PLOS ONE – The Age of Blasphemy

Conspiracy theorists, conservatives more likely to reject science

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American conspiracy theorists and conservatives are more likely to reject scientific findings than American liberals, a recent study has found.

The study, published in the online science journal PLOS One, measured trust in science using three examples of scientific advance – vaccines, genetically modified foods and climate change.

Conservatives appeared to trust scientific findings less when they were likely to lead to regulatory outcomes, conspiracy theorists meanwhile were more likely to reject science on all three counts.

The scientists were surprised to find that liberals did not reject genetically modified foods, writing: “This result is striking in light of reports in the media that have linked opposition to [genetically modified] foods with the political Left based on statements by political figures. Our results provide no evidence that this link holds in the American population at large.”

Liberals were slightly less likely to trust vaccines however.

Conspiracy theorists, not bound by the need to make logical sense (for example, being able to buy into both the theory that Princess Diana was murdered and faked her death at the same time) were found to not only be more likely to reject science but hold more strongly to their ideas the more evidence mounted against them.

“Evidence against conspiracy theories is often construed as evidence for them, because the evidence is interpreted as arising from the conspiracy in question,” the researchers wrote.

Because evidence doesn’t really work with regards to dealing with people who believe in conspiracy theories, the scientists suggested a more indirect approach.

“Conspiracist misconceptions of scientific issues are best met by indirect means, such as affirmation of the competence and character of proponents of conspiracy theories, or affirmation of other beliefs they hold dearly.”

“Alternatively, efforts should be made to rebut many conspiracy theories at the same time because multiple rebuttals raise the complexity of possible conspiracist responses, thereby rendering it increasingly baroque and less believable to anyone outside a committed circle of conspiracy theorists,” the scientists wrote.

If You Distrust Vaccines, You’re More Likely to Think NASA Faked the Moon Landings (motherjones.com)
Surprise! Conspiracy Theorists Are More Likely To Disavow Vaccines, Climate Science And GM Foods (popsci.com)
If You Distrust Vaccines, You’re More Likely to Think NASA Faked the Moon Landings (climatedesk.org)
The Role of Conspiracist Ideation and Worldviews in Predicting Rejection of Science (plosone.org)
Vaccine Conspiracy Theorists More Likely To See Conspiracy Everywhere (forbes.com)
Conspiracy theorists, conservatives more likely to reject science (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Red Brain, Blue Brain: Republicans and Democrats Process Risk Differently, Research Finds

A team of political scientists and neuroscientists has shown that liberals and conservatives use different parts of the brain when they make risky decisions, and these regions can be used to predict which political party a person prefers. The new study suggests that while genetics or parental influence may play a significant role, being a Republican or Democrat changes how the brain functions.

Republicans and Democrats differ in the neural mechanisms activated while performing a risk-taking task. Republicans more strongly activate their right amygdala, associated with orienting attention to external cues. Democrats have higher activity in their left posterior insula, associated with perceptions of internal physiological states. This activation also borders the temporal-parietal junction, and therefore may reflect a difference in internal physiological drive as well as the perception of the internal state and drive of others. (Credit: From: Darren Schreiber, Greg Fonzo, Alan N. Simmons, Christopher T. Dawes, Taru Flagan, James H. Fowler, Martin P. Paulus. Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e52970 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052970)

Dr. Darren Schreiber, a researcher in neuropolitics at the University of Exeter, has been working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California, San Diego on research that explores the differences in the way the brain functions in American liberals and conservatives. The findings are published Feb. 13 in the journalPLOS ONE.

In a prior experiment, participants had their brain activity measured as they played a simple gambling game. Dr. Schreiber and his UC San Diego collaborators were able to look up the political party registration of the participants in public records. Using this new analysis of 82 people who performed the gambling task, the academics showed that Republicans and Democrats do not differ in the risks they take. However, there were striking differences in the participants’ brain activity during the risk-taking task.

Democrats showed significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness. Meanwhile Republicans showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in the body’s fight-or-flight system. These results suggest that liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk.

In fact, brain activity in these two regions alone can be used to predict whether a person is a Democrat or Republican with 82.9% accuracy. By comparison, the longstanding traditional model in political science, which uses the party affiliation of a person’s mother and father to predict the child’s affiliation, is only accurate about 69.5% of the time. And another model based on the differences in brain structure distinguishes liberals from conservatives with only 71.6% accuracy.

The model also outperforms models based on differences in genes. Dr. Schreiber said: “Although genetics have been shown to contribute to differences in political ideology and strength of party politics, the portion of variation in political affiliation explained by activity in the amygdala and insula is significantly larger, suggesting that affiliating with a political party and engaging in a partisan environment may alter the brain, above and beyond the effect of heredity.”

These results may pave the way for new research on voter behaviour, yielding better understanding of the differences in how liberals and conservatives think. According to Dr. Schreiber: “The ability to accurately predict party politics using only brain activity while gambling suggests that investigating basic neural differences between voters may provide us with more powerful insights than the traditional tools of political science.”

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PTI elections drew a line between believers of true democracy, monarchy: Imran (sananews.net)
Cameron and Miliband really are on a different wavelength: People at different ends of political spectrum ‘use their brains differently’ (dailymail.co.uk)
The party in your brain (medicalxpress.com)
The party in your brain (eurekalert.org)
Red brain, blue brain: Republicans and Democrats process risk differently, research finds (sciencedaily.com)