Bush supporters' aftermath thread

george,

This is good research, well designed, backed by a major university. Drew Westen is a well respected colleague of mine in the American Psychoanalytic Association......come on now, take a minute to use your pre-frontal lobe and give respect where it's due. You may quickly rush home afterwards to your comfy hypothalamus and snuggle back in......there to sling mud at any scientist that walks by with research that upsets your prejudices. You've offered us another prime example of the findings of the research. You dissapoint me.

Look at the research design first and then tell me which particular parts of the design or sample you object to. I'm sure if you look you'll find the criteria used to define "committed," the sample size and the confidence limits. Do that and then we'll talk about your inclination to devalue research carried out at a major university (Emory), well known for high standards in science. You'll notice that the research does not make Republicans out to be any worse than Democrats. Such is politics.....emotion. It doesn't apply only to National governmental politics......it's true everywhere where political argument is practiced.

"The study has potentially wide implications, from politics to business, and demonstrates that emotional bias can play a strong role in decision-making, Westen says. "Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts,' " Westen says."

Excellent article, Lola! Good seeing your postings again!

We are all prone to dealing with issues in an emotional then confrontational way, imo.

Animal advocay a good example.

Hi Stradee.......nice to see you.

Hola Lola,
Interesting study, though it seems like it would fit better in a science thread. It doesn't really suggest anything we aren't already well aware of (the extreme cases on either side are simple enough to spot). I'm curious as to how accurate these responses could now or eventually be mapped. I'd be very curious to see a broad experiment where the data was compared in each case to the results of more traditional tests of the Q&A variety. Will a computer one day be able to predict the result of one Vs the other fairly accurately for instance? I would think the Q&A tests could be used to further validate the findings of the fMRI in the short run (not to mention vice versa) and could eventually be used as a new kind of competency test… or even something as mundane as a lie detector that actually works. Interesting possibilities, to say the least.

My own gut reaction wasn't that it's bad research -- it was that it's old news. Cognitive dissonance and what people do about it has been known since the 1950s. Political partisanship, confronted with inconvenient facts, seems like an obvious special case of cognitive dissonance. That would make the outcome of this study predictable. Hence, while I have confidence in the reported findings, I'm wondering: what is the study teaching psychiologists that they didn't know 40 years ago?

"State of disunion"

PORT HUENEME, CALIF. -- This sprawling U.S. Navy Construction Center, 60 miles north of Los Angeles, is "home port" for thousands of "Sea-Bees" who are deployed in the global war on terror. These "warriors who build" with a legendary "can-do" spirit are busy repairing schools and hospitals in Iraq, constructing roads and runways in Afghanistan and helping to forge a safer future in places most Americans can't even pronounce.

Though most of the men and women in the Naval Mobile Construction Battalions are reservists with good private sector jobs, all I have spoken with -- here in the U.S. or overseas -- support the mission we have undertaken in Iraq. Many express the hope that their commander in chief "bats one out of the park" next Tuesday when he addresses the Congress and the nation on the State of the Union. Those sentiments are fairly standard among the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines that I cover for FOX News. Anyone who has doubts need only watch the troops interviewed for our War Stories Special Report, "Inside Iraq: Eyewitness to History." [FOX News Channel, Sunday at 8:00 p.m. EST/PST.]

Unfortunately, the courage and steadfast resolve of those who are serving is unmatched by those they serve. Whether it's polls, pundits or politicians, it's pretty clear that President Bush has his work cut out for him in convincing the American people that we are in a fight that we dare not lose -- and that we really are winning.

The anti-Bush partisan politicians who began howling even before his first inaugural in 2001 have now become a full-blown anti-military movement -- complete with a senior member of Congress advocating that young Americans spurn service in the Armed Forces and urging those in uniform to disobey orders. The potentates of the press have upped the ante as well. For more than two years, the left has made the claim, "We support the troops -- but not their fight." Now there is growing evidence that they support neither.

In Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, liberal columnist Joel Stein confessed, "I don't support the troops … I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest (sic) positions the pacifists have ever taken." He continued, "I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea."

These growing sentiments -- shared by many who perceive that President Bush is already a wounded lame duck -- bode ill for the future, unless he can deliver a clear vision for the days ahead when he stands before the people on Tuesday evening. This will be no mean task.

The president's domestic opponents have been emboldened by the administration's paltry response to charges that the National Security Agency has been secretly "spying on American citizens." Some in Old Europe and others in Washington are taking seriously Osama bin Laden's recent audio tape in which the terror mastermind claims, "We don't mind offering you a long-term truce on fair conditions that we adhere to." Ariel Sharon's incapacitating stroke and the apparent success of Hamas -- an admitted terrorist organization -- in this week's Palestinian elections have thrown the Mid East peace process into turmoil. And now, the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapons program coupled with fear mongering over energy supplies is generating momentum among the same capitulationists who used to warn that we could never prevail against the Soviet Union.

