I've just read a very interesting article over at New Scientist. You have to be registered to read the whole thing (3 pages), but registration is free anyway. It's worth reading.
Does your biology influence your vote?JEFFREY FLAKE is an easy man to stereotype: a Republican congressman from Arizona, a former Mormon missionary and a staunch conservative. But even for somebody with his political credentials, the bill he proposed in May was a brazen move. Flake called for a billion-dollar cut in the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF), instantly turning him into a hated figure among US scientists and liberals, a personification of "the Republican war on science".
Thankfully, Flake's amendment failed. But he was back the next day with another one, this time proposing the NSF be banned from funding political science. This, the amendment said, would ensure that taxpayer dollars were not being wasted on a "meritless program". This time the amendment passed, by 218 votes to 208. All but five of the votes in favour came from Republicans.
In an era of tight budgets, all spending decisions are de facto questions of political and moral priorities. But the venomous tone of Flake's amendment suggests that something more was in play. What did the Republicans have against political science, a discipline that Flake himself holds a graduate degree in?
It turned out they were not gunning for the whole field but just a small, controversial, area - investigations into the biological roots of political ideology. It might be tempting to dismiss this as yet more evidence of the US right divorcing itself from scientific reality, as has happened in debates over evolution and climate change. But there's more to it than that. This time, it's personal.
New Scientist's terms of service prevent me from directly quoting too much of it, but the gist of it goes like this:
Studies indicate that there is a strong biological component to the liberal/conservative thing, and some people are not happy about this.
However, some of the traits that conservatives exhibit more strongly (we all exhibit them to a greater or lesser extent) can be useful traits in their own right, depending on how they are manifested. So it's not as simple as "liberal good, conservative bad".
It also seems to be the case that a lot of what most people here would equate with the more batshit side of conservatives (particularly in the US) may be biologically determined to a large degree. This includes conservatives being more offended by things like betrayal of the in-group, disrespect for authority and tradition, and signs of sexual or spiritual "impurity", and not as offended by things like suffering and inequality (which tend to rile liberals up more).
Don't get too cocky, though, because the studies have also found other things you may not like quite so much. For instance, hindering completion of a task (by distracting you) will tend to make your reactions at the time more conservative. Also, when psychologists were surveyed, 40% of liberal respondents admitted they were likely to discriminate against a conservative job applicant, despite the respondents being people who work in a field that has led the study of discrimination against race, gender and sexual orientation.
Srsly, register up and read it through. It's a good one.
Topic: USA politics Low Content Thread