In reply to Jones Beene's message of Sat, 29 Oct 2005 11:47:17 -0700: Hi, [snip] >A modus operandi can be used to narrow down an investigation amongst a group >of criminals because for some proven but not well-understood reason, even the >smartest criminals get into patterns of conduct - and stay there even after >they have been discovered.
The reason is simple and is directly related to the subconscious mind. Patterns of conduct follow directly from learned behavior. In order to follow a new pattern, one has to learn new things. The mind is inherently lazy, or "efficient" if you prefer, and reuses existing knowledge as much as possible. Hence people tend to follow the same patterns of behavior, usually without even realizing that they are doing so. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
