Academia, Bizarre, Politics, Science, Society

The Eugene McCarthy Gene: Scientists Say DRD4 Drives Ideology

The nature or nurture debate may be over for liberals: scientists have isolated what they believe to be the “liberal gene.” Yes, that’s right. Researchers believe that DRD4 affects people’s ideology. It is ironic that Republicans who oppose evolution may have an evolutionary reason for their position. Of course, this is assuming that people are evolving toward the liberal gene like the fully opposable thumb.

You now know why you feel that need to pledge to NPR, attend Earth Day events, and watch Countdown and Rachel Maddow. It is not your fault. It is in your genes.

The scientists isolated DRD4 on the double-helix of a DNA strand to reach their conclusions. It was not hard to find it was the gene: it was wearing Birkenstocks, a hemp-made shirt, and trying to “really understand” what the other genes were experiencing.

What is clear from President Obama’s positions on torture, privacy, and gay rights is that it is also clearly a recessive gene for some.

Lead researcher James H. Fowler, a professor of both medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego says “[t]he way openness is measured, it’s really about receptivity to different lifestyles, for example, or different norms or customs. . . . We hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences [a measure of openness] will tend to be more liberal.”

While some may challenge that as a bit of a stretch, my concern is ideologically designed babies. Of course, since opposition to stem cell research and biogenetics is part of the belief structure for some conservatives, they are the least likely to ask for DRD4 to be removed from embryos. However, what of those pesky biogenetic loving libs? Could Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi be working at this very time on an army of test-tube liberal babies? Learn the answer on the next Glenn Beck Show.

Source: NBC

Jonathan Turley

111 thoughts on “The Eugene McCarthy Gene: Scientists Say DRD4 Drives Ideology”

  2. Blouise,

    I, too, am a Bob Seeger fan. Do you remember this one?
    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qbeIwn5jR8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

  4. Blouise:

    Bob Seger is great, right up there with Patsy Kline, Willie Nelson and Mozart.

    By the way is that you in your younger days?

  5. Veteran science journalist John Horgan slices and dices this nonsense in Scientific American’s “Cross-check” blog, “Critical views of science in the news.”

    http://dlvr.it/7lLh3

    Take-away comment:

    “Over the past two decades, gene-whizzers have discovered “genes for” high IQ, male homosexuality, religious belief, gambling, attention-deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, dyslexia, alcoholism, heroin addiction, sadness, extroversion, introversion, anxiety, anorexia nervosa, seasonal affective disorder, violent aggression—you get the picture. So far, not one of these claims has been consistently confirmed by follow-up studies.” -John Horgan, Scientific American, October 29, 2010.

    Take-away message: don’t rely on newspapers, magazines, television or the blogosphere to do a decent job of reporting on science. Some specialist sources, if you seek them out, do better than average.

  6. Looking at both I like the Black Sheep.

    You can get wit dis or you can get wit dat

  9. Blouise There aren’t very many good musicians that are conservative. Oh well they have Pat Boone. lol

  10. Bda,

    Then there is my personal, favorite, liberal opus that you poor conservatives would never be permitted to write let alone experience … DRD4 can be fun!

  13. I think the “liberal gene” idea is probably based on a loosely supported finding that DRD4 may be associated with novelty seeking.

    James H. Fowler of UCSD just came out with an unfortunate soundbite (hint: when a scientist says “we hypothesize” he means “we make an interesting guess that, while it lacks support, may merit study.”)

    For people interested in how this kind of pop “science” makes its way into the media and gets broadcast all over the place, Ben Goldacre runs a blog called “Bad Science”, and also publishes columns in The Guardian.

    The original source of this thing going the rounds of the blogs appears to be a Fox News article that I hope was intentionally written for amusement rather than information.

    http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/28/researchers-liberal-gene-genetics-politics/

  14. Buckeye:

    here is the site I was trying to link to:

    http://alfred.med.yale.edu/alfred/recordinfo.asp?condition=loci.locus_uid='LO000227L

    I was just asking a question. The Alfred site is at Yale University. It doesn’t say people with the DRD4 gene are psychotic just susceptible to disorders if they have variations in the gene. At least that is the way I am reading it. But it appears you need the gene to have the variations. So it is entirely possible that some liberals are bat shit crazy because of those “polymorphisms”. And therefore Savage would be right in some but not all cases when he asks if liberalism is a mental disorder.

    Since conservatives don’t appear to have the gene we cannot be bat shit crazy. Science answers another mystery.

  15. Blouise,

    The same sons he tried to steal work from? “Old Bach is Here” and all.

  16. Byron,

    As Gyges wrote: “Bach wrote\dedicated\performed the Brandenburgs in hopes of getting a job as a court composer in Brandenburg. The fifth concerto has a (as I understand it) difficult harpsichord solo in it that he wrote specifically to show off his abilities.”

    ++++++++++++++++++

    You see, Byron … Bach fathered a total of 20 children with his two wives … he had to promote himself …

  17. D P D

    Maybe Savage is right.

    ——————————————————–

    Did you get that from the comments on the linked site, they were rather comical, or is it an original thought? Be honest.

  18. “The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) shows considerable homology to DRD2 … Polymorphisms at the DRD4 gene have been examined for association with a wide …”

    alfred.med.yale.edu/alfred/recordinfo.asp?condition=loci.locus…

    more from the article:

    “Polymorphisms at the DRD4 gene have been examined for association with a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders and normal behavioral variation.”

    So does this mean if you have the DRD4 gene you are more susceptible to mental illness? Maybe Savage is right.

  19. Well Ms. EM, I ‘spect all politicians of all stripes suffer from ‘snips’ of DRD2 and none of them are as smart as lil’ ‘bot R2D2. There is a reason they call it dope-amine…

    Researchers discover possible markers for mental illness

    http://www.physorg.com/news115924600.html

Comments are closed.