New Study: Liberals have Thicker Brains

[GhostWriter16]

Like you said, the US alone can not fix these problems. Maybe liberals want to fix it, they just think war is not the answer.

Well, IMO we have a responsibility, ESPECIALLY if we're keeping such a large army, to deal with the worst of the worst.

However, we can't stop anything, we need to pick our battles. Iraq was most likely not a wise choice.

 

[Lone Wolf]

That study is ambiguous. On the one hand, liberals' brains are larger. On the other hand, liberals are thick.

 

[GenMarshall]

I would thought conservatives would have thicker skulls.

 

[Traitorfish]

For example, people who execute women for adultery. I'm willing to start wars in order to kill such people.

How extraordinarily gallant of you.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Well, IMO we have a responsibility, ESPECIALLY if we're keeping such a large army, to deal with the worst of the worst.

However, we can't stop anything, we need to pick our battles. Iraq was most likely not a wise choice.

As a global power, we have the responsibility to maintain said power and to exercise it conservatively and with extreme discretion, for the good of those who rely on said power for their own safety. The destruction of that power in a series of pointless, futile and naive wars is perhaps the most ignoble and short-sighted thing we could do short of pulling a Chamberlaine and going for the route of extreme isolation.

 

[Dumanios]

If Liberals have thicker brains than Conservatives, then who had the thicker brain before Liberalism became popular?

 

[Bill3000]

If Liberals have thicker brains than Conservatives, then who had the thicker brain before Liberalism became popular?

merchants

 

[GoodGame]

Brain thickness determines political leaning: study


So a few questions.

What does this study actually mean?
How seriously can we take this study?
What does this add to the nature vs. nurture debate?

Also is the definition of "Liberal" meaningful in different populations of different countries?

 

[Traitorfish]

If Liberals have thicker brains than Conservatives, then who had the thicker brain before Liberalism became popular?

Also is the definition of "Liberal" meaningful in different populations of different countries?

Well, the article restricts itself to "left-wing", rather than "liberal" (which, in the UK, is an explicit reference to Liberalism), so it was more about tendency towards progressivism or reactionaryism than about political position per se. I assume that this was a translation, of sorts, on the part of the OP.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

No. They don't. The difference is, liberals are (currently) not willing to take action to alleviate whatever suffering they happen to be witnessing.

Like hunger? Poverty? Prejudice?

It is conservatives who take the Nutty Professor approach to society.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

the problem I see, as others have stated, is those who have changed their beliefs - I used to be a lot more conservative in my youth, and have been moving farther left ever since

Conventional wisdom would say that usually happens the other way around, but that is not really true. Studies show that most people continue to become at least more socially liberal as they age, until they have children of their own. Old people who never had kids are one of the least conservative demographics.

 

[Traitorfish]

Like hunger? Poverty? Prejudice?

Or the mistreatment of women, if we're going to allow the reactionaries to play the "feminism through bombing stuff" card. I don't recall rape crisis centres being a particular concern of the American right...

 

[galdre]

Conventional wisdom would say that usually happens the other way around, but that is not really true. Studies show that most people continue to become at least more socially liberal as they age, until they have children of their own. Old people who never had kids are one of the least conservative demographics.

so if I had kids I'd become more conservative?

I'll add that to my reasons for not having any then...

 

[PredatorFett]

Conservatives have thicker...........never mind.

 

[Bill3000]

so if I had kids I'd become more conservative?

I'll add that to my reasons for not having any then...

Well you'd presumably be wanting to not want your kids to do drugs, watch porn, have sex, become authoritarian towards them, etc. and as raising kids is a fundamental part of your life experiences, I presume that is likely to leak over politically.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well you'd presumably be wanting to not want your kids to do drugs, watch porn, have sex, become authoritarian towards them, etc. and as raising kids is a fundamental part of your life experiences, I presume that is likely to leak over politically.

Disapproving of libertinism doesn't mean disapproving of liberalism. To me, the habitual shift to the conservative, beyond that extent to which it is relative, is a result of woolly thinking on the part of parents and of an erstwhile commitment to liberal values in the first place.

 

[Ayatollah So]

That the way your brain is formed can influence the way you perceive the world. That shouldn't, at the theoretical level, be too radical a concept.

Also, the way you think and feel can influence the development of your brain. In fact, no learning at all takes place without at least some (usually very subtle) reconfiguration of the brain.