Thursday, 02.21.08
Partisan from Birth
Photo by flickr user driveblind under a Creative Commons license
John
Alford of Rice University announced he had analyzed 12,000 twins and found that identical twins were more likely to agree on politics than fraternal ones. A few days later, his colleague John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska gave a lecture on his research into predicting people's "political inclinations based on DNA."
These assertions of a "physiological difference" between conservatives and liberals may tempt us to revive the old, Manichean debate over nature, nurture, and the free will. But might we ask if political scientists have presumed to learn too much about society from brain scans and twin studies? These methodological tools are incalculably valuable for neuroscientists, but their usefulness in describing complex, behavioral phenomena is loosely correlative at best. The miracle of genes is more in manufacturing proteins than in writing manifestoes.
Whither Pundits?DailyKos rounds-up the recent findings. If it's all in the genes, is there any point in arguing? |
The New Neuro-PoliticsA summary of John Hibbing's lecture on "The Physiological Differences between Liberals and Conservatives." |
Against NatureKhaled Diab argues that by entrenching ideology in biology we risk losing the will to persuade and compromise. |
