[Bobboau]

http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20101027/3003/researchers-find-a-liberal-gene.htm

the liberal gene has been identified!
 

[General Battuta]

correlative study is correlative

[Flipside]

But if Liberalism is partly related to biological information, so then must Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism etc, and I simply don't buy that,

Edit: It would mean that the world is neatly divided up into various Genetic clusters, which, considering the amount of intergration and immigration would be impossible.

[General Battuta]

But if Liberalism is partly related to biological information, so then must Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism etc, and I simply don't buy that.

Actually there's good evidence that conservatism is heritable. And that means liberalism is too, since they're just points on a scale.

See the thing here is not that these ideologies are heritable, it's that certain dispositions which then nudge people towards these ideologies are heritable. That you can probably buy.

[Flipside]

But if Liberalism is partly related to biological information, so then must Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism etc, and I simply don't buy that.

Actually there's good evidence that conservatism is heritable. And that means liberalism is too, since they're just points on a scale.

See the thing here is not that these ideologies are heritable, it's that certain dispositions which then nudge people towards these ideologies are heritable. That you can probably buy.

I suppose so, but the fact is that it's like saying that Nervous Breakdowns are heritable because we get them from our kids

Seriously though, I think a tendency towards a certain mindset could be Biological, I suppose I'm really concerned about is what Bobboau made a joke about, kind of like those people who think that because there may be genes that cause Homosexuality, that it automatically makes it an undesirable or unprofitable gene structure to have, and should be 'cured'.

[Scotty]

Uhh, no, it's not.

Unless there's a gene I haven't heard about that causes predisposition toward nervous breakdowns in the presense of children.

It's the predisposition, not the outcome, that's heritable.

[Flipside]

It's an old joke.

[NGTM-1R]

Uhh, no, it's not.

It's a joke.

Or alternately, a classic case of correlation is not insert caustion here. Having kids makes nervous breakdowns (I hear they're called Major Depressive Episodes these days) more likely because it adds stress. But it doesn't cause them.

[General Battuta]

Uhh, no, it's not.

It's a joke.

Or alternately, a classic case of correlation is not insert caustion here. Having kids makes nervous breakdowns (I hear they're called Major Depressive Episodes these days) more likely because it adds stress. But it doesn't cause them.

Though there are heritable factors which modulate reactivity to stress events or patterns.

And inb4 you can't know if political orientation is heritable because it conflates with upbringing. We use awesome twin study designs to separate this confound.

[MP-Ryan]

Lead researcher James H. Fowler of UC San Diego and his colleagues hypothesized that people with the novelty-seeking gene variant would be more interested in learning about their friends' points of view. As a consequence, people with this genetic predisposition who have a greater-than-average number of friends would be exposed to a wider variety of social norms and lifestyles, which might make them more liberal than average. They reported that "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."

Flawed conclusions are still flawed conclusions, even if based on scientific evidence.

Here's the rub - the definition of what is 'liberal' is not rigid.  It's been changing ever since the vague 'liberal' school of thought came into existence.  If you'd care to look at the individuals who have been associated with liberalism, in one form or another, you'll find many of them have political and ideological views that are virtually diametrically-opposed - but they're all still considered liberal.

In short, what these researchers found is a genetic indicator of novelty-seeking.  Correlatively-speaking, some of the individuals with this genetic trait appear more likely to be exploratory in their views - which, at present, fits with an ideologically neo-liberal stance.  However, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that a cause-and-effect relationship exists here.  A good indication is the fact that they haven't identified that people who identify as 'liberal' are more likely to have this gene variant - that's a big red flag that says "CORRELATIVE RESULTS DO NOT YIELD VALID CAUSE-AND-EFFECT CONCLUSIONS."

This study is something akin to the hypothesis that criminality is biologically-determined (a popular view several decades ago; it's quite common in the original Sherlock Holmes novels, to give some indication of its influence on popular culture).  While there may be some scientific facts that can be shoehorned into apparent support of that hypothesis, the facts support a valid scientific result with a flawed conclusion influence by ideology.

