Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds

Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

The results were announced today.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

What's probably been obvious to any independent thinkers out there, who've observed our political process for any length of time, appears to have been proven a fact. It's because I've seen this in action for years, that I've refused to ally myself with any political party or group. This is what's wrong with institutional ideology. Once a group forms their ideas and grows to become influential, most all the members become emotionally disturbed. They just can't seem to adjust to any information that may run counter to their beliefs. Those that do adjust, are usually forced by conscience, to leave and start a new group, then, fall right into the same trap themselves.

In my view, this behavior isn't limited to politicians or anyone else in positions of status or authority, it must also take place in the average person. I don't see how else to explain why a person would vote a straight party ticket, all their life, in face of obvious discrepancies between the partys' platform, and what they actually do. That's never made any sense to me. Whenever someone points out flaws in a persons belief system, any system, they react similar to this studys' results. I believe that everyone who puts all their faith in a system, or a person, is susceptable. How many times in your life have you faced resistence after trying to explain and prove why a persons faith is misplaced? I think it's just human nature to attempt to avoid acknowledging when we're wrong. I, of course, don't have that problem.