Hey, William, it takes a big person to admit a mistake (and I agree, ultimately, with your broader conclusions about the study). Too often, journalists don't even bother, probably thinking it would wreck their credibility... quite the contrary!

We all (me, foremost) can learn something from your post.

Thanks!

Will - much respect for your post. I think your summary of the 1-2-3 points is spot on. It boils down to one of the biggest debates in cognitive neuroscience at present: the drive to generalize what you do and make it accessible to the public while still having what you say be scientifically valid. I can almost guarantee that this paper wouldn't have been published in Nature Neuroscience if they didn't make the reach they did. Nature actually seeks that in the articles - that is how they get the huge impact factor. How many times did we all access the paper during our current discussion? Exactly.

The Neurocritic article you linked to was very good with a lot of excellent analysis. I think the paragraph you cited underscores two things. First, we know so little about clinical disorders. We use our arsenal of research tools to help understand what goes on when they occur, but we really do not have a deep understanding (genetics->neurons->neur­otransmitters->regional activity->large scale networks->behavior) of clinicals states. Second, I would like to echo part of Zarniwoop's last post - what are other areas of the brain doing? Maybe liberals have a larger ERN, but what if conservatives have, say, a greater executive working memory capacity? Which would you rather have/be?

My advisor in grad school probably said it best: "in science and in life, truth accrues and error cancels". If this study did stumble on a real effect then it will be replicated by other groups from around the world. Conversely, if this result was a fluke then replications will fail and it will fade from influence. Scientific knowledge is constantly evolving - the results from this study will be no different.

One thing I've noticed about research into intelligence differences between social groups, going back to Nazi Germany in the 30's and Professor Shockley in the 70's, is that the 'research' always winds up placing the researchers into the group with superior intelligence. Back then it was Aryan vs. non-Aryans and whites vs. blacks, now it's academic liberals vs Republican conservatives.

I wonder if the researchers' commitment to the advancement of human knowledge, which is of course purely scientific and has nothing to do with their personal political leanings, would extend to redoing their project to examine black vs. white differences. Somehow I doubt it.

In addition to willful misinterpretation of the results or outright fraud, the study is likely to have selection biases. For example, I'm reminded of the Churchill misquote, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." If there is any truth to that principle, which group is more likely to do better on a purely physical vision test?

Pursuing that angle, since the Amodio study is at least partly a vision test, it could be interpreted in the opposite direction. Let's say we have two groups, one intelligent and one not, which one is more likely to rely on their senses, and which one is more likely to rely on cognition?

Most likely, of course, the Amodio paper is not good for anything but determining the politics of the testers and reviewers.

I want their next article to be called "Determining the political affiliation of readers by releasing a study about the relationship between political affiliation and neural activity."

Talking with a friend who is a conservative, this study points out something we kind of knew about liberals and conservatives: conservatives are more resistant to changing views based on new information than liberals. I don't think liberals should really get all that excited about it. One thing I know about most liberals, including myself, is that they don't always filter out the crappy information before changing their opinion. If it takes a conservative 10 peer reviewed studies to decide that the needs to change his views, a liberal will change course with one anecdote.

For those of you following the discussion, you can find another well-informed and well-argued critique of the piece here <link>.

The critique argues that Amodio et al never said conservatives were less responsive to information or complexity. That I can't buy. From the abstract:

Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning ...

And it checked out. i.e., They're looking for a neurocog basis for these otherwise soft-science claims that liberals are more this & that. And they've found one.

Amodio in the Daily Telegraph: "In our study, liberals tended to be more sensitive and responsive to information that might conflict with their habitual way of thinking."

In our study. No need to connect the dots there.

Coglanglab is right that I should have included this quote from Amodio et al: "conservatives would presumably perform better on tasks in which a more fixed response style is optimal." I found this caveat inadequate because to me, "fixed" is the wrong concept. The more fleshed-out case for a conservative style is that if you let the timeline continue to run, the person weighs the new input(s), more skeptically than a liberal might, and this includes a higher degree of doubt about changing, which is another layer of complexity. To me, "fixed" means pure inertia, which is a different, dumber thing.

And I was over 1400 words, so I didn't get into it. But they're right, I should have made it a sidebar or something.

Seems to me that this study measures a persons reaction time. Linking that to "intelligence" is a bit of a leap.

Also, I doubt very much that there are two perfectly discrete boxes labeled liberal and conservative. To think that a person would fall neatly into one or the other under all circumstances (economic, foreign policy, art, culture, social issues, etc.) seems to me to be lacking even a basic level of human understanding.

