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
@Buddha:
I think I agree with all that.
>> Sociopaths are evil because they can’t help it,
I think because they only calculate the odds of getting caught. Speaking from memory, I believe the distinction between sociopathy and psychopathy is sociopaths have impulse control and do not engage in evil behavior for its own sake, just as a means to an end. While psychopaths require extremes to be stimulated and are the ones more likely to compulsively enjoy the infliction of pain and terror or death.
>> Compulsion or choice are only going to be mitigation for sentencing at trial.
Right, I was just saying sociopaths, per se, are like the rest of us when it comes to compulsions; a lack of caring does not make them want to hurt people or do evil. I do not think they are especially driven to commit evil deeds, they just commit more of them because it is the convenient or only route to something they want.
>> Sociopaths – whether driven by genes or by choice – are indeed simply parasites at best and at worst are cancers within the body politic.
They are parasites, but parasites reproduce! A sociopathic caveman might purposely exploit the trust of his peer to trick the peer into a fatal trap, for the purpose of stealing his supplies and his women. Then the sociopath reproduces and the trusting dead guy does not. A sociopathic woman might arrange for a rival’s death or murder in the same way, and obtain a reproductive advantage.
Byron,
You’re talking about the Mozart in all of us. 🙂
Blouise:
“Can’t play a cello in that get up …”
If more women would play the cello dressed like that, classical music would become mainstream. Bubba and Billy Bob would be all over Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007 like white on rice or ticks on a hound dog.
Buckeye,
“I’m not sure, but I suspect your society in Mass. was somewhat different than mine in southern Ohio (one of the three counties in Ohio that are considered Appalachia).”
I agree with that. I guess we might consider that growing up in a certain kind of society or being exposed to many different societies might have a similar “liberal” effect on an individual.
Elaine I think the catholics stuck with the democrats until Reagan. Obama got the catholic vote back. McCarthy was part of the liberal catholic community in Minnesota. He attended St. John’s. The social justice aspect of the catholic faith was much more emphasized when I grew up than it is today.
Elaine M.
Most of my friends have remained liberal like me through the years–but a few have become right-wing conservatives.
……………………………………………
Maybe they have the DRD4 – openess to different choices? I assume it would work both ways.
I’m not sure, but I suspect your society in Mass. was somewhat different than mine in southern Ohio (one of the three counties in Ohio that are considered Appalachia).
My parents also lived through the depression and voted straight Republican until I convinced them to not vote for Reagan (I’d been away for a while by then).
I’ve always found that curious since my dad was a union man, though I’m not sure if that was because he wanted to or had to if he wanted to work in his trade.
I will say that living in California for 6 years (during the hippie phase) was a real eye-opener for a country bumpkin. 🙂
I doubt if the Reps. will eliminate SS, but they may want to modify it all out of recognition. They will modify the health bill, also, and say it takes care of Medicare. And why would we need Unemployment Insurance when there are so many jobs available, or will be when all those illegal immigrants leave.
Change you can worry about!
“They only care about laws that are enforced,”
You need a little clarity here, Tony.
True DSM on-point pathological sociopaths don’t care about laws or enforcement beyond its application to their direct person either, only their odds at getting caught.
Sociopaths are evil because they can’t help it, but most evil actors are evil by choice – like politicians. Compulsion or choice are only going to be mitigation for sentencing at trial. Sociopathic behavior may have a survival advantage for individuals, but it’s detrimental to society by its very nature. That is the very essence of the white hat/black hat dilemma – the good of all v. the good of one. To imply otherwise portrays (and this is where you saved yourself Tony) is to miss the distinction between a symbiotic and a parasitic relationship. Sociopaths – whether driven by genes or by choice – are indeed simply parasites at best and at worst are cancers within the body politic. Their motives past a certain level of analysis are irrelevant, however, to the societal need to constrain their bad acts.
lottakatz: A sociopath among empaths has a survival advantage, by being willing to take actions that would cause a normal person emotional pain, like stealing, cheating, or ruthlessly enforcing a contract that will leave somebody homeless and destitute just to make a few thousand dollars. Or deny somebody insurance needed to treat their cancer on a technicality of their insurance contract. Things like that.
Since most of us are not sociopaths (it is actually a scale of degrees of behavior, but about 1% of Americans would be psychologically classified as sociopaths, or one million adults) we don’t do to the sociopaths what needs to be done: Physically punish them and make their actions illegal.
