Here’s another Guardian story but again it illustrates the same prejudices that are hard wired into the psyches of the BBCers in their loathing of anything that smacks of ‘Right Wing’ populism….ie anything that the general public might believe or enjoy.
I have included much more of the material than is stricly necessary because it is of interest regardless of BBC bias concerns….read on…..
Unmitigated lefty loathing of the Daily Mail….hardly a day goes by on the BBC or in the Guardian when the daily Mail is not mentioned in a dismissive and sneering tone. It is the one paper that seems to inherently stick in the craw of the left….presenter after presenter will say something of a leftwing nature and then reel back in mock horror saying ‘that’ll be headlines in the Mail tomorrow’.
The Mail reports some scientific research into brain responses to certain stimuli and gets the Guardianista hot under the collar and very excited and overwrought:
Racism is ‘hardwired’ into the human brain – and people can be prejudiced without knowing it
The Guardian response is to emote outrage and damaged sensibilities as well as proclaiming the inherent nastiness of all Right wingers….inherent? Surely not?
What this ‘racism is hardwired’ story says about the Daily Mail
The misuse of science to support the idea that racism is inevitable forms a persistent, low drumbeat on the right
The Daily Mail has bad news for “right-thinking” people everywhere: ‘Racism is “hardwired” into the human brain’. Even well-meaning progressives “make unconscious decisions based on a person’s race”. It is inescapable. To claim that racism is hardwired is to say that it is natural.
The one small hitch in this story is adverted to in that shopworn phrase “scientists say”. A discordant note should always sound in the reader’s mind when a journalist opens an article with this assurance.
For, in point of fact, scientists don’t say.
…..actually the scientists did say that racism is not a conscious act…..‘Thus far, we have obtained modest evidence about these processes as they operate in our brains, unbeknownst to our conscious selves. A network of interacting brain regions is important in the unintentional, implicit expression of racial attitudes and its control. People tend to show unintentional indications of race bias, even when they are motivated to be non-prejudiced
You can have an implicit bias and choose not to act on it, and the DLPFC may be trying to regulate the emotional responses that conflict with our egalitarian goals and beliefs.’
Clearly the problem is the Guardianista’s own prejudices, presumably ones which he has consciously chosen to adopt as a lifestyle ‘accessory’….First thing to note of course is that he says ‘that shopworn phrase “scientists say”. A discordant note should always sound in the reader’s mind when a journalist opens an article with this assurance.’
I am amused because I’m certain somewhere in the Guardian there is an article or two that tells me in no uncertain terms climate change is totally man made because ‘scientists say it is’.
Moving on, a session on Google quickly brings up article after article from ‘respectable’ publishers…many from the Guardian itself…saying exactly what the Mail has said.
Clearly the Guardianista has a purely ideological take on this and the facts have little bearing on the matter…however here for your interest are some of the facts as report after report reveal…..
From the Guardian
What kind of brain do you have? There really are big differences between the male and female brain, says Simon Baron-Cohen. And they could help explain conditions such as autism Do you have a male or female brain?
From a science journal:
Hard-wired xenophobia and facial similarity effects.
One brain-based argument Hanft didn’t include is likely one of the most potent: our brains are wired to trust people who look like us more than those who don’t. No doubt part of this tendency dates back to hunter-gatherer days when recognizing members of your tribe was important, and members of other tribes might be a threat. One interesting piece of research showed that facial similarity was a major factor in trust, implying that “differentiation of kin” is a key factor.
From the Lefty Washington Post:
The Egalitarian Brain” by New York University psychologist David Amodio, a chapter in the new book “Are We Born Racist?,” ….our brains are wired to make snap judgments on race. ….our brains will never be “color blind.” Of course, our brains also have a neocortex that can “override our immediate, but sometimes inappropriate, reactions to people from other groups,” .
