02-22-2008, 03:22 AM
<!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> Ravishji,
Forum will be poorer by your absence.
You are 1 of the most pragmatic member of the forum.
I for 1 will certainly miss you.
I think sometimes, we have to seek refuge in such rhymes:
kshma baran ko chahiye
chotan ko utpat
Ka Vishnu ka ghat gayo
jo bhrigu mari laat
So, please keep on enlightening us from time to time with your down to earth assessments as you are perhaps, the only member who has never resorted to cut and paste and have always given your personal opinions.
Thanx.
<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Good luck for your assignment!
Here is 1 for the road:
Are you Cong or BJP? One answer lies in your genes
Varghese K GeorgePosted online: Friday, February 22, 2008 at 0129 hrs Print EmailNew Scientist paper suggests growing evidence that genes affect personality which is linked to political behaviour
New Delhi, February 21: If you are organised, self-disciplined, and more likely to follow rules, you are more likely to be conservative. If you are an extrovert, if you are open to experiences, if you focus on change as an opportunity rather than a problem, you are more likely to be liberal. If you are afraid of death, you are probably a conservative.
Definition of Theory
Conservative Verse Liberal
These are some of the findings of an emerging branch of political science that challenges what pundits tell us about caste and class and the way we vote. It takes cues from biology to say that there is increasing evidence that our political behaviour â whether we are conservative or liberal â could have its roots in genes. A provocative article in the latest issue of New Scientist cites several studies that indicate political positions are âsubstantially determined by biology and can be stubbornly resistant to reason.â
This has implications on campaigns. The magazine quotes John Alford, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, Texas: âTrying to persuade someone not to be a liberal is like trying to persuade someone not to have brown eyes. We have to rethink persuasion.â
Next month, Ira Carmen, professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Gene Robinson, professor of entomology, are organising the worldâs first âConference on Biology and Politics,â underwritten by the National Science Foundation. Carmen has invited 50 geneticists, politics researchers and neuroscientists to the conference.
Carmenâs latest book Politics in the Laboratory: The Constitution of Human Genomics, predicts âthe birth of a new political science informed by evolutionary theory and DNA propensity.â
The logic behind this new research is simple: many personality traits have been linked to specific genes and people with a particular personality trait are likely to exhibit a particular political inclination. Therefore, itâs possible to link genetic composition with political behaviour of an individual.
Says New Scientist: âSome traits are obviously going to be linked to politics, such as xenophobia being connected with the far right. However, (John Jost, psychologist at New York University) uncovered many more intriguing connections. People who scored highly on a scale measuring fear of death, for example, were almost four times more likely to hold conservative views. Dogmatic types were also more conservative, while those who expressed interest in new experiences tended to be liberals.â
For example, Carmen cited D4DR, a gene that regulates levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. High levels of dopamine can cause obsessive-compulsive disorder. In other words, dopamine might be linked to the need to âimpose order on the world.â If so, higher levels of dopamine should be found more frequently in conservatives. Carmen plans to study this in 2000 individuals.
According to New Scientist, since liberals are more generally open to conflicting ideas, activity in this area of the brain would be expected to differ between them and conservatives. Last September, David Amodio, a neuroscientist at New York University, showed that it does.
One thing is clear, says Alford. âWe spend a lot of energy getting upset with the other side...we often think our opponents are misinformed or stubborn. Accepting that people are born with some of their views changes that.â So New Scientist has a salutary suggestion: âCome to terms with these differences, and you can spend the energy now wasted on persuasion on figuring out ways of accommodating both points of view.â
Coalition politics â and a common minimum programme â couldnât have got a more solid scientific explanation!
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> Ravishji,Forum will be poorer by your absence.
You are 1 of the most pragmatic member of the forum.
I for 1 will certainly miss you.
I think sometimes, we have to seek refuge in such rhymes:
kshma baran ko chahiye
chotan ko utpat
Ka Vishnu ka ghat gayo
jo bhrigu mari laat
So, please keep on enlightening us from time to time with your down to earth assessments as you are perhaps, the only member who has never resorted to cut and paste and have always given your personal opinions.
Thanx.
<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Good luck for your assignment!
Here is 1 for the road:
Are you Cong or BJP? One answer lies in your genes
Varghese K GeorgePosted online: Friday, February 22, 2008 at 0129 hrs Print EmailNew Scientist paper suggests growing evidence that genes affect personality which is linked to political behaviour
New Delhi, February 21: If you are organised, self-disciplined, and more likely to follow rules, you are more likely to be conservative. If you are an extrovert, if you are open to experiences, if you focus on change as an opportunity rather than a problem, you are more likely to be liberal. If you are afraid of death, you are probably a conservative.
Definition of Theory
Conservative Verse Liberal
These are some of the findings of an emerging branch of political science that challenges what pundits tell us about caste and class and the way we vote. It takes cues from biology to say that there is increasing evidence that our political behaviour â whether we are conservative or liberal â could have its roots in genes. A provocative article in the latest issue of New Scientist cites several studies that indicate political positions are âsubstantially determined by biology and can be stubbornly resistant to reason.â
This has implications on campaigns. The magazine quotes John Alford, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, Texas: âTrying to persuade someone not to be a liberal is like trying to persuade someone not to have brown eyes. We have to rethink persuasion.â
Next month, Ira Carmen, professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Gene Robinson, professor of entomology, are organising the worldâs first âConference on Biology and Politics,â underwritten by the National Science Foundation. Carmen has invited 50 geneticists, politics researchers and neuroscientists to the conference.
Carmenâs latest book Politics in the Laboratory: The Constitution of Human Genomics, predicts âthe birth of a new political science informed by evolutionary theory and DNA propensity.â
The logic behind this new research is simple: many personality traits have been linked to specific genes and people with a particular personality trait are likely to exhibit a particular political inclination. Therefore, itâs possible to link genetic composition with political behaviour of an individual.
Says New Scientist: âSome traits are obviously going to be linked to politics, such as xenophobia being connected with the far right. However, (John Jost, psychologist at New York University) uncovered many more intriguing connections. People who scored highly on a scale measuring fear of death, for example, were almost four times more likely to hold conservative views. Dogmatic types were also more conservative, while those who expressed interest in new experiences tended to be liberals.â
For example, Carmen cited D4DR, a gene that regulates levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. High levels of dopamine can cause obsessive-compulsive disorder. In other words, dopamine might be linked to the need to âimpose order on the world.â If so, higher levels of dopamine should be found more frequently in conservatives. Carmen plans to study this in 2000 individuals.
According to New Scientist, since liberals are more generally open to conflicting ideas, activity in this area of the brain would be expected to differ between them and conservatives. Last September, David Amodio, a neuroscientist at New York University, showed that it does.
One thing is clear, says Alford. âWe spend a lot of energy getting upset with the other side...we often think our opponents are misinformed or stubborn. Accepting that people are born with some of their views changes that.â So New Scientist has a salutary suggestion: âCome to terms with these differences, and you can spend the energy now wasted on persuasion on figuring out ways of accommodating both points of view.â
Coalition politics â and a common minimum programme â couldnât have got a more solid scientific explanation!