Base personality is largely biologically-determined - political views are not.  I don't have time to pull up the journal article, but I do wonder if it is somewhat less asinine in its published conclusions than the media release in Medical Daily.

[Nuke]

i better go set up them death camps

[MP-Ryan]

Actually there's good evidence that conservatism is heritable. And that means liberalism is too, since they're just points on a scale.

Constantly-moving value-judgement-defined fuzzy points on an inconsistent culturally-defined scale.

In short, vague notions rather than points on a scale.

See the thing here is not that these ideologies are heritable, it's that certain dispositions which then nudge people towards these ideologies are heritable. That you can probably buy.

No.  I will buy that personality types are biologically-determined, which has a gene-environment interaction that may ultimately influence the degree of social interaction, novelty-seeking, and anti-social behaviours that an individual may express, and that those, in a very loose way, contribute to the ideologies than an individual will ultimately identify with.

In point of fact, disposition and personality type, while largely biologically-determined, does not appear to be a strongly heritable trait - which points to either congenital influence (hormone dosages, etc) or, more likely, a series of gene-environment interactions.

[General Battuta]

Actually there's good evidence that conservatism is heritable. And that means liberalism is too, since they're just points on a scale.

Constantly-moving value-judgement-defined fuzzy points on an inconsistent culturally-defined scale.

In short, vague notions rather than points on a scale.

The actual values at any given time are not really that important, though - it floats around a center (which is much more liberal today than it was 50 or 100 years ago) but the range is still there.

See the thing here is not that these ideologies are heritable, it's that certain dispositions which then nudge people towards these ideologies are heritable. That you can probably buy.

No.  I will buy that personality types are biologically-determined, which has a gene-environment interaction that may ultimately influence the degree of social interaction, novelty-seeking, and anti-social behaviours that an individual may express, and that those, in a very loose way, contribute to the ideologies than an individual will ultimately identify with.

In point of fact, disposition and personality type, while largely biologically-determined, does not appear to be a strongly heritable trait - which points to either congenital influence (hormone dosages, etc) or, more likely, a series of gene-environment interactions.

That's just a more nuanced (and, yes, accurate) way of saying what I says.

I've seen a fair range of data on the heritability of personality stuff, which is complicated by the fact that the actual measurement of personality is still sort of in flux. But what I think is a more important confound than gene-environment interactions shaping personality is the causal kid of that interaction - the back-and-forth between the personality traits and the social environment that the subject ends up in. There's all sorts of confounds that could arise there, from the family level right up on to the societal.

[Nuclear1]

wat

I'm pretty sure I didn't get any mental work done when I (maybe quite radically) changed my political beliefs...

[Galemp]

The article actually seems to be talking about a 'curiosity' gene, that makes people more willing to listen to other points of view and move outside their own tight-knit social circles. So it's not so much causing Liberal political thought as it is promoting the lifestyle that leads to it.

[Bobboau]

wow, I didn't expect this topic to be taken nearly this seriously.

[SpardaSon21]

HLP: Serious Business.

[MP-Ryan]

The actual values at any given time are not really that important, though - it floats around a center (which is much more liberal today than it was 50 or 100 years ago) but the range is still there.

But the center is still culturally different.  To have liberal views in the United States and liberal views in Canada are two VERY different things - nevermind countries where fundamentalist religion plays an even larger role in ideological definition.

Thus, the tie-in to political ideology is absolutely irrelevant to the study; the gene seems to increase novelty-seeking.  That's it.  In some cultures, that may or may not correlate to political ideology, but political ideology itself does not correlate back to genes.

That's just a more nuanced (and, yes, accurate) way of saying what I says.

I've seen a fair range of data on the heritability of personality stuff, which is complicated by the fact that the actual measurement of personality is still sort of in flux. But what I think is a more important confound than gene-environment interactions shaping personality is the causal kid of that interaction - the back-and-forth between the personality traits and the social environment that the subject ends up in. There's all sorts of confounds that could arise there, from the family level right up on to the societal.

