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Researchers Find a 'Liberal Gene'
An anonymous reader writes "Liberals may owe their political outlook partly to their genetic make-up, according to new research from the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University. Ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4. The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views."
after reading the title, that is exactly what i was hoping for.
No dice. Most political differences are a result of disagreement of premises, not conclusions. No amount of formal logic is going to help that.
What's "Liberal"?
What about moderates? Do they only have a "Liberal" gene from one parent?
I mean come on, this "study" reeks.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Maybe they'll use it to create a gene therapy to cure conservatism instead?
Seriously, it's good to have both sides of the coin, because BOTH sides have made a lot of mistakes. Liberals move us forward to try new things, and keep us from falling into some of the traps conservatives seem to favor, and have a flexible/adaptable position. Conservatives keep us from moving to fast, or doing too much of the leap-before-you look, and drop-old-start-new plan before the old plan is done, senselessness that you can see with liberals.
Hmm... Criticism of both. I think that I shall be well flamed now.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I disagree. Americans' freedom is best protected by deadlock between the purported liberals and the purported conservatives.
I find your premise that conservatives don't care about civil liberties or human rights -- that only liberals care about such things -- laughably pathetic and ill-informed.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
I seem to recall hearing of a certain young republican who went to an Ivy League school and partied through his undergraduate on his father's dime (and reputation). He pulled pretty lackluster grades, really nothing to be proud of at all considering he wasn't working at the time and had nothing else that he needed to do beyond school. He then went to another Ivy League school afterwards for an MBA, also on his father's dime and reputation. He was known for using drugs and alcohol during those times as well, and didn't get particularly good grades as an MBA student either.
He then attempted to run a few businesses, with some assistance from his dad at getting in to those businesses. Most of those, he ran into the ground (including a petroleum company in a petroleum-rich state when petroleum was only continuing to gain in value).
So what ever happened to this young republican? He decided to follow his dad into politics. There he also couldn't get far without his dad's help; eventually being appointed president of the united states by some of his dad's close friends.
Don't tell us republicans don't get hand-outs.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And all the Patriot Act sunsets removed by who? OH! Right! Obama.
George Bush was no more conservative than Obama is. Stop thinking in terms of Donkeys and Elephants. Think more government and less government.
Expand your political spectrum a bit to actually include liberty. Nothing that George Bush did, with the exception of striking back at the people that attacked us on 9/11, had anything to do with liberty and less government.
"Thoughts are more powerful than any weapon, and I don't even let my people own guns." --Joseph Stalin
Here we go again with that evolutionary thingy. Everyone knows the world is 6000 years old and all that evolution stuff is rubbish.
Whoever disagrees must have something wrong, like, a genetic defect or something.
Nope.
8 years.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
From your link:
The single biggest predictor of someone's altruism, Willett says, is religion. It increasingly correlates with conservative political affiliations because, as Brooks' book says, "the percentage of self-described Democrats who say they have 'no religion' has more than quadrupled since the early 1970s." America is largely divided between religious givers and secular nongivers, and the former are disproportionately conservative. One demonstration that religion is a strong determinant of charitable behavior is that the least charitable cohort is a relatively small one -- secular conservatives.
How much more likely are they to give to non-religious charities (as in not the church they attend)? Most non-religious people don't go hang out somewhere on Sundays where there is a collection plate going around.
E pluribus unum
Yes. All rich people are rich because they worked hard and all poor people are poor because they did not. And yes, how much you earn is perfectly proportional to how much you contribute to society. This explains Wall Street, the best and brightest of your great nation, perfectly.
After all, it makes much more sense to let the country's infrastructure fall apart and the children of the working poor be left uneducated, than to pay taxes to invest in the country you live in. The tax money you save can be used to pay for a business class flight out of the country when it turns into shit. You can then retire and enjoy functioning infrastructure built with other people's tax money.
It really does make complete sense from an individual perspective. I guess progressivism fails because it assumes that people can actually care about anyone but themselves.
From the discussion section at the end (emphasis mine):
For most traits, the effects of individual genes are too small to stand out against the combined influence of all other genes and environmental factors. Thus, our p-value of 0.02 on a sample of 2,000 individuals should be treated cautiously. The expectation in genetics is that only repeated efforts to replicate associations on independent samples by several research teams will verify initial findings like these. Thus, perhaps the most valuable contribution of this study is not to declare that ‘‘a gene was found’’ for anything, but rather, to provide the first evidence for a possible gene-environment interaction for political ideology.
