Science proves it, Conservatives think less.

The sample size was 43. They were able to establish statistical significance to 99.9% confidence.

 

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Interesting idea. Is it possible our political beliefs are predetermined by innate neurologic processes in our brains? I'm sure the specifics are not, but it may well be that our brains are wired to see things a certain way. I have certainly noticed that even babies have unique personalities from the day they're born.

 

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GeoffP

Sorry to be so slow getting back to you on such a simple request.

The story comes from Public Radio International's The World. The audio file is available through PRI: http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/12506

PERRspectives wrote up a commentary about the PRI report:

 

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I'd be interested to see if any studies can someday scientifically confirm my non-scientific impression that those who tend towards opinions generally regarded as conservative really are more prone to the excluded middle fallacy. An inability or unwillingness to see the world in anything other than binary terms ("You are either with us, or against us"). That seems to be accompanied an overwhelming desire for certainty. Science is too uncertain, religious dogma always proclaims that it is inerrant, and it never changes! So religious dogma wins. "Those ridiculous scientists were predicting a near future ice age in the '70s. Now they say we're causing the temperature to increase! I guess they don't know anything!"

That homosexuality had a degree of biological determinism was (and in conservative circles still is) hotly contested. But most reasonable people accept it as true today. Maybe the same will be true of political affiliations and personal philosophy.

 

Excellent. Now that I think of it, there is a sniffily tacit association between radical anti-evolutionist nimrods like the Discovery Institute, and radical anti-evolutionist nimrods like the Turkish physical creation 'scientist' Adnan Oktar. The latter goes currenly by the moniker Harun Yahya, and strikes me as a bit of a coward since I've offered - me, humble student of evolution - to debate him more than once, and have received no feedback. Anyway, they share, at the least, a lot of links on their websites. Strange bedfellows, one would think.

 

I wonder if the effects of the difference will not diminish with time; as human knowledge grows, it will be harder and harder to convince anyone that religious myths are true. In the end, when conditioning is the only means of keeping new generations within the flock, we will see religion either sputter and gasp and die, or else transform into something useful. Likewise, other superstitious practices will adapt or die out. Human progress tends toward social cooperation among the species, and the stronger the ratio of knowledge to superstition, the less we will have to worry about people locked into superstitious patterns; the difference in brain activity may continue, but the societal effects will be considerably weaker.

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They would be our local shame, except that most in the Seattle area either don't know who they are, or forget they're here; in other words, we tend to ignore them unless they make a point of themselves. Of course, our political-religious activists are a strange bunch; one local preacher got in some hot water recently for allegedly falsely claiming to be a Bush administration envoy, going to Europe, lecturing a national government on morality and sexuality, demanding its cooperation, and then, when called out, claimed to have proof that he was, indeed, a Bush administration envoy, but refused to show said proof.

Of course, now the Discovery Institute is colluding with Islamists in Turkey. This is what we get for ignoring them, I guess.

 

I'm kind of curious what you mean by this. Most of the things claimed by most religions are already absurd on their face. I mean, the vast majority of people in my country believe a religion that teaches tales of people conjuring things out of thin air, talking animals, and even a talking plant. The obvious absurdity of this doesn't seem to stop many from believing it. What sort of advancement in human knowledge could make these sorts of things any more outlandish than they already are?

 

I seriously doubt it. Religion comes naturally to humans, almost as naturally as speech. Look at how many idiots believe in psychics like John Edwards, or Tarot Cards, or astrology, or whatever.