Orient Ation

Back when the Orient was still seen as exotic, rather than as the Muslim epicentre of terrorism?

"Hey, Evolution — are you asleep?"
"When you wake up, would you kindly get your bearings. OK?»

Different topic: Studies.

When scientists toss and turn in their sleep, or seem mentally somewhere else during the day, a study is probably brewing. 
Because the source of their restlessness is questions — about everything and anything. 
Scientists are like three-year-olds who simply must keep asking about perfectly obvious things like why the sky is blue, where babies come from, and what democracy actually is.

I like studies. 
More often than not, the people doing them — the researchers, the investigators, the interviewers, the analysts — are professionals who have made examining the world their life's work. And through these studies, they want to answer questions. Questions that nobody else would have thought to ask.

Studies are not simply questions tossed out casually, leading to an equally casual conclusion. Oh no. 
Studies are subject — not to the questions themselves — but to strict regulatory requirements that must be met before a research project is even approved.

And one such question caught my attention. It goes like this: "Are regions of the brain different depending on political orientation?"
Or, more precisely: How do politically oriented people tick?
And there it is again — the Orient.

In the vast landscape of human brain structure, there are regions with highly specific functions. 
Research suggests that structural and functional differences in the brain correlate with political attitudes. 

Interesting.
And what are these regions called — and can one settle down there?

Let's start with the more liberal cortex: the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, or ACC. The findings are striking:
"A widely cited study, published in the journal Current Biology and the renowned journal Nature Neuroscience, found that liberals tend to have a greater volume of grey matter in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). This brain region plays an important role in conflict monitoring (for example, when contradictory information arises), cognitive flexibility, error detection, and behavioural adjustment. This aligns with psychological observations that liberal individuals tend to be more open to new experiences and better at navigating uncertainty.»

And what does the regional landscape look like for conservatives?
"The same study shows that conservatives tend to have a larger amygdala, particularly in the right hemisphere of the brain. The amygdala plays a central role in processing emotions, perceiving threats, and generating feelings of fear or disgust. This could help explain why conservative individuals often respond more sensitively to potential dangers or social change — a pattern that has also been observed in psychological experiments.»

Well, how about that. There is indeed robust evidence that conservative and liberal people show structural and functional differences in certain brain regions — particularly in the ACC (enlarged in liberals) and the amygdala (enlarged in conservatives).

The research tells us: our political convictions don't just live in our heads — they are literally anchored in our brains. 

But precisely how these differences come about will undoubtedly move more scientists to ask the kinds of questions that set new studies in motion.

What I now find myself wondering: What were the political leanings of the scientists who conducted these studies? How surprised were they, when analyzing the data, to discover why someone tends to lean liberal or conservative?

Now that would be a study worth doing — getting to speak with the very people who set this whole thing in motion.

My conclusion? 
I still hold to the fundamental idea that the political views of someone I'm fond of have no bearing on my affection for them. 
Because I love discussions and debates. Besides, I'm no judge — so I'm in no position to operate any kind of scale.

Or as the expression goes in English: "I'm not judgemental, just mental."