Genopolitics: Useless Junk Science

The journal Science recently published a report on research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s political physiology laboratory – seemingly the only one in the world – suggesting there might be physiological differences between liberals and conservatives.

However nice it might feel to think our ideological opposites have less and less in common with us, this report seems completely bogus and should not be taken too seriously.

It’s no more than junk science that provides highly sensational results. It’s the kind of research that will land front covers of Newsweek or Time Magazine, where the readers can be expected to have no background in the area and whose conclusions have the widest appeal.

The study had a whopping 46 subjects. It measured people’s voting records on such policies as warrantless searches, school prayer and the Patriot Act against their reactions to disturbing images like a bloody face or a spider.

Researchers found those who reacted most to these extreme images were more likely to support the aforementioned policies.

The experiment did not define what “liberal” and “conservative” mean, in general or with respect to the voting issues used. What it means to be a liberal or conservative has certainly changed throughout the years.

Even if a definition is provided, the results can change with time – by today’s standards someone could be a liberal or a conservative but in the past possibly they weren’t. In the future, who knows? Also, the political scale isn’t dichotomous.
The only kernel of truth to the idea that there are physiological differences between liberals and conservatives is that there are physiological differences between all of us – even those of us who are most alike. Twins don’t even share the same neural structure.

There is a difference between the neural structure of a conservative and liberal, but there is also a difference between two liberals. At the present time, we’re in no position to say one arrangement or another is the prototypical “liberal” or “conservative” neural structure.

We just can’t compare them at that level.

If you were to look at two clones who were split apart at birth – one went to Compton and the other to the Hamptons – then upon looking at their brains’ neurons in years to come, you’ll see that they are different.

Their experiences have changed their neurons through plasticity. It’s possible that one supports welfare programs now, and the other doesn’t. Would you see a difference in their physiology? Yes, but it wasn’t genetic.

It is highly unlikely that over the last several thousands of years, evolution has picked us for 21st century political traits.

We can see it now: Two monkeys a long time ago were searching for food, but only the one that sees his pre-historic world in terms of a 21st century conservative or liberal perspective can win the hunt.

Yeah, we think it went something like that. And their clans were probably divided between red and blue, too.