This ends well...

It's not surprising that our thoughts are determined, in part, by our biology. That is the nature of instinct and emotion, to a large degree. It is inseparable from our bodies.

Man, they told us about the amygdala in high-school. Apparently removing it from the brains of male cats turns them into sex-fiends, causing them to form "daisy-chains" up to eleven or twelve long. I will never forget that day from freshman biology.

I always thought it was the liberals who were afraid: afraid of having to pay for their own education, afraid of having to pay for their own health care, afraid of their employers, afraid of the police enforcing order, afraid of people who condemn their lifestyles, ...

I just love how liberals forget all about the Blank Slate assumptions upon which their philosophy depends and morph into biological determinists the moment someone holds a scrap of (fair trade) red meat like this under their nose. Accept this and you must accept the whole host of "racist" and "sexist" thought regarding the brain and IQ.

Let's face it - they live in Fear.

The sad thing is, they not only want us - who don't live in Fear - to do so as well, they're succeeding at it.

@5

It's not exactly biological determinism to simply state that biology has something to do with our actions. It's still a separate matter to figure out which actions are correct.

@4

Everyone lives with fear. I would say conservatives are a lot more reactionary to certain things, though. "OH NO, WE DON'T HAVE A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC HEALTH CARE TO TAKE CARE OF OUR OLD AND INFIRM" is a much more complicated thought than "OH NO, BLACK PEOPLE! IMMIGRANTS! WORDS I DISAGREE WITH!"

Dan, the poor man's Toohey.

@3 HAHAHA. Thanks!

The study I want to see is where infants born into a variety of families have pictures of their brains taken at birth. When they're 18, 25, and 30 years old, see what their political beliefs are. The interesting brains would be those who have beliefs differing from the family/culture they were born into. I very much believe they might be able to go back to the photos of infant brains and predict which ones turn out to be liberal or conservative.

I hope those women who got the president of Harvard fired for saying women aren't good at math apologize to him. What was his name?

@4: There's a difference between "fear" and "concern," and that difference is based on rationality. I've lost track of the number of conservative arguments that essentially reduce to "We MUST do everything the same way as before, or SOCIETY WILL COLLAPSE!!!!" But take your pick:

1. Anything remotely related to gays and lesbians.
2. Anything related to drug legalization.
3. Hell, anything related to any social issue, period.
4. Global warming.
5. The notion of religious pluralism.
6. The notion of cultural pluralism.
Etc.

Of course, this fear mongering is less effective when rational people can cite to instances where X was implemented and it worked out quite well-- including when the implementing society was our own country. Hence the continual right-wing effort to retcon history.

@11, You should read up on the phenomenon of the Whiny Ass Titty Babies where they did track emotional conditions of babies and then later in life came back to track political leaning, IQ, etc. The whinier and clingier a baby was, the more likely it would grow up conservative.

I'm pretty sure they're just stupider than liberals.

I think is perfectly obvious. We need to lobotomize all the conservatives.

You know, some of us who are afraid all the time just take our anti-anxiety meds and continue to operate like human beings with empathy and conscience, instead of trying to ban/damn/incite mob violence against everyone who's different from us.

Spent part of the day debating with fellow commenters over on Alternet, who also covered this today. If you're interested in reading more on this, you can find the story - and a lively discussion in the comments section - here: http://www.alternet.org/news/149362/stud…

Clearly the research was funded by right wing agendists. There's NO WAY republicans have a more primitive brain than liberals.

hehehheh wow... couldn't say that with a straight face!

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And do progressives really want to start promoting a modern version of phrenology?

Maybe conservatism should be added to this list.

@21
This isn't comparable to phrenology. We actually do know some things about brain structure.

Also: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. :D

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And do progressives really want to start promoting a modern version of phrenology?

Yes, as progressives we must always first define the negative consequences of an assertion so that we may argue against it, from them.

It's interesting, but I wouldn't look TOO much into it at this point.

Brain functions aren't perfectly mapped out. Yeah, the amygdala is more about basic emotions but that's not its only function. The anterior cingulate isn't all that well known either. Also, just because a particular organ is larger or smaller doesn't necessarily mean it's more or less active.

So it's interesting, but not fact, by any means.

@23 The working assumption here is that a bigger amygdala is a hyperfunctional amygdala. Just like in phrenology. One could just as easily speculate that a larger amygdala is a more sophisticated, better attenuated amygdala if that suits your political purposes.

Also, one should keep in mind that most scientific publications turn out to be wrong. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info….

Any figures on whether or not conservatives are more likely to be bed-wetters?