Biological differences between the liberal brain and the conservative brain

CC-licensed image, courtesy of Mr. Physics, via Flickr

An excellent post today on the Dangerous Minds blog, and an ensuing discussion on Facebook got me to thinking about the differences between the minds of conservative folks and liberal folks.

Namely, why should it be that so many conservatives have such a hard time changing their opinions when presented with bald facts that contradict those opinions?

We normally think of humans as rational agents.  That is, we expect the beliefs we each hold are based on some sort of evidence and argument, and as more data becomes available to a person, they should update their model of how the world works.  But often, in practice, it doesn’t seem to work out that way.

(This is going to turn out to be a long post.)

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The _____ of _____ mentioned in Orlando Weekly!

Wowee!  My old friends published a mention of my book, along with a mini-interview, in this week’s Happytown column! Here’s the relevant portion: Not a day goes by in which someone doesn’t ask, “Hey, Happytown™, whatever happened to that Ask Ian the I.T. Guy? He sure had a nice ponytail.” In an effort to satiate Orlando’s … Read more

My first book is now available – evolution, through a biblical seive

openpagebookshot
Audiobook version coming soon.

I’m happy to announce today that I’ve released my first book. It’s called The _____ of _____ By Means of Natural _____ or the _____ of Favoured _____ In the Struggle For Life: King James Version.

I also set up a separate page for it on this site, so that I’d have a nice little landing page for it.

Basically, I wrote a PHP script that took Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and I had the script redact every word from Darwin which does not appear in the King James bible.

The resulting work is an amusing objet ‘d art. I think it says something about fundamentalism and language.  I also hope it says something about the absurdity of creationism, and the importance of science in how we understand the world.

It’s available now as a 204-page, perfect bound trade paperback.  A bargain, at a mere $13.25.

After the jump, the text of the press release I’ve been spreading around.

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