Politics is one of the most complex areas of human thought. So when I heard the claim that scanning people's brains could predict political choices, I was naturally sceptical.
Brain science is achieving extraordinary insights, but mapping what you can measure in a brain scanner on to human social interactions is a huge leap, like trying to find exact correlations between two bowls of soup - only one soup is made from vegetables, macaroni and stock, and the other soup is made up of abstract ideas like economics, equality and history.
But in the US and in Britain, psychologists and neuroscientists are doing serious research into linking political attitudes to what goes on inside our skulls.
"By looking at how the brain is processing political phenomena, we can understand a little better why we're doing what we're doing," says Darren Schreiber, of Exeter University.
He started using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) while in America, to look at patterns of activity in the brain when people made decisions, especially those involving risk.
While their decisions weren't all that different, Dr Schreiber saw variation in the parts of the brain that were most active in self-described conservatives and those who called themselves liberal.
He won't generalise about exactly how conservatives and liberals think, but he does think his work suggests that differing political outlooks reflect deep-seated divergence in how we understand the world.
Neuroscientist Read Montague, of University College London and Virginia Tech, was sceptical when approached to help political scientists with their research.
"I laughed them out of the room," he says. But when John Hibbing and his team at the University of Nebraska showed him their data he changed his tune.
Their studies of twins suggested that political allegiance was partly genetic.
Not as strongly as height, for example, but enough to suggest that some people really could be dyed-in-the-wool conservatives - or dyed-in-the-DNA, at least.
Political view may connect to genes!!
Originally Posted by Markas
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... but he lost the war ....
Don't worry its genetic, you can't help yourself.
