our behavior in accordance with resulting predictions. A recent study, by Scott P Johnson, of Cornell University demonstrates just how good we are at prediction based upon pattern recognition.