Around The Web

British children are forced to bow to Allah. The two who didn't get detention.

And you thought Republicans were dumb. They have some wimpy competition.

Intelligent design stuff.

Greta Van Susteren smacks down Anderson Cooper. Anderson has a staff of 60. A couple are dedicated to peeling his grapes and fanning him no doubt.

James Lileks smacks down M. Night Shamalayan:

The trailer doesn’t spell out the message, but Gort – played by Keanu Reeves – says “if the earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth lives.” Well, there’s a message we can all get behind. And if the film flops, you get the Malibu beach house. Seems win-win for everyone except, well, the poison-belching peons who will queue up for another sermon. Gentle cautionary tales are one thing; this groveling self-hatred is another. Same with the M. Night film that has the trees emitting pollen that makes us all kill ourselves – apparently the trees took a big wait-and-see attitude towards deforestation in the late 19th century, and finally decided to kill people when we were just starting to get the point.

The taxing work of being rich and finding enlightenment. Sigh. Aimless and dough-filled make for such trying times. Via Alarming News

Barack Obama's pedigree includes forged papers? Is it possible he doesn't really exist?

Speaking of Obama, if he really is an American citizen, which is in question (see above), he's not patriotic. I question, very openly, his patriotism as does Jonah Goldberg. But the true believers question the questioners. It's amusing.

Tigerhawk on loving America....and those who hate it.

Patterico honors Jesse Helms and thanks the Left for their sympathy.

This is what the world is coming to and Rachel Lukas has a solution. She's going soft.

And on that outrageous note, I'm going for a walk, because my blood pressure is up again from watching the video at Rachel's link.

Nobody's An A@@hole Anymore

Sorry, folks, that's rather raw, but whatever. A friend was telling me about her troubles with her man and suggested that the guy had "manic-depression". I responded, "How about, he's just an a@@hole?" I mean, come on. Why the need to pathologize everything and everyone?

Ace points to this research that men with this "dark triad" get more women:

A "dark triad" of unpleasant personality traits lie behind James Bond's success as a womaniser, say researchers.

Two studies suggest that men who are narcissistic, psychopathic and Machiavellian tend to have large numbers of sexual conquests.

****

Narcissists are self obsessed and manipulative, psychopaths are impulsive, thrill-seeking and callous, and people with a Machiavellian nature are deceitful and exploitative. There is evidence that the traits have an up-side - they lead to men having a prolific sex life and fathering more offspring. As a result, they have not been "weeded out" by natural selection.

Oh, and the research subjects were 200 college-age men not 50 year old 007 types. You know, the dudes who have sex with as many women as possible, will say anything to get laid and just generally seek conquest are at first worshipped, then they are viewed as dicks, and then they end up being viewed as just plain lame. I mean, it's one thing to be that guy in college. It's another thing to be, well, an old dude hanging out at the bar this way.

Narcissistic? Psychopathic? Machiavellian? How about pathetic a@@hole? Forget the elaborate research and diagnoses. Some people are just jerks. The need to pathologize is the need to shoe-horn anti-social, jerk behavior into evolutionary theory. These guys mess up the theory. They're uncooperative. They're self-seeking. So, in theory their behavior would open them up to harm because they are, well, a@@holes who no one likes and no one wants to help.

But the researchers miss the obvious. These thrill-seeking dudes can channel their testosterone into noble roles--killing lions, making heroic treks, winning feats of strength. So these guys spread their seed, but they were often warriors and maybe even general protectors like 007 even if they didn't commit to one unit to protect. So they're jerks, but maybe they have some redeeming characteristics which is why they have yet to be weeded out of the gene pool. Ace says:

Shock: Dicks Get More Tail.

Psychopathy? Really?

It actually sounds like this is just extroverted sociopathy or even just plain old being a bastard. They really seem to be overselling the "dark triad' thing with that "psychopathy." Isn't it enough to be sociopathic without wanting to butcher people and wear their genitals as hats?