From a psychologist:
Stone Age survival needs hard-wired into our brains to create a two-tiered system of conscious and subconscious thought. Elucidated by 2002 Nobel Prize winner in economics Daniel Kahneman, the systems are divided into the prehistoric System One (Gut) and System Two (Head). Gut is quick, evolutionary and designed to react to mortal threats, while Head is more modern, conscious thought capable of analyzing statistics and being rational….decisions are mostly made by the gut .
From the hallowed BBC:
Are political beliefs hard-wired?
If it was possible to “see” political belief in the structure of the brain, and if science could predict whether a person was left or right wing.
The obvious answer was to take a look at the brains of two MP’s with diametrically opposing views – step forward Thatcherite Conservative Alan Duncan, and Labour stalwart Stephen Pound, who agreed to undergo a structural brain scan using Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI.
The results showed a strong correlation between between political belief and two specific regions of the brain. The grey matter of the anterior cingulate was significantly thicker amongst those who described themselves as liberal, or left wing, while the amygdala – an area associated with emotional processing – was larger in those who regarded themselves as conservative or right wing.
“It’s a remarkable finding” says professor Rees. “We were very surprised to find two areas of the brain from which we could predict political attitudes.”
From the Independent:
Brain shape ‘shows political allegiance’
Neuroscientists are examining whether political allegiances are hard-wired into people after finding evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of left-wingers.
Scans of 90 students’ brains at University College London (UCL) uncovered a “strong correlation” between the thickness of two particular areas of grey matter and an individual’s views.
The research was carried out by Geraint Rees director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
From the Guardian:
The Optimism Bias by Tali Sharot: extract
Our brains may be hardwired to look on the bright side, says neuroscientist Tali Sharot in this extract from her new book
We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. We watch our backs, weigh the odds, pack an umbrella. But both neuroscience and social science suggest that we are more optimistic than realistic.
Hardwired for hope?
Findings from a study I conducted a few years ago with prominent neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelps suggest this…Why would our brains be wired in this way? It is tempting to speculate that optimism was selected by evolution precisely because, on balance, positive expectations enhance the odds of survival….and emerging data that optimism is linked to specific genes.
From the Guardian:
The brain… it makes you think. Doesn’t it?
Are we governed by unconscious processes? Neuroscience believes so.
It is clear at this point that we are irrevocably tied to the 3lb of strange computational material found within our skulls. The brain is utterly alien to us, and yet our personalities, hopes, fears and aspirations all depend on the integrity of this biological tissue. How do we know this? Because when the brain changes, we change. As much as we like to think about the body and mind living separate existences, the mental is not separable from the physical
Indeed, brains and culture operate in a feedback loop, each influencing the other.
Nonetheless, culture does leave its signature in the circuitry of the individual brain. If you were to examine an acorn by itself, it could tell you a great deal about its surroundings – from moisture to microbes to the sunlight conditions of the larger forest. By analogy, an individual brain reflects its culture. ….it does give a richer understanding of the wellspring of our ideas, moral intuitions, biases and beliefs. Sometimes these internal drives are genetically embedded, other times they are culturally instructed – but in all cases their mark ends up written into the fabric of the brain.
From the Guardian:
Does scientific evidence that war is hardwired into human society mean that we are doomed to live in perpetual conflict?
According to an emerging theory reported in New Scientist, “not only is war as ancient as human kind … but it has played an integral role in our evolution”.
Experts from numerous disciplines now seem to agree that warfare is hardwired into our societies and behaviour.
Oh NOOO…from the Daily Mail:
Right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers, says study
Children with low intelligence grow up to be prejudiced. Right-wing views make the less intelligent feel ‘safe’. Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.
Funny how the Guardianistas don’t object to that one …in fact they love it……
From the Guardian:
The right’s stupidity spreads, enabled by a too-polite left
We have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.
There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly “different” others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.
Yes, conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information.
And last but not least:
So on the one hand right wingers are of low intelligence and so pre-disposed to be racist by their underpowered little brains…on the other hand the brain is not hardwired to be racist so it must therefore be a conscious decison to be racist based on some form of presumably intelligent reasoning.
