Tag: health

For years I have allowed an elephant in the room to distract me from initiating a blog dedicated to illuminating the foundations of the constant human conflicts that seem impossible to stop. The science is there to explain it. And I believe that only by understanding why we hate and fight can we learn not to.

Back to that elephant, I just read a very good book, “The Ideological Brain – the radical science of flexible thinking”, by Leor Zmigrod, a young Cambridge University professor who defines herself as a “political neuroscientist”. She is making waves worldwide with her new book and her brilliant, even audacious neuroscience research into the biological and environmental processes underlying political behavior. 

The New York Times published an interview recently in which she discusses the main points of the book. I encourage you to read it. I am attaching a copy in case the link limits your access.

She has done original research into the neurological mechanisms of inflexible thinking and the rigid, often destructive, ideologies that result. In the book she has combined this with work done by others over the last 80 years to establish that rigid thinking has a strong, scientifically demonstrated genetic factor, and that environmental factors can either curb or exacerbate the behavior. She makes great effort to establish that genes create the predisposition toward embracing rigid beliefs, but for most people their social and informational environments either enhance or attenuate the tendency toward rigid thinking.

For those of you who are struggling to make sense of loved ones who are commitment to MAGA, fundamentalist religion, extreme left-wing dogma, or other rigid ideologies that resist rational facts, she offers a lot of insight and a little hope. For the most strident innate ideologues the brain is not likely to allow them to change. For those who are a little less biologically prone to ideological thinking, there is hope – but she doesn’t really provide a guide. My goal is to expand the context her – and others’ – findings to include the underlying tribal factor is all ideologies, the aggression embodied in defending rigid ideologies, and the evolutionary reasons these behaviors exist. Only then can we develop a comprehensive program for learning to avoid those behaviors.

She does make it clear that rigid ideological thinking exists both on the left and right. It is more prevalent on the right simply because resistance to change is a hallmark of both conservatism and ideological thinking. 

The Elephant

We are getting closer to the elephant. 

In my years of reading books and papers on human behavior, it has been apparent that academics publishing studies or books are very cognizant of the fact their colleagues on the campus far left will aggressively attack them, usually verbally, but sometimes even physically, if they dare to imply that any human behavior might have a biological component.  In my next essay (it is already written), I document and examine the history and reasons behind this phenomenon. 

And despite the fact that Ms. Zmigrod’s research has established precisely the biological differences in the brain structure and processes between flexible thinkers and rigid ideological thinkers, she dances around the fact very carefully, particularly in Chapter 12, “The Dogmatic Gene”. She couches every paragraph as a conversation between whispers. Here is just a snippet:

“WHISPER: Is it genetic? 

WHISPER BACK: Is what genetic? 

WHISPER AGAIN: Rigidity. Is my level of rigidity determined by my genes? 

WHISPER SOFTLY: Yes, partially.

 [Gasp.] 

ANOTHER WHISPER: What does that mean?”

(Zmigrod, Leor. The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking (p. 129). (Function). Kindle Edition.)

She knows her science has broken the extreme lefts’ taboo, hence the whisper voice and “gasp” when she finally says it.

Why is that my elephant in the room? 

When a world-renowned researcher and author like Zmigrod is intimidated enough to dance that carefully, it leaves a writer without portfolio, like me, feeling the necessity to give you so much information all at once in order to engage you before you dismiss me as just another crackpot. Hence, I have continually looked for ways to avoid the nature vs nurture argument, for ways to avoid losing an imagined readership that I will forever hope to reach.

It is agony trying to write while looking over one’s shoulder, knowing that the anti-science fringe of the left has really controlled the public perception of human behavior. But somehow Zmigrod’s book and another that came out just last month, “ The Social Genome”, have made me realize it is time to just bite the bullet and address the anti-science academic left head on.

The Elephant Continues

“The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture”, by Dalton Conley, the Henry Putnam University Professor of Sociology at Princeton, is an introduction to Sociogenomics, the study of how genes and our environment interact to generate behaviors.  

An admittedly liberal sociologist, Conley’s lifelong quest has been to gain an understanding of why some people thrive and others don’t. In his words:

“In short, with a better understanding of how nature and nurture operate as one, we can make sure more people fall into the thriving category.” 

 (Conley, Dalton. The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture (p. 44). Kindle Edition.)

Incredibly, he also inserts a “Gasp” when suggesting there is a biological factor in addition to cultural/social factors:

“Parents who worked hard, who did well on tests, who were able to delay gratification, were conventionally attractive, or who had whatever else it took in our society to earn a lot of money also tended to be parents who passed on these adaptive traits to their offspring—culturally or even (gasp) biologically.”

(Conley, Dalton. The Social Genome: The New Science of Nature and Nurture (p. 52). Kindle Edition.)

I point that out to emphasize the trepidation that scientists have in the face of academic anti-science vitriol.  It is likely that you and most of the public are unaware of how the strides science has made in explaining our behavior have been so muted. We shall see in the next essay that the reasons started out noble but have now become an unjustified rigid, extreme ideology. 

Conley’s book illuminates what would have been obvious decades ago if we could have stepped back and looked at our behavior as dispassionate observers:  The interaction between our genetic behavioral predispositions and the social environment we are born, raised, and live in is very complex, but understanding those factors will allow us to gain some level of control over those behaviors. 

As promised, in the next essay we will delve into some detail why the academic left has had good reason to oppose bad science – divisive theories that pervert and misinterpret good science. Unfortunately, they have also thrown out the good science and tried to destroy the scientists. In some cases, they have even acknowledged that an agenda is more important than the truth.  

Subsequent essays will show that gene studies, neuroscience, and behavioral science have established beyond any doubt that homo sapiens is not innately logical but can learn to be with effort, that we don’t learn to hate “others” but we can be taught not to hate those who aren’t perceived as part of our tribe(s), that we are innately aggressive but can learn to control that aggression. Evolution is not a steady march to some imaginary top. It is a messy process, and we are a particularly flawed product of that process. Only by understanding our flaws will it be possible to minimize them and possibly survive as a species. 

You will learn that much of the common perception of who we are is not correct, and facts that conflict with our beliefs create discomfort (behaviorists call it cognitive dissonance) and we try to avoid them. 

I hope you will overcome that tendency to avoid new facts that may conflict with your established beliefs (behaviorists call it confirmation bias) and find viewing ourselves through the lens of science as fascinating as I do. 

We face an uncertain future as a species. By understanding our strengths and maximizing them, and understanding and addressing our weaknesses, we can stride into that future with hope.