Your earlier statement implied a loose cause-effect relationship between disposition and ideology, which I would argue there is virtually no evidence for.  This recent paragraph fixes that, and it much better in line with the science (that I'm aware of).

More and more evidence of a synergistic gene-environment effect is becoming available in behavioural genetics, which is part of what I think you're alluding to.  The idea that genetics and environment interact to produce an effect, which is turn produces a feedback loop (positive or negative) back onto gene expression is a relatively new one in the behavioural sciences, but it appears to have significant merit.

That also may be occurring here.  The fact that this is a dopamine receptor is particularly telling, considering dopamine's involvement in the reward pathways of the brain.  The produced behaviour made more likely by the genes and their subsequent environmental interaction is likely being reinforced by the way the behaviour actually alters gene expression itself (I would hazard an education guess that dopamine expression increases resulting in an increased presence of it in the synapse following positive behavioural outcomes).

Regardless, the action of this receptor allele and its subsequent behavioural effects have very little to do with political ideology and more more to do with the resultant personality and social competence of the person in question.  The fact that those layered psychological traits happen to correlate to a particular fuzzily-defined political ideology in this time context is virtually irrelevant because that ideology is socially defined and non-rigid.  It's a stupid trick to gain media attention, and does nothing but promote the lunacy that there is a significant discrepancy between people who identify as 'liberal' and people who identify as 'conservative.'

[General Battuta]

The actual values at any given time are not really that important, though - it floats around a center (which is much more liberal today than it was 50 or 100 years ago) but the range is still there.

But the center is still culturally different.  To have liberal views in the United States and liberal views in Canada are two VERY different things - nevermind countries where fundamentalist religion plays an even larger role in ideological definition.

Thus, the tie-in to political ideology is absolutely irrelevant to the study; the gene seems to increase novelty-seeking.  That's it.  In some cultures, that may or may not correlate to political ideology, but political ideology itself does not correlate back to genes.

Yeah, but if this gene is just correlating with where you end up distributing yourself on the spectrum (through god knows how many layers of confounds and intermediates), and the spectrum distribution holds constant even if the center doesn't, you don't need to worry about the center.

That's just a more nuanced (and, yes, accurate) way of saying what I says.

I've seen a fair range of data on the heritability of personality stuff, which is complicated by the fact that the actual measurement of personality is still sort of in flux. But what I think is a more important confound than gene-environment interactions shaping personality is the causal kid of that interaction - the back-and-forth between the personality traits and the social environment that the subject ends up in. There's all sorts of confounds that could arise there, from the family level right up on to the societal.

Your earlier statement implied a loose cause-effect relationship between disposition and ideology, which I would argue there is virtually no evidence for.  This recent paragraph fixes that, and it much better in line with the science (that I'm aware of).

I think my first post in the topic makes it clear that I don't see a cause-effect relationship here.

[MP-Ryan]

Yeah, but if this gene is just correlating with where you end up distributing yourself on the spectrum (through god knows how many layers of confounds and intermediates), and the spectrum distribution holds constant even if the center doesn't, you don't need to worry about the center.

I see what you're getting at now.  Point taken.  The distribution is still relational though (i.e. based on the described characteristics of the social whole relative to each individual within it, rather than defined by any particular set of traits isolated to an ideological position).  And the authors' conclusion is therefore moot - if what is considered 'liberal' changes over time and the ideological distribution is relational only, then the gene expression that may predispose to an ideology that is considered liberal now may have predisposed to an entirely different ideology in the past and a further different one in the future.

This study (or the media release based upon it, at least) suffers from a distinct failure to define its terms.

I'm not trying to nitpick you to death here, but studies that try to attribute, even indirectly, biological causes to purely social constructs through shaky speculation really annoy the crap out of me as someone who has an education in both genetics and sociology.  I think its conclusions, at least the way they are posed in the media article, are bunk, and I'm therefore inclined to debate against a position that gives them any shred of credibility.  While I know you have a very nuanced understanding of the issues not everyone here does so I'm naturally going to give you grief for oversimplification