The real reason the Guardianista hated the story of course was that it suggested that even he, in the darkest corners of his mind, was just perhaps a little bit racist however hard he tried to play it down and hide it….except of course in the case of right wingers or Daily Mail readers who are fair game for any abuse.
And a final comment from discerning reader of the Guardian:
27 June 2012 4:44PM
Perhaps it is now time for the Daily Mail to be exposed for the nasty, irresponsible and immoral rag it is! This type of journalism spreads lies, falsehoods and disinformation. This in turn leads to the erosion of a decent and cohesive Society. We must have a free press, but with those same freedoms must come responsibility. If individuals behaved in similar ways they would be subject to the rule of the Law. We can only guess how deep this rot extends and who sanctions it?
Indeed…er except most such stories come from the pages of the Guardian itself.
The left is a tiny minority, there are outnumbered at least 100/1 by everyone else. The Daily Mail is the second biggest selling paper in the country the biggest selling is the sun both right-wing papers. The Guardian is dying a slow death it is losing about £1 million a week. The left is a joke in this country. The leading lefty’s in this country under 40 are Owen Jones, a not very bright loser. Also Laurie Penny a spoilt rich kid moaner. I met plenty of leftys at university/college and they were to a man and woman self-loathing, jealous not very bright losers.
Lefty nonesense on Facebook this Sunday.
Take away their bat (Gordon) and Ball (Balls) and this is what they come up with:
https://www.facebook.com/events/320910301330154/
“The left is a joke in this country.”
Not if you have the misfortune to be working as a teacher, it isn’t. Ask my wife.
A non-BBC Democrat view from America:-
“Mainstream Media Racism”
[Excerpt]:
“More than 90% of blacks are killed by other blacks, but the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson don’t show up to protest those killings. Why not? Because they make their livings propagating the notion that young black men are under siege by a white power structure and not their own malignant subculture. In this, they’re assisted by the MSM who smugly think they know best what Americans should hear about and not hear about. Sharpton has his own show.
“Black-on-white crimes outnumber white-on-black crimes by a wide margin. According to Heather MacDonald writing in National Review Online:
“There were two and a half times as many white and Hispanic victims of black killers in 2009 as there were black victims of white and Hispanic killers, even though the black population is one-sixth that of whites and Hispanics combined.
“If you relied only on the MSM for your understanding of the problem, however, you’d likely conclude that it’s white racists who kill the most blacks.
” Young black men are far more dangerous to other young black men than white racists, but that’s not what the MSM depicts. And why is that? Because it doesn’t fit the collective world-view of the coastal, urban, elite, liberal, cocktail-party set that comprises the MSM.”
Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/mainstream-media-racism#ixzz1z2FlIZvj
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Same here, hence ‘Operation Trident’ by police…who the get blamed for ‘targeting’ black youth…rather than congratulated for saving their lives.
It’s rare to find something so blatantly and transparently dishonest as this in a blog post. But well done Alan, you’ve hit a new low.
Let’s unpack the following statement:
Alan says:
“…..actually the scientists did say that racism is not a conscious act…..
‘Thus far, we have obtained modest evidence about these processes as they operate in our brains, unbeknownst to our conscious selves. A network of interacting brain regions is important in the unintentional, implicit expression of racial attitudes and its control. People tend to show unintentional indications of race bias, even when they are motivated to be non-prejudiced
You can have an implicit bias and choose not to act on it, and the DLPFC may be trying to regulate the emotional responses that conflict with our egalitarian goals and beliefs.’”
The first sentence:
“Thus far, we have obtained modest evidence about these processes as they operate in our brains, unbeknownst to our conscious selves.”
Is a partial quote of what Dr Phelps said as reported by the Daily Mail.
The second sentence:
“A network of interacting brain regions is important in the unintentional, implicit expression of racial attitudes and its control.”
Is taken from the abstract of the research paper.
