THE DAILY BLADE: So Easy, A Conservative Can Do It: Part IV
Studies purporting to find differences in brain function, IQ and intellect between liberals and conservatives have become something of a cottage industry. According to the latest such study by researchers at England’s University College London that is published in the April 7, 2011 issue of the journal Current Biology, there are structural variations in the brains of liberals and conservatives:
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 (ACC), 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 and to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.
Unlike a double-blind study where neither researchers nor study participants know whether an active drug is being evaluated or a placebo, the 90 students were asked to rank their political worldviews on a five-point scale from very liberal to very conservative and then the researchers performed the brain scan. Because the researchers did not review the scans first to see whether there were discernable differences in them, and then determine the political orientations of students whose scans resembled each other’s, they saw precisely what they wanted to see: The brain region that processes conflicting information – nuance, if you will – is larger in liberals and the brain region that processes threats – fear, if you will – is bigger in conservatives.
And what about the brains of political moderates, those who are completely apolitical or those whose political views shifted over time? They would have made great control groups to test the hypothesis that the brains of liberals and conservatives are different. But then, that wasn’t really the point of the study.
Asked And Answered
Back in June 2009 after President Barack Hussein Obama's Cairo speech, New York Daily News political correspondent Michael Saul asked: "Is Obama a visionary or dangerously naive?" Nearly two years later, The New York Times provides an answer: Obama is dangerously naive. The paper's Peter Baker reports that Obama is "searching for a vision":
During a week of budget brinkmanship, the president who signed the largest stimulus spending program in American history largely left it to his Senate allies to respond to the sharp clarity of the Republican austerity message rather than outline a clear vision of what the role of government should be in the era of the Tea Party and rocketing national debt [emphasis throughout, The Stiletto]. …
While the rest of Washington squabbled, he presented himself as the grown-up above a messy fray that would alienate voters scratching their heads over how the government almost could not get its act together to pay the bills and keep the lights on.
The effect, though, was to obscure his own philosophy and to raise the question of what he wants a second term for. …
Mr. Obama has always cast himself as a pragmatist and he seems to be feeling his way in the post-midterm election environment. …
The war in Libya represents one of the most complicated issues for Mr. Obama as he sets out his own form of modern liberalism. The hero of the anti-war movement in 2008 effectively is adopting Mr. Clinton’s humanitarian interventions in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s as a model, while trying to distinguish his actions from Mr. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Clearly, this president is flying blind.
In Memoriam
Sidney Lumet, June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011
Jean Jennings Bartik, December 27, 1924 - March 23, 2011
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