Your political ideology is a genetic disease

[Cain]

Well, maybe not.  But this can be spun so many ways, many of them as spurious as the one above, I would bet someone will say something stupid, uh, five minutes ago

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=7909321&jid=JOP&volumeId=72&issueId=04&aid=7909320&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0022381610000617

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we test this hypothesis by investigating an association between self-reported political ideology and the 7R variant of the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), which has previously been associated with novelty seeking. Among those with DRD4-7R, we find that the number of friendships a person has in adolescence is significantly associated with liberal political ideology.

Incidentally, the novelty-seeking bit would seem to confirm Altermeyer's research into authoritarianism (people with authoritarian personalities usually only have a circle of friends who are highly similar to themselves in socio-economic and religious terms), but I suspect it is a lot more complex than that.

I mean, even on the terms being used.  "Liberal political ideology" in the UK is significantly different to that in the States (expect hacks on both sides to completely ignore that) just for starters.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

So for people who have two copies of the 7R allele, their political ideology tends to vary with the number of friends they have, but people without this allele have no such variation along this axis.  That seems weird.

I mean, even on the terms being used.  "Liberal political ideology" in the UK is significantly different to that in the States (expect hacks on both sides to completely ignore that) just for starters.

Nonsense.  Everyone knows that liberals everywhere are all communist, socialist, and fascist atheists intent on implementing sharia law.

[The Johnny]

Its an interesting take -which must not be simplified if it is to be taken seriously- to correlate novelty seeking with political ideology.

Its a murky and ambiguous road do...

What i have heard about is the correlation between novelty seeking and drug addiction, drug addiction which is correlated to a liberal ideology that validates their habitus so to speak. Parallely speaking, religious nutters and fascists (and the top % of capitalists) tend towards constriction, anality, repression.

The flaw is that they are skipping one step altogether, which is  confirming the correlation between the gene and novelty seeking, and assuming this single factor is the deciding one, when there are billion factors that range from the biological, social and psychical environs.

[Requia ☣]

It's worth pointing out that 'number of friends' was determined by self reporting, this may have more to do with how people determine if someone is a friend or not than the actual number of friends.

Not sure how to correct for it.

[Persona Facade]

The talk of dopamine has me wondering what role ADHD plays in politics. 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I always figured the predominance of liberals in my mother's family was due to us all being Massholes and Kennedy Catholics.

Blight,
Was told, "it's ok, as long as you don't vote Republican"
(Blight's family doesn't understand electoral college apparently)