Nerdy researchers, I have a newsflash: These guys survive and will continue to thrive. Psychologically "normal" guys often finish last. It sucks, sorry.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

Women Say No To Science and Yes To Gay Porn

Hey, I could be a headline writer for The New York Times. I'm just that good. Well, what do you know? Women are free. Finally, after years of oppression, women are making their choices, even really smart, scientifically gifted women, and choosing what researchers think they shouldn't like: "soft sciences". Oh, and some women are turned on by gay porn and they're (shhhhh) heterosexual and female. Can a woman be any more free?

I don't think so.

Women are free and yet they prefer, for reasons researchers cannot fathom (oxytocin, brain differences, biology?) professions that were once and still are, the domain of....women. Shit. That just sucks. Women should be donning goggles and peering through microscopes with all the fervor of the typical knobby headed man-geek. And some are doing just that--just not enough to make everyone happy. Huh. Imagine, a woman claiming her right to choose and she's not choosing feminist enough, but feminism is all about choice. Oh, the irony:

The results were striking. The lower numbers of women in IT careers weren't explained by work-family pressures, since the study found computer careers made no greater time demands than those in the control group. Ability wasn't the reason, since the women in both groups had substantial math backgrounds. There was, however, a significant difference in one area: what the men and women valued in their work.

Rosenbloom and his colleagues used a standard personality-inventory test to measure people's preferences for different kinds of work. In general, Rosenbloom's study found, men and women who enjoyed the explicit manipulation of tools or machines were more likely to choose IT careers - and it was mostly men who scored high in this area. Meanwhile, people who enjoyed working with others were less likely to choose IT careers. Women, on average, were more likely to score high in this arena.

Personal preference, Rosenbloom and his group concluded, was the single largest determinative factor in whether women went into IT. They calculated that preference accounted for about two-thirds of the gender imbalance in the field. The study was published in November in the Journal of Economic Psychology.

It may seem like a cliche - or rank sexism - to say women like to work with people, and men prefer to work with things. Rosenbloom acknowledges that, but says that whether due to socialization or "more basic differences," the genders on average demonstrate different vocational interests.

"It sounds like stereotypes," he said in an interview, "but these stereotypes have a germ of truth."

I'll just speak for myself here. I'm a sucker for aptitude/personality/psychological testing and have taken many, many of them. One of the best is called Johnson-O'Conner an aptitude assessment. That means, not only do they study personality, they study a persons talents--such as fine motor, gross motor, music memory, spacial reasoning, verbal reasoning, etc. Well, the kind mentor who funded this testing for me was deeply dismayed at my results. He was an engineer and prided himself in his mathematical ability. Lo and behold, I scored higher than him in both higher mathematical ability and spacial reasoning. My aptitudes skewed toward engineering.....until my personality was factored in. That threw a monkey wrench in the works. I was so people-oriented, so verbal (I know, who would have thought it?), so excessively so, that no engineering job wouldn't work for me because the isolation and task-orientation, verses people-nature of the work, would make me crazy. In short, I'd get bored.

Alas, I ended up in alternative medicine, not unlike the women in the study. While I'm pretty good at reading an x-ray thanks to my spacial ability, my satisfaction comes from helping people. I know, I'm a disappointment to women.

Now, let's talk about the poor fellas for a minute. Dr. Helen notes that while women have more choices, the nerdy dudes might have less:

So men who are skilled at math may have less flexibility to branch out and go into other areas that involve dealing with others. If women must be equal in terms of pursuing hard sciences, wouldn't it also be fair that men should have to be equal to women in terms of verbal skills so that they too, could have more job flexibility?

But that's just it. I don't think everyone needs to be stroking out about women in hard sciences. Women choose. Men choose. And while there probably aren't as many, there are some amazingly verbal men who are scientists, I have a reader (you know who you are Kevin), who is a technological genius while possessing the verbal skills of a politician. To say that he enjoys a rewarding career and that the world is his oyster is an understatement. Should there be all sorts of research as to why most poor men are not as verbal and don't enter other professions like teaching, say (and there are amazing exceptions here, too)? Oh, pish-posh. People choose. There are biological reasons for this. We can beat the discrimination drum into eternity but estrogen and testosterone do change brains and therefore, change career choices. That's just life.

