Sep 22, 2008

The Genetic Conflict of Idea?

According to Don Sapatkin, science blogger for Philly.com (ahem Don, you failed to include links in your entry to the actual study), our political choices can be directly related to a gene and how we respond to threat.

Forget about a candidate's issues and character. You may be biologically driven to lean toward John McCain or Barack Obama, a new study says, depending on your involuntary response to threat.


I find this interesting of course because of the remarkable similarity to the conceptual conflict of idea and the genetic 'conflict' to produce more effective offspring, found in fighting males in many a mammalian species.

Linking experience/response to a gene is very interesting, and highlight some core ideas I write about regarding the dialectic, especially in the article World Peace for Hookers. There is a relationship, a win win relationship, between our direct experience and our genetic strategies for survival and replication. The action of the gene is not identical the experience of the reaction.

From the article...
"People experience the world differently," says lead author John R. Hibbing, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, "and this probably affects their political beliefs."
Link.

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