"Having a healthy skepticism as to journalists' predilection for sensationalism"

Shadow, why are you always providing links to the sensationalism of the Murdoch gutter press?

People are conservative, and resists change, if for no other reason that they fear losing what they have. be a little, or a lot, could be material and or social loss they fear, or fear the loss of the controlling power they exercise over others. or both.
Conservatives with power are forever pointing to threats that are sometimes real, and sometimes imaginary. No matter, real or imaginary, those conservative powers will exploit the fears of others to the maximum extent to keep control and keep what they have. War is the conservatives ultimate weapon of control. In the past one hundred years Australians have been told to fear the Kaiser, fear the Nazi's, fear the Communists, now fear the Terrorists. The reality is there have been genuine reasons to fear all four. but to what extent they should be, or have been feared is debatable. The conservative politician is always at the ready to exploit the fears of society.

Dear Shadow Minister,

There have been numerous studies done on the subject.
Dr Ryota Kanai's was one that was considered to be of
significant importance by his peers. And it was the
one under discussion in this thread. You, despite all
your alleged qualifications still had problems finding
it on the web, and still you managed to call
it "dubious," which makes one wander about your actual
capabilities and reasoning ability. However, be that
as it may - His study was
discussed in reputable scientific journals -
Current Biology, Science Daily, and many
others.. You asked for links - I
provided them . Now whether you choose to accept the
various findings or not - is of course up to you.
I've done my bit for you.

otb,

More of the same old tactics from you I see.

Typical RA behaviour. You fit into the conservative
brain structure described by Dr Kanai so well.

Dear Paul,

Thank You. Both you and Poirot provide the balance so
badly needed on this Forum. And it is greatly appreciated.

Dear Paul,

Thank You. Both you and Poirot provide the balance so
badly needed on this Forum. And it is greatly appreciated.

LOL

P,

It is sad that you once again source your information only from a left whinge blog.

Firstly, as I pointed out earlier, the H index for Associate professors in BL's field averages 2.2, so BL's index of 4 is well above average.

Secondly in this instance, as BL has been operating outside the purely academic realm for more than a decade I was not referring only to the citations of his peer reviewed papers in other peer review papers, rather to his citations in the wall street journal and other non academic literature. This puts him as one of the most cited contemporary academics.

Paul,

Most rational people don't share your paranoia about Newscorp.

Foxy,

You are in no position to criticise since making your assertions based on a left whinge blog you completely failed to provide a link to the actual study, which I found only after following one of your links and finding a link to the real study. Also Googling Dr Ryota Kanai throws up hundreds of similar blog articles and after digging through a dozen or so I had better things to do.

My original judgement of the study being dubious was based on the articles to which you linked which I withdrew after reading the actual study and seeing that Dr Ryota Kanai's conclusions differed vastly from the articles, which you would have known if you had read either my earlier post or the actual study.

Secondly, the other studies that you threw up do not involve using an MRI to measure the RA and AC rather psychometric like testing.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Actually Sir, you are the one who is in no position
to continue to criticise. Links were provided -
the author was provided and all you had to do is
Google the information. Paul did not have a problem
finding the article. Neither did I. As for your other
claims? The only conclusion is that
- you obviously reject or have not read
the links provided.

Had you bothered to read the provided links you would
have learned that -
there have been other studies done at various universities
- such as New York University, and UCLA (University of California
los Angeles), - where participants
were wired to electroencephalographs that recorded
activity in the anterior cingulate cortex.
An fMRI study published in
"Social Neuroscience" also found different patterns of brain
activity.

I am no longer interested in continuing to argue with you.
Things have been explained to you several times and I see
no further point in continuing to do so. You use the same
tactics that your colleague otb uses. Both of you seem to
be under the impression that if you can attribute a bad
trait to your "opponents" - others will tend to doubt
the quality of your "opponent's" arguments.
otb complains about "ad hominem" attacks - when in fact
he's the master of them. Explanations
of his behaviour are not
"ad hominem" attacks but valid logical conclusions based on
his continued actions.

Enjoy your day. I have no further interest in responding
to you.

Paul,

You quoted "Researchers from the University College London have learned that people with conservative political views generally have larger amygdalas, which are centers of the brain that determine fear and emotion. They also typically have a smaller anterior cingulate, which is associated with courage and optimism."

Must be a lot of them in Britain at the moment! LOL (in general)!