Is it possible to acknowledge that men and women are different and it's okay? And that individually, people can choose to be whatever they choose to be. And there will always be exceptions.

Oh, and Rand Sindberg says this in his snarkily titled post, "Math is Hard" (very funny, Rand):

Even if there is tremendous variation among individuals within genders (which there clearly is) it doesn't follow that there won't be average differences in traits between genders. For instance, when it comes to math, what Larry Summers noted (and lost his job over after some of the mature, rational, scientific women present got the vapors and had to hie to their fainting couches) was that in fact men have a much greater standard deviation than women. They have both more geniuses, and more morons, when it comes to higher mathematics, whereas women have more of a tendency to stay near the mean. And there are brilliant (individual) woman mathematicians and hard scientists. But that doesn't mean that we can therefore conclude that there are no statistical differences in these traits between men and women. And the fact that there are allows us to draw no conclusions about any particular man or woman (if I call Ms. Barnett illogical, it is because she conveys illogic, and has nothing to do with her genital configuration.) It remains perfectly reasonable, on a statistical basis, to make some broad statements about the genders ("men are like this and women are like that") without having to infer that every man is like this and every woman is like that.

Indeed. The man is correct. Using myself as an example yet again. Among women, I am in the higher 90th percentile for engineering. Super. But when men are added to the mix, my abilities suddenly get more average--somewhere in the 60%. So, that means that I'm better than the average guy engineering-talent wise, but not much. So there are gender factors here, too. Now, maybe I work my ass off and outperform my co-workers due to sheer sweat. That happens, too, but an equally hard-working, more gifted person, male or female, will have an easier time of it--at least as an engineer.

Oh, this is such painful stuff, unless, like Rand says, you look at each person as an individual. And that's the key. There will be gender trends, but in real life, it matters not. Forget skin color and gonads, what are you good at and more important, what do you want to do? Thankfully, we all have choices. Yes, women have choices now and they're choosing. The feminists just need to suck it up and accept that this is what success looks like.

Men (NOT) At Work

Some people think men are opting out of society because society isn't kind to men. Maybe. I had been thinking it was the economy and worried that women in the work world just deflated a man's need to provide or something. Stupid idea, but I just threw it out there musing aloud. Turns out, there's an economic answer that makes a lot of sense. The economic slump (I don't think anyone is calling it quite a recession anymore, because how can a quarter of growth, no matter how slight be considered going backwards?) has not affected women in the same way it's affected men because they men are concentrated in certain job sectors. Aha! Now, that makes sense to me. But there's more, it gets worse, so sayeth Peter Coy of Business Week:

What’s going on? Simply put, men have the misfortune of being concentrated in the two sectors that are doing the worst: manufacturing and construction. Women are concentrated in sectors that are still growing, such as education and health care.

This situation is hardly good news for women, though. While they’re getting more jobs, their pay is stagnant. Also, most share households—and bills—with the men who are losing jobs. And the “female” economy can’t stay strong for long if the “male” economy weakens too much. (h/t khankrum)

Long term, it seems to me that even education and health care will slow. People need money to pay for college and health care. Around here, the census at the local hospitals is low. Yes, we're out of flu season, but people will put off elective or even needed procedures if they think they can get away with it. I've always been amazed how people will care for their cars, but not their bodies. Without health you can't work to even fix the car. But still, people can survive and be pretty sick for a long time and lots of people do. We'll know the economy is really bad when people start yanking out their teeth with pliers and college enrollments drop.

Speaking of college, is a four year degree worth anything? In some areas, I really don't know. There are a few years between now and my kids deciding their futures, which is a relief. To me, anything soft--history, literature, poly sci, etc.--is worthless. Not because those areas of study are worthless, to the contrary, our students don't get enough. However, most curricula you read these days doesn't inspire confidence and colleges filled to the brim with revisionists inspire less confidence. A four year degree seems like four years of brain washing and what's the result? A worthless degree that gets a grad no solid job. However, a degree in engineering, science, mathematics, etc. will definitely land a grad a job.