I think part of the problem is that words and terms like "ambiguity", "conflict resolution" and "complexity" have a much broader, more powerful meaning to the general public than the very narrow, precise definitions they have in psychology.

In the actual technical article, there is none of the "liberals are smart, conservatives are dumb" aura that hangs over the media's representation of the study (and, unfortunately, some of the comments made by the researchers themselves outside of peer-review).

Also, you are absolutely correct. College students who volunteer for psych studies are about the exact opposite of a random sample.

Well, I am now certain of one thing: conservatives are far more creative than I ever thought, but in a most disgusting and vicious way -- dreaming up dirty tricks and reasons for war that do not exist! That takes a certain creativity, that's for sure.

They are also as zealotic/ideological as any commie ever was -- impervious to facts or reason, devoted to each other and their ideology, as Saletan's cheap "criticism" shows.

"You cannot compare the part of the brain that deals with complex moral issues with finger tapping." but perhaps you can compare complex moral issues with toe tapping.

Bwahaha! Perfect. It's science for blondes, the kind that get fired from M & M factories for throwing out all the Ws.

Perhaps if they tried a study with qs and ps people would take it more seriously. As it is, bias kind of destroys the credibility.

First off, I just want to say how much I have enjoyed this thread on this subject. The vast majority of the responses have included reasoned, thought out arguments either supporting or disputing Mr. Saletan's original article. (Shout out to you prefrontal - you are the man! You elucidated perfectly some of the points - and more -that came to mind when I read Mr. Saletan's article. And I think your tone set the stage for this whole thread!) There has been a minimum amount of the name-calling and dismissive "how stupid can you be" type comments that unfortunately so often populate ANY conservative vs. liberal discussion - no matter what the subject. And that really bothers me because I think that the only way we're going to survive as a planet is to realize that it really does take all kinds to move the world. No one is strong in ALL areas - although their are quite a few "renaissance people" who like to dabble in many different things. So in many ways, this study and the responses to it (starting with yours Mr. Saletan) remind me of the conflicting feelings that old chestnut "jack of all trades, master of none" stirs up in me. Which is better to be? I can't decide. But being good is not the same as being expert.

And that's kind of what this study's response seems to be about. Mr. Saletan, I want to say right now that I love your column and your articles - and I tend to agree with you more than I disagree with you (and yes, I self-identify as "liberal" just I'd say you self-identify as "conservative") - but I hated this article. And that's because I think that you took the knee-jerk "conservative" reaction and made the leap from "Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning ..." to he's calling conservatives stupid.

Call me liberal but I don't think that responsiveness to "informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty" is all there is to intelligence. It's a part of it but it's not the whole ball of wax. I think that's what Sakura was trying to point out.

And in a way, you self-reported reason for omitting Amodio et al's completion statement of what he thought conservatives' strong points might be (as demonstrated by their responses in the study) kind of re-inforces the above quote. You say that you omitted the second part because to you "fixed means pure inertia". That's a pretty conservative (if you will) definition of "fixed". Fixed to me tends to mean not easily moved for sure as in the gate is fixed to the post - it's not going to be easy to moved it but that doesn't mean that there are no conditions under which it might be moved.(the ambiguous interpretation) Pure inertia, to me, means it's not going anywhere, anytime - it's pure!

So I guess what this whole thing boils down to for me is why did you assume that this study really was an attempt to measure "intelligence" and did this study really come to a conclusion that's any different than the one that we probably can agree on: conservatives tend to not change as quickly as the situation mayt warrant and liberals tend to change more quickly that the situation may warrant and that there's a lot to be said for both tendancies. The hard part is deciding when to make the change when the situation warrants! As St. Francis of Assisi pointed out many moons ago - that's real intelligence!

Like most Liberal "studies", this is another example of flash with no content. If this study demonstrates anything it is that Liberals are like a CPU with lots of bells and whistles and a lousy operating system. They are good at coming up with a fast answer but the answer always ends up being wrong. Liberals may be glib, may be witty, they may even be clever.................but wisdom is the realm of the Conservative.

Liberals would just shrug their shoulders, but look at the response of the republicans.

You can interpret the study in lots ofways:

1) Republicans tend to be more control freak once they have set their mind on one thing they are set for life.

2) Republicans are lazy. They really dont want to bother changing their minds, after all the brain is an energy hog.

3) They probably like pressing 'W' for William Bush.

Morality? Like Foley's? Craig? hmmmmm....... or that guy who owns a noose? Please dont start topics like this, it muddies the conversation.