The following (partial) sentences are taken from an interview with Dr Phelps in “Nature”; although for ‘some reason’ you’ve missed out the stuff in brackets:
“[We think that the ACC and DLPFC are involved in more complex functions.] People tend to show unintentional indications of race bias, even when they are motivated to be non-prejudiced, [so the ACC may be involved in detecting these conflicts.] You can have an implicit bias and choose not to act on it, and the DLPFC may be trying to regulate the emotional responses that conflict with our egalitarian goals and beliefs.”
So, what you’ve actually done is take three different quotes from three different sources (one of which you misquoted); put them in your own particular order; and then presented it as; this is what “the scientists did say“.
When actually they said no such thing.
Dez…presumably short for ‘Dazed & Confused’.
As usual you have a remarkable workrate but as usual you answer the wrong question.
The Guardian claimed that in none of those 3 sources…all from Elizabeth Phelps and all on the relevant subject…did ‘scientists say’ that racism could be a result of inbuilt processes.
Firstly Elizabeth Phelps is a scientist.
Secondly as shown, she did say that racism was an unconscious and automated process…even guardian columnists are prone too it.
So Scientist + Says racism is hardwired add up too…Scientists say.
As proven by the further examples given.
Do read the post, you might learn something that informs your own hardwired prejudices.
But actually the scientists concerned themselves say that isn’t what they said:
“As the authors of the recent Nature Neuroscience article on the neuroscience of race, we would like to express our gratitude for the Guardian’s critique of an article published in the Daily Mail entitled “Racism is ‘hardwired’ into the human brain”. The Guardian’s response, by Richard Seymour (Comment is free, 27 June), is an accurate and responsible representation of the review article. Although the content of the Mail’s article consisted of quotes from the original piece, the paper did not contact the researchers for comment on the scientific conclusions. The sensational title that the Daily Mail selected not only misrepresents the science, but is also damaging for intergroup relations. By using the word “hardwired” the Mail title implies that racism is innate.
As the Guardian article accurately cites, race attitudes are largely culturally determined and shift over time. It is our opinion that the Daily Mail’s title was irresponsible and we applaud the Guardian’s efforts to stand with the scientists and accurately represent research.
Jennifer Kubota, Mahzarin Banaji, Elizabeth Phelps
New York University”
(Published in The Guardian, 2 July)
Take no notice of Dez, Alan. He’s clearly been skipping his medication.
I like the test of two MPs offered up as “scientific”. Look at one variable from a possible million other explanations of brain difference, and based on a sample of two, and draw general conclusions about human behaviour. It must be true, a doctor with too much time on his hands says so.
The rest of the studies all look like ink-blot tests – you project onto the inkblot what you want to see. There is a lot of conflating awareness of racial difference with “racism”, left are smarter than right, blah blah. I was waiting for the imfamous “blacks have lower IQ” study.
Most of it shows the worrying poor state of academic research, and the even worse state of politically motivated journalism.
Addendum: research we really want to see:
Socialists “have smaller willies”, says new study carried out undercover by Westminster interns.
“Children with low intelligence grow up to be prejudiced. Right-wing views make the less intelligent feel ‘safe’. Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.”
But how does this explain that around that around 100yrs ago left-wingers were all for eugenics, segregation of the races to stop the pollution of the gene pool by the inferior races and that homosexuality was a mental illness. See George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, Marie Stopes, Elizabeth Sanger and the founders of the Fabian Society.
Could Liberals brains have evolved that quickly to hold diametrically opposite views in 100 yrs?
This should be classified under the Old Soviet left wing belief, if you don’t believe in our system you must be mad. However all those lefties were followers of Lysenko and believe you could create a nation of lefties through starvation and mass murder.
I don’t suppose they have ever heard of conformation bias and why do people of low intelligence vote Labour?
You wrote: However all those lefties were followers of Lysenko and believe you could create a nation of lefties through starvation and mass murder.