In addition, even if a person wants to be a writer or a more artsy fartsy generally, it's almost imperative to have a knowledge of technology. The world gets more complex and a foundational science knowledge helps with everything. So a four-year degree in something "hard" seems valuable. The rest of it, people can learn if they have a love of reading. Most of my history and literature understanding has come in my adult years just reading and being interested in things that didn't used to interest me.

Bird Behavior

How well do bird studies apply to humans? It's interesting. Whenever biologists note a certain species' tendency, that evolutionary trait is immediately transferred to humans when there may or may not be applicability or the animal studies themselves may be incomplete:

It is an arms race—and a matter of adapting and counter-adapting, explains Dr Welbergen. The better the cuckoo disguises its eggs and itself, the more host birds improve their ability to spot the impostor. Although such an evolutionary dynamic may seem like something that exists only in the wild, it is possible for it to happen in human society as well—between cuckolds and their cheating partners, constantly driving men to be better at detecting adultery and women to be better at getting away with it.

As one commenter says,

"The most rudimentary behaviours come about by growth of neural networks in our most basic brain structure. In times of stress, overload, or intensely quick decision making we revert back to them because that is the lowest energy discharge for the result of making a decision. I don't think its turpitude, really.

To your point however, Man never evolved from these game species, so the link is definitely inaccurate. "

And yet, from a global perspective, don't you see animals exhibit traits that can be applied to humans? I don't think you have to be an evolutionary biologist to see shared traits.

Stop It Already With The Antibacterial Soap

Tigerhawk has a smart sister and she says:

The active antibacterial agent in question is triclosan. The only real question that can result from numerous scientific studies about triclosan is whether or not its potential negatives are strong enough to stop using it. (Indeed, the only piece (opinion) questioning the validity of the research showing both potential resistance problems and toxic byproducts of triclosan (Swofford, 2005) was written by a member of the soap industry.) However, given unambiguous results showing that soap containing triclosan is indistinguishable in its effectiveness against bacteria as regular soap (and, frankly, given that most illnesses most household users of antibacterial soaps are concerned about are actually caused by viruses, which do not respond to antibacterials) any potentially negative side-effects of its use should be unacceptable.

Here is the problem. Humans are dumping all kinds of chemicals into our (and other organisms') water supply, that are not removed during sewage treatment (even when the water properly goes through sewage treatment). Among these is triclosan (Gomez et al., 2007), which has been found in large proportions of human urinary samples (Calafat et al., 2008). Not only do we know nothing about how ingesting all these various chemicals may be affecting us over the long term, we cannot begin to know the complex ways in which they are interacting with each other to create new, and potentially more toxic compounds. Both laboratory (DeLorenzo et al., 2008) and field research (Kinney et al., 2008) suggests that triclosan bioaccumulates, which means its concentration could increase up the food chain (the same phenomenon responsible for the crash of bald eagle populations a few decades ago, due to DDT). Other laboratory studies suggest that it reacts with light and chlorine (ubiquitous in our drinking water) to form types of dioxin, a toxic compound (Sanchez-Prado et al., 2006). These studies are just scratching the surface of potential interactions between triclosan and other ubiquitous pharmaceuticals such as painkillers and sex hormones from birth control. Laboratory studies have also demonstrated that bacteria such as E coli and Salmonella can become resistant to triclosan (Yazdankhah et al., 2006).

Use soap and water people. Wash your towels regularly. Wash your hands before prepping food. Wash your hands after bodily functions--including blowing your nose. People forget that one.

Quarantine sick people. Don't go to work when sick. Don't go to school. Don't beg for antibiotics. Don't use medications that are unnecessary. Rest. Hydrate. Stay warm. Let the fever do it's job.

Antibacterial soaps are stupid. Stop using them. Now.

