NBC reports that researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults’ political leanings.
Here’s the details:
“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.
“It is the crucial interaction of two factors — the genetic predisposition and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence — that is associated with being more liberal,” according to the study.”
Of course, I suspect this study is a bunch of hooey with extra hooey on top. The interesting thing though is that just imagine if they found a conservative gene. Just imagine the abortion numbers on those babies.
August 27, 2012 at 11:58 am
Basically these "scientific" studies are geared to eradicate any notion, any thought, any truth about the human being having free will and a human rational soul who is immortal. This will give the abortionists another reason to abort all the children who they deem are not politically correct. In the 1970s they were aborting babies for a condition called mosaicism, a mottling of the skin, which turned out to be a normal growth process. Story may be found in the archives of The National Catholic Register
August 27, 2012 at 12:02 pm
The abortionists also argued that they could determine if a person would have cancer at 78 years of age. Their solution was to abort the baby and the baby's 78 years of life. This story too, was in The National Catholic Register.
August 27, 2012 at 3:31 pm
those libs! They want to get them while they're young, real young!
August 27, 2012 at 5:50 pm
I think the problem has much more to do with subjects students are no longer taught, such as economics. And, for Catholics, with (yet again) failed catechesis in our parishes.
August 29, 2012 at 5:37 am
I just Googled it and found that it's the novelty-seeking gene. So, if you were really bored and surrounded by teenagers, you became a liberal. Well, I was bored as a teenager but I don't need as much novelty now, and I was reared on the left and am now firmly on the right, so it looks like genes are only part of the picture. Maybe bored kids in a crowd get into trouble and therefore identify with adults who have made bad decisions or failed to plan, thus supporting social programs, drug legalization, easy parole and other things they see as giving people another chance.