Yes indeed. Never in the course of human history has an ideology killed as many people as the Marxist/communist/ socialist ideology. Some 150 million killed in a most brutal and callous manner. Of course all for the good of the people of USSR, China, Cambodia etc in the 20th century. The amount left damaged for life, amounts to the entire population of the USSR and China.
Now any reasonable person would regard such an ideology as worse then Nazism(National Socialism), and condemn it vehemently at every opportunity.
But not so the BBCers. They still adore Socialism ( another guise of Marxism). This can only mean that their brains are hard-wired to support the most Orwellian totalitarian ideologies (Islam being another), or they are just plain stupid.
The amazing thing is that they are taxpayer funded.
When I meet a person for the first time, I notice a couple items quite unconsciously
1. Sex
2. Race
and then behave accordingly.
That makes me guilty of Sexism and Racism. Mind you, it is quite unconscious.
This must be so for everyone. I believe that Asians and Blacks are even more race and sex conscious then Whites. The proof is there when one visits Asian cities or Africa.
Asked what is the first thing I notice about a woman, I say it depends whether she is walking towards me or away from me. There are lots of things our brains do in the interest of survival, or procreation, it’s what it is there for.
When I meet a person for the first time I also unconciously check they are not carrying a large machette or machine gun and waving it at me. Why do some people find sinister motives in natural behaviour?
“Why do some people find sinister motives in natural behaviour? ”
Because some people’s political ideology requires them to deny that some aspects of human nature are natural at all. They must ascribe deliberately sinister or wicked motives to any natural behaviour that conflicts with that ideology in order to sustain it. For instance, those who see the world through a lens of identity politics must deny that there is, in general, a natural preference for people of all backgrounds to be amongst their own kind. This is self-evident in the clustering of immigrant communites, a phenomenon even encouraged by the very people who will deny that such a group preference exists, with customary use of derogatory labels (racism, xenophobia etc)…selectively applied, of course.
I believe a poster on a previous thread mentioned the ‘Liberal paradox’.
Is this not an example of another kind paradox – that of being supportive of a type of behaviour you oppose or whose existence you deny.
Oh, so that’s how you spell ‘hypocrasy’; ‘paradox’.
I must get a better dictionary.
You’re absolutely 100% correct with the definition, if not the spelling.
Just to illustrate that Blacks are racists to an extent that would be unthinkable for Whites
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/27/CBC-plans-holder-walkout
The Black Caucus is walking out not on some principle but because Attorney General Holder is being questioned on Fast and Furious.
Black Caucus??? That Black reps in the US congress have organised themselves along racial lines?
How absolutely disgusting. I suppose Chinese, Indians, Native Americans etc are excluded from the caucus.
Why are the media mum about such racist groups in Congress of all places?
So we have in the US congress a bunch of racists, who among other legislation, are passing draconian anti-racism legislation.
Why are racists allowed to become law makers?
Much of this so-called ‘scientific’ research is given a thorough debunking at the excellent William M. Briggs’ site. There’s plenty of great reading in the archives…
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/
To start, here’s one that takes apart the “Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes” study linked to in the post…
Low IQ & Liberal Beliefs Linked To Poor Research?
Watch out Sam Harris, Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri of Brock University are giving you competition for the worst use of statistics in an original paper.
Their “Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact” published in Psychological Science1—headlined in the press as Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice—is a textbook example of confused data, unrecognized bias, and ignorance of statistics.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5118
———————————–
Conservatives Produced By “Low Effort” Thinking: Study
Posted on 23 April 2012 by Briggs
If there is one subject which fascinates academics more than any other, it is why are they so smart and the rest of the populace not. Although there is no research to back this up—which there must be, because according to academic custom research is the only path to knowledge (research says this must be so)—academics do not so much question their own superiority (which is a given) but they wonder why others do.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5533
—————————————-
Study Finds 9-Month-Old Babies Are Racist
Just couldn’t help themselves, I suppose. They went from something banal—babies can identify the familiar better the novel—to something asinine. All that was missing was the suggestion to create a government program to eliminate “racism” in babies.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5595
Love Of Theory Is The Root Of All Evil
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5548
Why Republicans Deny Science—And Reality: Request For Help
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5588
A Pill To Eliminate Racism? What’ll Science Think Of Next!