"Science is a wonderful servant and a terrible master."

Dan Collins said it well. Technology and science gallops without bit, without restraint. Restraint used to come in the form of Christian ethics, but as society becomes increasingly secular, restraint is being cast off. So what force will guide the horse?

I have written before how science is so politicized, and I'm not talking about by crazed right-wingers intent on stopping the march of progress. No, the politicization of science is at the hands of leftists intent on forcing outcomes that are politically correct. Here is the essence:

Levin summarizes the liberal promise this way: “The past was rooted in error and prejudice while the future would have at its disposal a new oracle of genuine truth.”

Science as "genuine truth". Color me terrified.

Let me tell you some things that were accepted as "genuine truth" in the field of medical science and have since been debunked:

Frontal Lobotomies: A personal story here. And look at what intellectuals bought into it.
Sensory Deprivation for Autism: A personal view here.
Hormone Replacement Therapy for menopausal women. Oops! Causes cancer.
Arthroscopic Knee Surgery: Uh oh, it's just a placebo.

The list is long. I'm sure you could come up with more. I could, I just decided to stop. My point is that science is evolving. What is scientific "truth" today is tomorrow's discarded notion.

Christianity, on the other hand, has fixed principles that form the foundation of ethical behavior. I am taking, as a premise, that what we view as modern day ethics are Christian ethics. That's an easy one to prove--substitute Muslim ethics or Hindu ethics. They'd be a wee bit different, no? But I'm not going to get into that right now.

What the liberals hope for is ideological purity and science can form the foundation for that purity. That's why the Global Warming zealots are so zealous. They bring the same fervor to idealizing modern science that the zealous bring to worshiping The Ideal. It's a tad disturbing. Science will change tomorrow. A new notion of truth will come along because new science will reveal a more complete picture. But the liberal zealots assume that the picture they currently see is the only one that will ever exist and make decisions based on today's knowledge. It's the height of vanity.

Unrestrained by overarching principles, science can go anywhere and will. Some will embrace this, but science unrestrained by ethics takes mankind to dark places as Michael Gerson notes:

These arguments are seriously made, but they are not to be taken seriously. Does anyone really believe in a science without moral and legal limits? In harvesting organs from prisoners? In systematically getting rid of the disabled?

This last question, alas, does not answer itself. In America, the lives of about nine of 10 children with Down syndrome are ended before birth. In Europe, about 40 percent of unborn children with major congenital disorders are aborted.

All of which highlights a real conflict, a war within liberalism between the idea of unrestricted science in the cause of health and the principle that all men are created equal -- between humanitarianism and egalitarianism.

Already, decisions are made in the name of science, but are they ethical? And what are the implications for the future of those who don't measure up or those who refuse the scientific ideal?

There are questions science can't answer. The modern American's unwillingness to make these decisions is a decision. That leaves the decisions left in the hands of the scientists. There's a reason for the mad scientist cliché. We should all be paying more attention.

Happiness Is....

Two kinds of ice cream, ala Charlie Brown? See if you can follow these findings:

Larsen and McKibban then calculated the extent to which people want what they have and have what they want. Their findings show that wanting what you have is not the same as having what you want. While people who have what they want tend to desire those items, the correlation between the two was far from perfect.

The researchers found that people who want more of what they have tend to be happier than those who want less of what they have. However, people who have more of what they want tend to be happier than those who have less of what they want.

So, happiness is two things: wanting what you have and having what you want.

Being happy means knowing yourself well enough to know what you want. Hold on. That's not as easy as it sounds. Too many people have no idea what they want and are dissatisfied all the time. It is far easier to articulate what you don't want than it is to articulate what you do want.

And then, when a person gets what he wants, what he really, really wants, the key to happiness is being appreciative of what he has so that the happiness doesn't wane. Or, he can just sell what he doesn't want anymore and buy what he does want.

Happiness is about being authentic and about being grateful. Which brings to mind one of my favorite books which I haven't shared for a while, but is worth bringing to your attention again.