It won't be enough for the president on Tuesday night to remind the American people that the economy is continuing to grow (4.1 percent last quarter) or that unemployment is now down to 4.9 percent. The masters of the media have already identified the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America members they will put on the air to blame the Bush administration for 30,000 Ford Motor Company layoffs. Nor will it suffice to point out that troop levels in Iraq are already dropping -- as are U.S. casualty rates -- down 26 percent from a year ago.

On Tuesday evening, Bush must address all of these issues -- but most importantly, he must reassure the undecided and uncertain that he has a clear plan for victory in the global war on terror. He would do well to remind the American people that it is thanks to heroes wearing uniforms and intelligence operations, like those undertaken by the NSA, that we have had no terror attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11. He must reject bin Laden's "truce" bid for what it is -- a page torn from Ho Chi Minh's playbook on how to stave off an American military victory. And while the French, Germans and Russians dither over what to do about Tehran's nuclear weapons ambitions, Bush should point them in the right direction by rejecting an Iranian appeal for direct commercial flights to and from the United States. Finally, he should appeal directly to the American people to demonstrate the same kind of resolve that our Armed Forces have displayed in defending this union.

While she was working on her own PhD, my daughter was a much coveted research assistant and analyst and was/is a whiz at statistics. She didn't rat out any of the very esteemed academics that she worked for, but she did say that she witnessed really bogus research done by people trying to finish a dissertation any way they could or professors and scientists trying to get their names into academic journals. When there are only so many topics feasible to the less motivated, it is just too easy to fudge the numbers and/or extrapolate the interpretation of results into something that is not supportable under close scrutiny.

Very few of these people are flat out dishonest, but some will omit any information that would dispute or dilute their 'findings' so as to strengthen the proof of their thesis. And some honestly could not accept data that disputed what they believed. These were people operating out of Stanford, Ivy League schools, and esteemed state universities.

In other words, it was her opinion that such intellectual myopia is not just in the realm of political ideology, but is also evident in academia, science, and religion and is found among well reputed scientists, professors, and doctors of divinity as well as the rank and file out there.

After going through some of the science debates, seeing what academia is pushing these days, and reading what the religious big wigs are writing, I think I have no quarrel with her take on it. As Thomas said, it probably isn't bad research. But it doesn't provide information everybody doesn't already know.

Oh, and my daughter is the flaming liberal of the family. And she is smart.

And McG, I hope you're braced for the anti-Bush, anti-North, anti-Townhall contempt from the trolls who wander around in this thread. They won't read and really consider what he's saying of course. Ollie has been over there for most of the past five years though and he's speaking from mostly first hand experience.

Thomas and Foxfyre might be right.

I'm rather sure, however, that functional neuroimaging (fMRI) wasn't used that much before ... even unknown until a couple of years ago.
(It is used now in statistics - besides other reasons - e.g. to avoid false-positive results.)

But wouldn't you have to apply this kind of technology to test categories like food preferences or color preferences or opinions about automobiles or Danish Modern furniture, or pro and con information re science, religion, health, etc.before you would really know whether the results meant anything significant?

You mean all those until now made maps with this technique of brain perfusion are not significant? (E.g. about rapid-cycling bipolar affective disorder, Alzheimer, in other neurology topics etc etc etc)

Although I know there's a lot of criticism to this method (see Wikipedia article .

I honestly don't know enough about it to have an informed opinion. I do think however to conduct a study re reactions to political data and not compare it to reactions to other kinds of data would suggest that conclusions re the political reactions could be premature. I wonder if the results would not be the same no matter what criteria was used for the test since we all pretty much have a preference about just about everything.

The Wikipedia article is interesting though.

Obviously you know enough to critisise the study.

I just know a bit from books/sciuentific magazines and what a friend told me about his studies at univerity (which doesn't mean at all that understood everything).

I didn't criticize the study. I just questioned whether the conclusions are significant without the other elements that seem logical to me.

Yes. That what I understand with "critize" here.

For those who can't wait until Tuesday:

State Of The Union Address Preview :wink:

Yes Thomas......however psychology and psychoanalysis have been soft sciences up to this point. We are now entering the hard science realm. fMRI is regularly being used to demonstrate the accuracy or inaccuracy of psychoanalytic theory.......for instance theories about forgetting, memory in general, free association, signal anxiety, etc. Freud's theory about forgetting has been proved wrong through the use of the fMRI, but Freud was clear about the speculative nature of his theories....until we had the technoloy to look at the physical processes in the brain....he knew it wouldn't come in his lifetime but he thought it would eventually be possible......and low and behold here we are. It's all very interesting.

True enough, OBill, maybe it could go on a science thread.......but I haven't the time. However I thought it would be interesting on this thread for some reason.

Yes, foxy........however this is not one of those topics that will never be replicated. Its of interest to many scientists and will be replicated many times in order to test it's validity. Further, Drew Westen has been prolific in his research. Most, if not all of his findings have been replicated many times. He hasn't been caught fudging yet. I know him and I would be very surprised if he fudged in order to prove a point. He actually has disproved some of Freud's theories, while proving others. He has a truly inquiring mind.

Just for the record, I did find the piece interesting. On the other hand, I am not a Bush supporter, so don't have standing to decide what's on- and off-topic for this thread.