Contrast this with TFA:
The study's authors say this is the first research to identify a specific gene that predisposes people to certain political views.
I hate it when this happens, makes people dumb.
And all the Patriot Act sunsets removed by who? OH! Right! Obama.
George Bush was no more conservative than Obama is. Stop thinking in terms of Donkeys and Elephants. Think more government and less government.
Expand your political spectrum a bit to actually include liberty. Nothing that George Bush did, with the exception of striking back at the people that attacked us on 9/11, had anything to do with liberty and less government.
You are right to identify Obama as a conservative, he is moderate conservative, well to the right in many areas compared with, say, Richard Nixon. His health care reform plan is very similar to Mitt Romney's for example, and much more conservative than Nixon's plan (not enacted due to the collapse of his presidency). In the Eisenhower era he might well have been a Republican. (Which puts paid to the utterly-disconnected-from-reality ranting about him being a "socialist" much less a Marxist).
Bush was/is however far more right wing than Obama. Being right-wing is not the same thing as being conservative. The right wing radicalism of the "Tea Party" (seeking to remove constitutional amendments, or else suspend their effect?) is not conservative at all.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Just wanted to bring Jonathan Haidt's "5 Moral Foundations" theory into the conversation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt
Or watch the TED video if you're too lazy to read
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/341
Should be easier to tie in dopamine receptor genes to one or more of those traits:
1. Care for others, protecting them from harm. (He also referred to this dimension as Harm.)
2. Fairness, Justice, treating others equally.
3. Loyalty to your group, family, nation. (He also referred to this dimension as Ingroup.)
4. Respect for tradition and legitimate authority. (He also referred to this dimension as Authority.)
5. Purity, avoiding disgusting things, foods, actions.
Strange about the introvert vs. extrovert thing... I would have surmised just the opposite... being an introverted engineer liberal type myself. And conservatives are the ones that typically go out to church to collect as a community.
Well first, to take your example of Amtrak, whether it worked and why it worked or didn't work is still open to interpretation. I notice you limited your "results" to Amtrak's overall balance sheet. You haven't taken into account the benefit Amtrak brought to the people who do take trains, nor the alleviation of car traffic brought to congested cities. There's also the fact that some routes are more heavily trafficked than others, and Amtrak could be said to be very successful if you only looked at those routes. So in some ways, I'd say that Amtrak is a successful program.
But also your criticism of "not enough customers" doesn't begin to address the question of "why weren't there enough customers?" There are tons of socioeconomic issues involving culture, infrastructure development, and civic design that lead to a situation where taking a train is undesirable or infeasible-- but most of those things can be changed.
In reality, most people decide first whether they like/dislike public transportation on emotional grounds, and then find arguments that support their position.
>>>Most political differences are a result of disagreement of premises, not conclusions.
What do you mean? It seems like logic would work. You create a program (say Amtrak), look at the results (near-bankruptcy), and then decide whether or not it worked (it didn't unfortunately - not enough customers).
Case in point: Your premise is that the purpose of Amtrak was to make a profit. In fact, the purpose of Amtrak was to preserve valuable infrastructure that the private sector was no longer able to maintain due to heavily-subsidized air and road competition. In that regard it was mildly successful, in spite of funding problems, and has proven its worth many times (including the post-9/11 grounding and the Katrina evacuation, to name a few).
Glen Beck is going to be crying about this later today.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
It's a nice idea to think that conservatives and liberals are flip sides of the coin, and we need both. Yadda yadda. But it just doesn't work out that way. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history. Consider Afghanistan for instance. There are liberals there, and there are conservatives there. Do they really need those conservatives holding them back? What good does it do them? From our modern perspective we can see just how wrong-headed they are. But left and right over there is the same thing as left and right over here, just centered around a different origin. There's no reason to believe our conservatives are any better than theirs, and in the future we'll look back and see just how wrong-headed they are today. The people calling for the persecution of homosexuals and drug users and mexicans today are no different from the people calling for the persecution of women, blacks, and catholics 100 years ago.