H/T Hotair

Spinning Dancer

Sort of related to right and left brain, but more fun. You know that image of the spinning dancer? Well, here's an explanation about it. Pretty cool.

Mom's Diet Can Determine Sex of the Baby?

Well, I've heard about other techniques and used them myself. Curious? Well, for a boy, have sex right at ovulation and make sure the woman has an orgasm to help the weak male spermies get to the egg. For a girl, make the baby a few days before ovulation, no orgasm (sorry ladies). I don't know if this was how I got my boys and girl or not, but there was some intent there with the first kids. The latest kid, we just wanted one. And we got one.

So, to up your odds of the boy or girl or whatever you'd like, change your diet too. Make sure to eat your breakfast if you want a boy. Oh, and eat bananas.

Your Boring Job Is Shrinking Your Brain

Now there is proof of what you feared all along: that your boring job is killing you--or maybe other people--one brain function at a time:

Monotonous duties switch our brain to "rest mode", whether we like it or not, the researchers report in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

They found mistakes can be predicted up to 30 seconds before we make them, by patterns in our brain activity.

Scientists are working on a device that would amplify the brain sound of a mistake about to be made, but I think an old fashioned system works best. Rewards for few mistakes, punishments for when they happen.

President Bush: "Cowboy In Space"

It sounds kinda cool even if it's biased pap.

Apocalypse Now? It's The Gays Fault

Around the web, commenters shared fears about the apocalypse starting with the Red Moon. And now, an MP in Israel believes that earthquakes around the country are being caused by immoral activity:

Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the tremors had been caused by lawmaking that gave "legitimacy to sodomy".

Israel decriminalised homosexuality in 1988 and has since passed several laws recognising gay rights.

Two earthquakes shook the region last week and a further four struck in November and December.

It does seem that the Judeo-Christian world is diverging further. There are the ultra-conservatives who see signs everywhere and the increasingly secularized, marginally churched who hold their noses at such archaic notions. I guess we'll find out who is right soon enough.

Sperm Damage Passed To Children

This research interests me because it might explain autism's grip on whole families through the generations. It seems that a man's sperm health affects generations:

A team from the University of Idaho in Moscow tested the effects of a hormone-disrupting fungicide chemical called vinclozolin on embryonic rats.

The chemical altered genes in the sperm, including a number associated with human prostate cancer.

Rats exposed to it show signs of damage and overgrowth of the prostate, infertility and kidney problems.

The defects were also present in animals four generations on.

So, men in toxic environments should be aware of the dangers and also realize their jobs and or behavior may affect their children.

Stupid And Proud of It

Americans are stupid and what's more, they enjoy their stupid, so say some researchers:

But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.

She pointed to a 2006 National Geographic poll that found nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map.

And these people vote. With their emotions.

You can blame the very institutions that supposedly champion education. From elementary school until college, the emphasis is self-centric. Children don't know world geography, it isn't even taught. Maybe a kid will get world history his senior year of high school. What is happening in those intervening years?

Well, the kid learns that subsets of Americans are victims. He learns about oppressed people. He learns to "just say no" to drugs. He learns to walk quietly in line. He learns no context. No world-view. What happened with one person or people defines the world view of the child, if he even remembers it.

It seems to me that the solution is to teach children logically. Start from the beginning. That's one thing I very much enjoy about home schooling--the logical progression. So, this year, the kids are learning world geography and we're doing world history, a survey, from the beginning of recorded time. When we go back and study different periods more in depth, they now have the context to place the event--including the last 200 plus years of American history. They will have seen slavery before. They will have seen war. They will have seen persecution. They will see the roots of today's religious conflict. They will know that the badness they see today is part of the human condition.

It is distressing to see the man-on-the-street interviews where people don't know the name of the Vice President. America thrives on ideas and innovation. It's not encouraging to see the direction that post-modernism has taken the educational system.

Pet Dog Cloning

Do you love your dog so much that you never want to live without him/her? Well, now you can order a clone from this Korean company:

A woman from the United States wants her dead pitbull terrier - called Booger - re-created.

