WaPo's Science Section Does It Again

Another political attack disguised as science in this morning's Washington Post in an article by Shankar Vedantam. Like the psychology study in 2004 that determined that conservatism is a mental disorder, this study tries to say that conservatives and Republicans are mentally wired to be racists, among other things:

"Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy -- but only in candidates they opposed.

When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats -- the scans showed that "reward centers" in volunteers' brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.

Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes -- subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.

That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did."

Remarkable. Just because I think that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakan are buffoons -   well, that means that I'm smart and can spot con-men a mile away, not that I'm a racist!