World News

That makes sense

Oh, a degree, well that definitely makes me think you know everything, fine, let's all bow down to the ultimate authority here.

Fuck you, dude.

Yes, but what about the shape of their skull?

Horseshite, he has the problems, you do not. You are not qualified to make an opinion and also, from your language you sound like, in full circle, you are talking horseshite...

Flipping through my copy of The Bell Curve smugly

Theres a reason experts always contextualize their statements and explain the nuance and limitations of their research. If thats what the experts are doing, maybe treating every possible interpretation of that research as a "verifiably true" take is not a particularly scientific approach. Especially when the researchers themselves explicitly warn against this EXACT reductive interpretation.

You will notice that the article written on the research and the quotes from the researchers who did the research are infinitely tamer to a point of not being entirely the same claims anymore. Including explicitly telling people not to interpret their research in reductive ways.

The study successfully replicated a key finding from earlier research: on average, conservative participants had larger amygdalas compared to their more progressive counterparts. Although the size difference was small, it was statistically significant, suggesting that conservatives may be more sensitive to fear or threat-related stimuli—a role the amygdala is known to play in emotional processing.

...

“The main takeaway is that our political beliefs may be shaped not only by our environment and experiences but also by our biology,” Petropoulos explained. “We found that certain brain structures, like the amygdala and fusiform gyrus, are associated with political ideology. While this doesn’t mean our brains ‘determine’ our political views, it suggests that biology plays a role in how we perceive and react to the world, influencing our political preferences.”

...

“While our study used a large and representative sample, it is still only one piece of the puzzle,”

...

“I think it’s important for people to understand that our findings should not be used to reinforce stereotypes or suggest that political beliefs are fixed. The brain is incredibly adaptable, and political beliefs are shaped by many factors. Instead, understanding the biological influences on ideology may help us appreciate the diversity of perspectives and improve our ability to communicate across ideological divides.”

(Bold/italicized emphasis mine)

What the original commenter said is a reductive interpretation of the research that extrapolates the findings beyond what the researchers ever would, and is in fact explicitly at odds with the way the researchers told people the research should be interpreted.

Nevermind that the provided source can't actually tell us much about scientific consensus, nor does it evaluate the quality of the experimental design. And if you ever talk to actual scientists, they generally don't go around calling anything "verifyably true", even when there actually is fairly strong scientific consensus.

The results of a paper tell you that THAT experimental design, produced THOSE statistical outputs, and may support the interpretations the researchers put forward. Thats the only thing thats "verifiably true". Everything past that is essentially layperson narrative crafting, until you get to things like systematic reviews, or meta analysis which can start to communicate scientific consensus, and even then its only the interpretations actually in the paper that have strong evidence, not just any old way you might interpret their findings.

Ok, so first, I've read it but not any of the citations or any other follow up work.. but that study is about people with lesions in their brain, what about people with healthy brains? Can you identify conservatives with just a scan if they don't have a brain injury? I still doubt it, much less 'anyone with two minutes of training'. Or maybe you mean that half (if not more) of the world population suffers some kind of brain lesion or disorder? And that sample size seems also quite small and, without really being able to actually tell, not very random (the groups with lesions are overwhelmingly white, while the control group isn't...).

Don't get me wrong, I do think that conservatism is a disease/disorder. But a social, memetic one. That can't be diagnosed or cured like physical or mental problems.

Anyway, it doesn't convinced me, but it doesn't matter cause I don't really have any use for that information since I can't scan people's brains, modify them, or cure injuries. But I'm sure the fascists taking ahold of the world will be (are?) very interested on this bullshit, and I won't be surprised if they end up putting anyone with a functional prefrontal cortex down.