By definition sociopaths do not feel shame, remorse, or empathy for others. The only restraint they feel is their own self-interest. They only care about laws that are enforced, so for example if a child is injured and likely to die and they are the only person that can help, unlike us they have to consciously decide to render help or not, and since they do not feel empathy for the child’s pain and won’t feel remorse over letting them die, the computation is entirely self-centered: If letting the child die helps the sociopath in some way (financially, legally, competitively) then no aid will be rendered, and letting the child die won’t haunt them, ever. They don’t have the neural equipment to care.
In the movies sociopathy usually comes with some betraying personality quirk; like stupidity or compulsive violence or some lack of impulse control, in fact sociopaths fit in the same distribution of intelligence and self-control as the rest of us.
Smart sociopaths are generally considered more gregarious and friendly than their peers. Partially because they lie without tells or quirks, they can fool a lie detector (human or machine), and also because they feel less fear and anxiety than normals, including social anxiety. Friends are (literally) useful, so they learn what people like to hear and exploit them. Unlike normal people, a sociopath has no compulsion to just be “themselves” or hang out with like-minded people. For a person solely focused on their own selfish interests either of these choices would be particularly counter-productive.
There are evolutionary advantages to empathy and packs, but that “trust and caring for your fellow man” produces a counter-advantage to sociopathy within the pack; parasites that can *fake* trust and caring while sacrificing others for their own selfish gain.
Tony,
Some of us were born with DRD4. There are times we liberals just can’t behave ourselves. It’s not our fault. It’s in our genes.
Tony Sidaway,
The children need the firm hand of your adult supervision. Spare the rod = spoil the child.
Tony,
Short answer: It’s Friday
Long answer: Things sometimes get off topic here, there’s a post with something like 1500 comments, roughly 200 of which are on the original topic. Sometimes a topic that’s sort of worn itself out gets used for joking around. It usually happens on Fridays.
DRD4 serves Corporate America
Pure DRD4 before Corporate America:
Is there a particular reason to post Youtube videos to this thread? It’s not a problem, but it does seem a little off-topic.
From what I’ve read mirror neurons in the brain simulate, as your own, actions you see others perform. That’s why watching someone do something is such an effective way to learn to do something. Similarly, a synchronicity of actions, if your a herd animal, works for survivals.
So, I as a layperson intuitively think that if mirroring and synchronicity are pro survival factors, then for nature to kick it up a notch (by tying a direct, chemically-induced emotional link to such behaviors and instinctive responses: empathy) would seem to confers a greater survival advantage for creatures that live in social groups.
Humans, apes and monkeys have mirror neurons. I’d be interesting in knowing if other creatures that live in groups and have complex social behaviors such as cetaceans and elephants do also.
Empathy IMO is a more civilized and evolved trait than not-empathy for the group as a whole and all members should benefit to some degree by empathy being a generally distributed trait. Sociopathy would be the antithesis of empathy.
Put another way: there are teabaggers and bleeding-heart liberals: which of these groups have evidenced more empathy and which group would you rather have in control of the future of Social Security?
The second link is an article. The first link is primarily for the picture; it’s the “Awwwwww” of the day IMO:
Reviews “Why Bogart’s Kiss Is Your Kiss…”
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/05-why-bogarts-kiss-is-your-kiss/?searchterm=empathy
——–
“Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Connect
The most profound bonds between people begin in our bodies with imitation and synchronized movements.”
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/oct/19-monkey-see-do-connect/article_view?searchterm=empathy&b_start:int=1
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3s0eh_bob-dylan-like-a-rolling-stone-1966_music My favorite old liberal musician
Elaine and SwM,
Now that, ladies, is some struttin’! Pat Boone can’t compete! Let’s hear it for DRD4!
Byron,
Can’t play a cello in that get up …
Buckeye,
I still live in the same area of Massachusetts where I grew up–and I haven’t rubbed up against many different societies. I did travel to China in the mid-nineties with an educational delegation. That was definitely an informative experience. Most of my friends have remained liberal like me through the years–but a few have become right-wing conservatives.
I think much of my outlook on life comes from my parents–one of whom was an immigrant. My parents lived through the Great Depression. They remembered how difficult times were back then. They remembered the days prior to Social Security. They remembered how unions fought to get them better working conditions, paid vacations and holidays, and higher wages. They had a great deal of respect for FDR and were lifelong Democrats. I took the stories they told me to heart. It disheartens me when I hear that some politicians and fellow citizens are working to abolish programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance.
I think if I’d never left the small town I was raised in, I’d be as conservative as most of those who stayed. Now why I left, might be a symptom of that gene’s presence, but most of my outlook is from rubbing up against different societies.