OK Sam what is the criticism of the research. Here's the original study. As I mentioned its been replicated elsewhere and also with non university samples and the results hold.
So after reading the study, please tell us why its crap? Myself and many neuroscientists would be most interested in hearing your insights on this. Is it sampling error, experimenter characteristics, blinding problems, statistical analysis or experimental design problems. If you are going to say its crap then say why, just don't make the statement without backup. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21474316 Curr Biol. 2011 Apr 26;21(8):677-80. Epub 2011 Apr 7. Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults. Kanai R, Feilden T, Firth C, Rees G. Source University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. r.ka...@ucl.ac.uk Abstract Substantial differences exist in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures. Variability in political attitudes reflects genetic influences and their interaction with environmental factors. Recent work has shown a correlation between liberalism and conflict-related activity measured by event-related potentials originating in the anterior cingulate cortex. Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ------------------ Her's a good discussion of the study and several others. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/09/07/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives/ What I am struck with about this work is how it may explain why conservatives and progressives find it so difficult to communicate with each other. All too often they are talking past one another. These results may explain why. On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:36 PM, Sam <sammyc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 10:14 PM, Dana <dana.tier...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I was about to say never mind, sorry I talked to you like you were a human >> being. > > Are you insulting me again? > > >> But ok, here we have a perfect example. Why is this a personal attack? You >> have two legitimate options here: shrug it off because you don't feel like >> you yourself in fact operate from fear, or ask him for peer-reviewed >> research that supports this contention. And then dispute its validity, if >> you can. > > Who do you think Larry is pointing that at? Are you really pretending > it's a coincidence? > > I can tell his so called research is bunk without even reading it. I > know that for a fact because I've been doing it for years. It's hate > speech, prob from media matters attacking all that are different in > opinion. It's sad. If you weren't so deep in the disillusionment you > would see immediately that it's a stupid attack piece. > > > >> Or, you could call it bashing and a personal attack, which will convince >> nobody and make you look small. > > Really, only you and he could believe conservatives can only think in > black and white. > > WOW. > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:346886 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
