Thanks bugger. I have been reading Slate for years but never made an account for the discussion boards until I read this article.

Amodio is a good scientist. I had dinner with him once while at a social psychology symposium - he is a really good guy. The issue I have with his article is the same issue I have with his field. That is, there are limits regarding how far you can generalize your findings. I am a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, so I tend to make statements limited to certain age ranges. Amodio is in the field of social neuroscience, meaning he tries to generalize his findings to all of social behavior. Many folks have issues with this, like KevClark64, saying that going from reaction times to higher-order social interactions is a reach. I tend to agree, but it is a large and growing field.