Could Political Bent be Genetic?

CBN News

November 3, 2006

CBNNews.com - Politics may not be in your blood, but it may be in your genes.

A team of scientists is trying to prove that social attitudes -- including political attitudes -- can be inherited.

And the research they base that on, consisting of extensive studies of twins and genes, may back that up.

A study found that identical twins frequently answered political questions more similarly than fraternal twins.

Identical twins share the same genetic code, but fraternal twins do not.

Other scientists are skeptical. They say any similarity in political beliefs comes from the environment, not genetics.

"The very idea that something like a political ideology could be heritable is incoherent," said Evan Charney, assistant professor of public policy and political science at Duke University. "It doesn't make any sense, and it's historically inaccurate."

But John R. Hibbing, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who is involved in the research, said, "I perfectly understand that some people are skeptical."

Hibbing agrees that his research isn't definitive. But, he said, social scientists typically dismiss genetic influence, and that's a mistake.

The next step, Hibbing said, will include scans to observe the brain in action as subjects answer questions on political topics.

That work is in progress at Baylor Medical Center in Houston, in collaboration with Rice University and John Alford, an associate professor of political science at Rice, who is working with Hibbing.

The goal is to persuade people to accept that political views aren't just random opinions thrown together by a combination of environmental influences.

Sources: CBN News, Associated Press

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