Mike Palij wrote:
----- Original Message -----
On Mon, 10 Sep 2007. Ken Steele wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/3yvxlm
It is possible that I am just behind the times or out of
touch with what is interesting in the research coming
from various areas of neuroscience but I do get
annoyed reading popular media accounts (or even
some of the journal articles) such as that presented
in the news story linked to above. Just a couple of
points to keep in mind when reading the story:
(1) The researchers make the assumption that there is
a unidimensional scale which runs from "conservative"
at one end to "liberal" at the other end.
One reason I posted this link was that the study, itself, was a blatant
example of a category mistake. The study takes a social construct
(political label) which is fluid and in which the definitional
characteristics change from decade to decade, country to country, and
varies among individuals (e.g., lots of conservatives are not Bush-type
conservatives) and then asks whether this ephemeral item occupies a
fixed location in the nervous system.
Maybe the newspaper report is shallow and muddled because the thinking
of the original researchers is shallow and muddled.
Ken
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Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
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