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5356
Holocaust Survivor Compares Climate Skeptics To Hitler Deniers
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5640
Do Conservatives Distrust Science More Than Liberals?
Right away, before reading another word, the suspicion is, if these results are right, it is likely because of the increasing confluence of science with politics and the rise of scientism, especially on the left. If more conservatives are really saying they trust “science” less, it’s likely because of their distrust of the political motivations of the uses science is put. Did Gauchat account for this?
He did not. He opens and closes his paper with quotes from Scientist in Chief, Barack Obama. The opener: “We have watched as scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas.” One cannot but agree, of course, but perhaps not in the way Gauchat hoped.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5456
In Praise Of Narrow Minds
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5739
Sorry for being a link hound 🙂
Do Conservatives Distrust Science More Than Liberals?
Conservatives with science qualifications, distrust the corrupt Scientists promoted by the Liberals, because they tell the Liberal morons with qualifications in the arts and humanities, what they want to hear.
This was in the May edition of the Mensa magazine, it says that only 254 people were selected for the study. I presume they avoided selecting Mensa members who are understood to be twice as likely to be right-wing than the general population. We tend to live in the areas of the country that are hideously white and vote Tory not in the multicultural inner-city shit holes that vote Labour, so that contradicts another of the core findings of this study. I always presumed that the reason that there was reluctance to study the differences in intelligence between left-wing people and right-wing people was because of left-wing politically correct reasons (left-wing people are so obviously inferior in intelligence). But as we see a left-wing perversion in the study of racial differences in intelligence, so sadly it would inevitably lead to a politically correct study of the difference in intelligence between left-wing and right-wing people having an obviously politically correct outcome. A case of left-wing Labour voters magical converted to being classified by the left as right-wing by turning against Labour and voting for the National Socialist BNP, would provide some of the 254 people selected for the study.
If the beeb wants to get into neuroscience, then some researchers think that the cingulus isn’t just associated with left-wing views, but with obsessive-compulsive disorder too.
Like, I know we got the country into debt last time we were in office, but let’s do it again?
The White Guardianista’s are racists, because they only like people that they feel superior too. They think they are altruistic and non-racist for liking ethnics, but are motivated by selfishness, and a felling of inferiority towards other white people.
Spot on. One has to wonder how these self styled intelectuals could have thought it was such a wonderful idea to promote a couple of million muslims being given the right to settle in Britain.
You would think that if they were so clever they might have looked at any muslim country out there and thought, hang on, these are seriously flawed societies, we really don’t want sharia values in Britain.
The left just don’t ‘do’ reality !
Yep – dwellers in fantasyland – they’re not capable of being honest with themselves, let alone other people.
Guardian-readers: “white middle class left wing pricks”
(TM Pat Condell)
Never seen it better described, I endured ten years working with these people in the public sector, more than a few living in Brighton, the capital of whitemiddleclassleftwingprickery. Insufferably smug, vote Green, and always the Witchfinder General sniffing for “racist views”, lockstep political correctness, wet the bed every night weeping for the The Poor.
“Insufferably smug, vote Green, and always the Witchfinder General sniffing for “racist views”, lockstep political correctness, wet the bed every night weeping for the The Poor. ”
Love it! 🙂
Thanks for the reminder of that clip – always worth another watch!…
Get Pat on QT! ..(Yeh, exactly, truly pathetically cowardly Al-Beeb wouldn’t dare!.. Just utterly GUTLESS! QT’s panel for tonight is crap!)
Great report! Alan.
Honestly, much as I usually can’t stand the common sense-devoid crazy twats, i’d hate a world without any ever self righteous crackpot lefties in to laugh my fuckin cobblers off at!