Your Brain On Politics

I have long thought that political leanings are heavily influenced by genetic inheritance which has a lot to do with the structure and chemical makeup of any given brain. Now comes two articles and a book that details studies showing that my notion may be more than just a notion. I'm not going to discuss this at length today. I'm just going to point you to these items and let you make your own judgements

The book is by Chris Mooney and is entitled "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science--and Reality." He is also the author of a companion article "The Left and the Right: Physiology, Brain Structure and Function, and Attentional Differences."

The research article is entitled "Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?" and is authored by John R. Alford of Rice University, Carolyn L. Funk of Virginia Commonwealth University and John R. Hibbing of the University of Nebraska.

I close with this thought: when I was young, the generally accepted definition of mental illness was the inabilty to accept reality. When and why have we strayed from this definition?