Liberalism: Mutation or Genetic Defect?
Just when you thought the whole “nature vs. nuture” arguments were done with, out comes this…
Researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults’ political leanings.
According to scientists at UC San Diego and Harvard University, “ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4.” That and how many friends you had during high school.
The study was led by UCSD’s James Fowler and focused on 2,000 subjects from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Scientists matched the subjects’ genetic information with “maps” of their social networks. According to researchers, they determined that people “with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults.” However, the, subjects were only more likely to have leanings to the left if they were also socially active during adolescence.
So, mutant social butterflies grow up to be liberals… who knew?
Editor’s Note: This is now late because it was I who was sleeping at the switch. Dave wrote left this “pending” for me 3 days ago. We talked about it on the show 3 days ago and I … well, sorry Dave. I post it now because this kind of stuff is just too good to be left in the pending category.
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Well, this is really strange as i was ultra-liberal and now am not. Did I lose my gene????? Where did it go???? Ah, Steve, it was a missprint. There are liberal "jeans," not genes.
With proper levels of intelligence, instinct can be overcome, but it does explain the moral relativism of the left.
In Darwinian terms, the lefties are the weak that would be culled from the herd or set afloat on a patch of ice to drift away from the village as future polar bear food. That is why they have to seize the reins of government and support socialism: it artificially props up the weak and unfit, allowing them time to reproduce. There is a rectal orifice variant of this theory as well. And considerable overlap… 😉