The Battle Over Politics and Biology

So how do you explain Freep and Rusty? I vote for a 2×4 upside the head as a probable cause

it’s simple. You either have this guy on the shoulder telling you that in the long run doing good benefits everyone, or the guy on the other shoulder says ‘do it’ with a evil grin or he’s out cold drunk.

No biology lesson needed. Beside, rightwingers biology ‘git ir done’ maker is in the guts. Everything else is for sissies.

I’ve said this before:
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All but one of my relatives born before 1950 were/are conservative Republicans including in-laws and all of my relatives born after 1950 are Liberal Democrats including in-laws.
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Also, only one conservative in my family went to graduate school and most only one liberal in my family (me) did not go to graduate school.
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So, unless the liberal gene is dominant like brown eyes and the conservative gene recessive like blue eyes, I can’t see it being a single gene.
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On the other hand, it is obvious that nearly everybody on the far right – I don’t mean Exiled or Sasquatch (libertarian, not conservative, I know) or reasonable conservatives – are very rigid thinkers.
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Show the random and unfair examples of extreme conservatives in Swampland, for example (who are far to the right of most members of the human race and not typical of saner conservatives) that they have a fact wrong and, instead of being open minded and saying “I did not know that” and reconsidering their opinions, they hurl back insults.
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Those are very rigid thinkers when it comes to politics and, most likely, are very rigid elsewhere in life, too.
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If neatness is a sign of being conservative, then I might be mistaken for a member of the Communist Party. (Then, again, I live alone. If I move in with a woman I’ll straighten up the place.)

You missed this one, Katy:

“Participants were college students whose politics ranged from “very liberal” to “very conservative.” They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.[...]

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.[...]

Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results “provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity.”

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.[...]

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.”

great TED talk about a similar topic, Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

Maybe that is what should be the punishment, not the transgression.
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I’ll place my bet on biology, thank you.
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Go, mitochondria, go…

Or a bluetooth maniac hooked on FOX so he can’t hear either one…

hailtodavictors,
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Interestingly enough, I think the types of things TED goes into, I am, probably, closer to a conservative than a liberal, but, nobody here who has seen me post would call me a conservative.

I feel the need to qualify this statement because I was half asleep when I heard it and I haven’t got a link to the actual study. That said here goes:

On last night’s episode of the Ed Shultz Show (MSNBC) Ed was talking about a study that showed that FOX viewers are 30% more likely to be misinformed.

Nature or nurture? I’ll go with nuture. If you grew up in my household being liberal was engrained into your soul. Other members of my extended family had other experiences and were conservative.
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I was helping my father make calls for his union to get out the vote before I became a teenager. I remember listening to the 1948 Democratic convention when I was 7 years old. In 1952 and 1956 the picture windows of our home were filled with Stevenson posters.
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Then came 1960. A Catholic running for President! Dante deo! Even my conservative relatives supported Kennedy. That was certainly nurture.

All the discussion around this topic unfortunately mixes cause with effect. Some people are more empathic than others, some people are more competetive than others, some people are more tribal than others and some people are smarter than others. Its the traits that determine the politics, not the politics that determine the traits.

“Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W”
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Biased science. Conservatives see “W” and go “Hell yeah! Bush!”. They can’t help but tap the key as an affirmation of their political beliefs.