RNL Bio is charging the woman, from California, $150,000 (£76,000) to clone the pitbull using tissue extracted from its ear before it died.

It doesn't sound so bad when talking about a dog. How would you feel about cloning a child who died?

The Right Amount of Inbreeding

New research from Iceland's deCode project reported in the Economist shows that the most children born come from people who are third and fourth cousins. Not too closely related, not too unrelated. So somewhere between birth defects and frigid feminism there's a balance:

The strong relationship between kinship and fertility was so unexpected that the researchers have not yet calculated exactly how much it contributes to the demographic transition. But even from the figures they present, it is clearly an important factor, and one that is likely to apply in other parts of the world where the records needed to prove it are not so good. Even in poor countries, birth rates are now falling fast. An important part of the explanation may simply be the additional choice of mates that development and urbanisation bring with them.

Hmmm..... Kissing cousins is okay, I guess. Just don't kiss too close.

Creating Life

I'm not sure if we should be terrified or excited about this development. The implications of creating life.....

Fixing Transplant Rejection

This is promising.

On The "Moral Instinct"

Scientists work feverishly to unravel the mysteries of the mind and they are many. In The Time's Magazine this week, Stephen Pinker writes about what motivates man's moral decisions. He calls it the "moral instinct". Instinct implies that men are born encoded with morality--it's instinctual. Perhaps. My thought is that man is born with the bias toward morality.

So there are five factors that appear to be encoded to people's moral sense no matter where they live in the world:

When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere, at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness: that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.

The exact number of themes depends on whether you’re a lumper or a splitter, but Haidt counts five — harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity — and suggests that they are the primary colors of our moral sense. Not only do they keep reappearing in cross-cultural surveys, but each one tugs on the moral intuitions of people in our own culture.

So every culture exhibits these traits to one extent or another. However, buried in the midst of the article is this fascinating tid-bit:

The ranking and placement of moral spheres also divides the cultures of liberals and conservatives in the United States. Many bones of contention, like homosexuality, atheism and one-parent families from the right, or racial imbalances, sweatshops and executive pay from the left, reflect different weightings of the spheres. In a large Web survey, Haidt found that liberals put a lopsided moral weight on harm and fairness while playing down group loyalty, authority and purity. Conservatives instead place a moderately high weight on all five. It’s not surprising that each side thinks it is driven by lofty ethical values and that the other side is base and unprincipled.

So, Republicans do value a broad-based morality after all. Well, according to the writer, not so fast. Morality, even Hitler's, is relative and can be understood:

At the very least, the science tells us that even when our adversaries’ agenda is most baffling, they may not be amoral psychopaths but in the throes of a moral mind-set that appears to them to be every bit as mandatory and universal as ours does to us. Of course, some adversaries really are psychopaths, and others are so poisoned by a punitive moralization that they are beyond the pale of reason. (The actor Will Smith had many historians on his side when he recently speculated to the press that Hitler thought he was acting morally.) But in any conflict in which a meeting of the minds is not completely hopeless, a recognition that the other guy is acting from moral rather than venal reasons can be a first patch of common ground. One side can acknowledge the other’s concern for community or stability or fairness or dignity, even while arguing that some other value should trump it in that instance. With affirmative action, for example, the opponents can be seen as arguing from a sense of fairness, not racism, and the defenders can be seen as acting from a concern with community, not bureaucratic power. Liberals can ratify conservatives’ concern with families while noting that gay marriage is perfectly consistent with that concern.

So there is no objective right or wrong, morality is subjective. What Pinker fails to acknowledge is how to come to a moral decision when both parties feel morally correct. Clearly, there are psychopaths, clearly. But maybe the psychopath believes he's being moral--how many serial killers exact their form of "justice" on prostitutes? And who are you to say he's wrong?

Who is any man to decide, indeed? The whole article is worth reading, but like most things scientific, don't expect any answers to the big questions. Expect more questions.