Now of course liberals aren't perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. But at least liberals make new mistakes, instead of glorifying the same old mistakes. At least liberals look to a future where everyone is better off instead of conservatives who simply try to maintain a power structure that is favorable to them alone.
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Conservatives keep us from moving to fast, or doing too much of the leap-before-you look
Yeah, the Iraq war is a good example of that.
Hrm. Since "conservatives" in the U.S. rung up 80% of the National Debt, and it was the "liberal" President in the 90's that balanced the budget and is the only President in recent memory to actually try and pay the Debt down... your claim doesn't seem to have much basis in fact. I mean, Reagan tripled the debt, Bush Sr nearly doubled it, and Bush Jr doubled it again.
I am liberal and have been debt free for over ten years. I am very responsible with money, as are my liberal parents, and virtually every liberal friend and relative I know. I know anecdotal evidecne isn't proof, but it sure seems to discount your blanekt characterization of liberals.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Give a logical reasoning test to subjects and correlate with political affiliation.
Here's an interesting one. Alcohol ranks higher than cannabis on all measures of harm to both oneself and society at large. Logically, if the aim of drugs policy is as stated - to minimise the harm that drugs cause - then either both drugs should be treated the same (legal/illegal) or cannabis should be legal and alcohol illegal. That is the only logical result given the stated premise for drug control (a premise that appears to be accepted by the population at large). Conservatives are generally opposed to legalising cannabis. Liberals are generally supportive of legalising cannabis. Which is the more logical in this case?
Conservatives by definition "conserve", they try to keep things the same. That is why "conservatives" in Afghanistan are so different from "conservatives" in America, the status quo in the two places is different, so "keeping things the same" or "going back to the old ways" means very different things, so conservative Afghans are very different from conservative Americans.
You are right that throughout history "conservatives" have usually opposed positive change - they oppose change by definition. By that same definition, "conservatives" almost always oppose negative change as well. Conservatives opposed communism, Nazism, eugenics, and a lot of other things that they were right to oppose.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
In the final analysis, liberals always win. If we didn't, we'd still be living in caves. Always remember that.
No, I presume that we learn things by trying, and it's better to know than not know. If we make a mistake, the liberals will be the first to suggest change, while the conservatives will want things to stay the same.
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When Jesus comes back he's not coming to take sides, he's coming to take over.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
That just means that Obama sucks. He rode a wave of hope and change into the white house and then sold us out and pandered to the republicans. He is a failure. If it wasn't for Reagan and Bush II, Obama would be the worst president of my lifetime.
I disagree. Stimulus spending is considered by economists to be essential in pulling out of recessions. Putting the war spending IN the budget, instead of dishonestly pushing through money during the year is far better than the previous administrations policy. Healthcare is something that needs to be addressed, and while I think the bill sucks, at least it does SOMETHING.
Frankly, I can't think of anything more fiscally irresponsible than going to war without raising taxes (indeed, while LOWERING taxes).
While I wish that both sides were more fiscally conservative, I cannot support the idea that Obama is worse than Bush as far as spending goes.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I boil down to only this: Amtrak is a company. It should survive or fail without help from the government. I didn't say anything about the countries entire train system.
And the reason you disagree is because you start with different premises. Your argument is:
P1.) Amtrack's purpose is to make a profit
P2.) Amtrack did not make a profit
C.) Amtrack failed.
His argument is:
P1.) Amtrack's purpose is to provide public transportation.
P2.) Amtrack has provided public transportation.
C.) Amtrack succeeded
And yet here we are with arguably the most liberal president and congress ever...
I'm arguing. Obama isn't very liberal, he's a conservative Democrat. Why am I arguing this, for the very reasons you state in your post. His actions are not very liberal in that he's basically acting like the conservatives before him. The only liberal thing he has done, so far, is the healthcare crap, which is more like welfare for Insurance companies than any actual liberal proposal.
I am a liberal (according to the silly politics test I'm further left than Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, though also more libertarian than Ron Paul), and Obama just looks like a slightly lesser conservative than Bush, Bush, or Reagan. Same with Clinton, to be honest. I don't think we've had a fully liberal president in the US since FDR.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The whole stimulus thing is a "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" proposition.
If you're a typical high school graduate, deficit spending in a downturn seems like a bad idea. If you're a college graduate (in something other than economics), it seems like a good idea. If you've got an Economics degree, you're not sure.
