[astontibs]

My wife and also a very good friend of mine have been faithful veiwers and I have also watched him many times. There are times when I said "This guy is a nut job" but there have also been times when I completely agreed with him. He always encouraged his viewers to look things up for themselves if they didn't believe what he was saying. Most of the time you could find truth in his statements, but there was often some spin involved. He also threw one hell of a rally last August that brought together a group of the nicest most concientious people I have ever met. Not one piece of trash on the ground with (disputed number alert) hundreds of thousands of people. I am glad he will still be around.

[Phaedrus]

As with scientific method, truth is not found by presenting only the facts that fit your theory. That's what my thesis prof used to sarcastically call journalism.

[Phaedrus]

Possible reason why fearmongering is a better strategy for rallying conservatives and why liberals are seen as wishy-washy.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2 ... tml?ref=hp

[astontibs]

Interesting article. I wonder how they would explain someone who tended more liberal and then became more conservative. Does the brain shift over time?

[Turnpike]

He is still employed by FOX. When Sarah Palin resigned from being governor, the left had a field day. Now she is in the left’s face more then ever before. Be careful what you wish for. Atmosphere of fear, how about, if we don’t pass this bill old people will be dying in the streets, children will get sick and dying, and hospitals can’t take care of the people. Progressive twist with more leftist extremism. Mr. Beck will be taking his show to the next level, as he did when he left CNN. It is amazing how one guy can hit a whole political side so hard.

[Phaedrus]

Interesting article. I wonder how they would explain someone who tended more liberal and then became more conservative. Does the brain shift over time?

If you google the author's name, you will come up with additional studies he has done regarding brain development and political leaning. Or it may be one continuing study and he is what they call salami slicing: getting multiple papers out of essentially one study.

To address your question, he doesn't make any claims about causation. He has only found correlation, so it is completely possible that there is a physical reinforcement mechanism at work.

Drug research is somewhat similar. Using different drugs or alcohol can effect changes in the brain (not just destruction) that lead to addiction and addictive tendencies. Stress research also focuses on brain alteration that reinforces and magnifies stress related problems related to emotional coping and memory retention.

On the other hand, some people are predisposed to stress, addiction and temperment. It's a chicken and egg argument, but I think if an individual is predisposed to a particular view of the world and is only exposed to ideas that reinforce that view, then they will more and more become that view - rather than just holding that view.

[Boro Friend]

I have to pass this along to our resident misguided left leaning radicals. There is a woman who works over in the office who I guess listens to Glen Beck on the radio. He said something to the effect that in about one year from now the left will find Jesus and pray that he was back at Fox with one hour of tv time a day. I don't know what that means but it made me laugh and I knew right then I was going to share that information. You know 'the good news'... lol

[Phaedrus]

A radical is someone who is left-leaning? That's the kind of thinking you get from following Beck.

[Boro Friend]

A radical is someone who is left-leaning? That's the kind of thinking you get from following Beck.

Sure it could have only come from Beck. Don't you know that everything in the world that was ever thought or said that's not a leftest idea had to have come from this Beck character you seem to be so obsessed with ? We never said that kind of stuff back in the early 70's.No really , this was at a time when we had men in uniform fighting to free people from government tyanny,and back in this country we had idiots taking to the streets. .I just never realized that the useful idiots of the world never grew out of that phase.Turns out it wasn't a phase but a powerful gripping plague that was never exterminated properly and it got away on us.I didn't know about shedding the radical pose for the radical ends. Now that I got from Beck. I remember seeing one of his shows about Van Jones a Maxist who worked in the White House for this President until someone figured it out and he left in the middle of the night. I guess that was just more of the bad luck President Obama seems to have. Now we are playing catch up on this crap . But as the God who you don't beleive in as our witness make no mistake about it ,as more people are waking up we will catch up.You can take it to the bank that the left seems to hate so much.