Blink once if you like George Bush

This report "Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits" appeared yesterday in what is probably considered one of the five most important scientific journals in the world, Science. Basically it says that people's unconscious, physiological reaction to threatening stimuli correlates with their political leanings, in that more extreme reactions were more likely to come from people with a traditionally conservative ideology.

I'm still shaking my head after reading it, wondering how this merits publication in such a prestigious journal. To me, it's a not-so-subtle attempt by scientific elites to attack conservative values, which most of them despise.

Here's what they did: The group went out and conducted a phone survey in Nebraska and found a group of people with strong political beliefs, in either direction. Then they brought them into the lab and hooked them up to instruments that measured their eyeblinks and sweat on their skin. They then exposed them to several images, among which were interspersed threatening images (a spider, a bloody face, maggots in an open wound). They found that people who held traditionally conservative ideals reacted more strongly (sweat more and blinked harder) to the threatening images.

There are three possible explanations for their observations, according to the authors:
1. A person's physical response to threatening things could cause him to adopt certain political beliefs.
2. A person's political beliefs could cause him to physically respond a certain way.
3. Both his physical response and his political beliefs arise from a certain part of the brain that is already "wired" to produce them both together.

So you may be asking, So what? So they found some correlation with a person's convictions and his biological wiring. No big deal!

Probably not. But read what the authors conclude in their paper: "Consequently, our research provides one possible explanation for both the lack of malleability in the beliefs of individuals with strong political convictions and for the associated ubiquity of political conflict."

In other words, people don't hold strong to their convictions because of reason or inspiration or even common sense. We disagree so much about political issues is because our brains are wired differently. So again, science is attempting to put a biological explanation on every human experience. (Which I suppose its their prerogative). It's only a small step to implicating our religious beliefs on our brain structure. (Your testimony arises from specific synaptic connections in your amygdala). And the "beauty" of this idea is that it is heritable, explaining why kids often adopt the religion or political beliefs of their parents.

So how would I explain their findings? I'm certain that we have a powerful mind, body connection. But it's a complicated, give-and-take relationship, where our spirit and mind can modify our physiology and vice versa. For these scientists to make it a one-way communication is too simplistic.