Here's the thing - all of so-called Keynesian economics revolves around an idea called "The Paradox of Thrift" - an error of composition that says while it may be good for an individual to save in hard times, if everyone does it, the aggregate demand curve shifts leftward and you sink ever deeper into a depression. "Stimulus" spending is a measure to thwart this.
If we accept all of this so far, there are still problems - a high marginal propensity to consume, like the American people have, means that the effect was minimal, i.e., the money would have been spent anyway. Will the money be spent in an economically stimulating way, or will it merely clean out the wish list of the politicians in power? Does the spending create perverse incentives? Does the marginal cost of borrowing outweigh the stimulus as compared to the marginal propensity to consume?
Like I said, these are all open questions IF YOU ACCEPT THE PARADOX OF THRIFT. But the Paradox of Thrift relies on a situation where people are literally, and not figuratively, sticking their money in mattresses. At least, they are neither consuming nor investing - they are holding cash. If you stick in a savings account at the bank - no POT. If you buy gold - no POT. If you invest in your 401k - no POT. This is all because the money is continuing to circulate as capital formation.
You can't fault Keynes for this - in his time, people really, literally, stuck money in their mattresses. This is just one of those things we continue to believe academically because it is INCREDIBLY politically expedient, just like ALL tax cuts pay for themselves (some might, under certain circumstances, at certain times). As an economist, I can stipulate conditions under which stimulus spending might work - but those conditions are not the conditions of the 21st century Western world.
And don't get me started about health care. The problem with health care is insurance, and the bill makes the provision of health care more reliant on insurance. It does something - it makes things far worse. The whole problem is that American refuse to save. Insuring certainties is a sure road to financial ruin - you're not going to outguess the actuaries.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Conservatives opposed Communism? In general, yes, although that also meant supporting some pretty unsavory regimes. One could argue that supporting the Tsarist regime or the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Shek radicalized the opposition, so they were forced to the extreme.
Conservatives certainly did support National Socialism. Hitler was given power (as Chancellor) by right-wing politicians who thought they could control him. One reason for his rise to power was Goering's association with the industrialists, who tend to be conservative. Outside Germany, many conservatives supported Hitler's rule, even if they deplored some aspects.
Eugenics? Both ways. Conservatives opposed eugenics movements, and opposed the move away from eugenics.
On the whole, the world has been becoming a better place for a long time. The role of conservatives in this has been to generally slow down change, which on the good side has often meant restricting changes to ones people were confident would be good.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Do you actually buy into what you're saying?
Of course. I never argue a position I don't believe is valid.
Do you actually think anybody with a liberal ideology actually is smarter, better, and less likely to repeat their mistakes?
Oh, no not at all. I didn't mean to say that all liberals are smarter than all conservatives, or that any specific liberal is smarter than any specific conservative. These are admittedly generalizations, frequently wrong but with an element of truth.
Consider the debate between science and religion. Both claim to be ways of finding truth. Now I've met some pretty stupid scientists and some really smart priests. But science on the whole has a much better track record for finding facts and improving the lives of people than religion does.
And yet here we are with arguably the most liberal president and congress ever.
You could argue that, but you'd be wrong. Consider the two biggest things this president has done, passed health care reform, and stimulus spending. His health care plan is more conservative than Nixons, so he's certainly no liberal there. His stimulus policies were just a continuation of Bush's, so that doesn't sound too liberal either.
Guantanamo is still open, the Iraq war is still ongoing, and most of the Patriot act is still in place or is being expanded. The poor will probably become slightly less poor, the middle class will become poor, and the really rich will stay really rich and in power.
And all these things are happening because of insufficient liberalism on the part of our government. Conservatives created the fiction that Guantanamo was outside of US jurisdiction. Conservatives lied their way into the Iraq war. Conservatives wrote the Patriot act (though the Democrats (none of them liberals) who voted for it are not without blame). And the gap between the rich and poor has gotten ever wider in the last 30 years of Conservative rule.
These policies continue because our government can in no way be described as liberal.
Now of course conservatives aren't perfect. But at least they usually aren't willing to force their untested ideologically-based and ridiculously expensive systems on people.
War on Drugs? Don't Ask Don't Tell? The War in Iraq? Border fences? Abstinence only education?
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