Who's Got the Brains?

Wired News: Dems, GOP: Who's Got the Brains? Interesting article about the results of MRI investigations relating to political figures. i wonder what you think about this?
" some differences appeared between the brain activity of Democrats and Republicans. Take empathy: One Democrat's brain lit up at an image of Kerry "with a profound sense of connection, like a beautiful sunset," Freedman said. Brain activity in a Republican shown an image of Bush was "more interpersonal, such as if you smiled at someone and they smiled back."
And when voters were shown a Bush ad that included images of the Sept. 11 attacks, the amygdala region of the brain — which lights up for most of us when we see snakes — illuminated more for Democrats than Republicans. The researchers' conclusion: At a subconscious level, Republicans were apparently not as bothered by what Democrats found alarming.
"People make tons of decisions and often they don't know why," Iacoboni said. "A lot of decision-making is unconscious, and brain imaging will be used in the near future to perceive and decide about politicians." "

The possiblity tha political views have some genesis in the way someone reacts to certain kinds of events is interesting. We are likely to see the grooming of candidates [and eventually the selection of candidates, I suspect] using data from such research.

Spiritual implications? Not sure yet. Brains are plastic and so the sheer fact of what is observed is not necessarily a life sentence; I suspect that 'repentance' is possible and that over time the 'reprogramming' of perceptions, reactions and follow-through is possible [and that is the territory of discipleship]. It is even possible that this will give us new tools in helping us to decide how to help people grow in Christlikeness. THe downside is that the same tools could be used to help people grow in 'unrighteous' ways too: the deadly sins could be reinforced. At one level this is nothing new: we are long used to Pauline approaches to change involving changing patterns of thinking etc. but now we can, to some extent, see what that might be about a little more.

Of course, someone has already done the obvious initial research into people's brains in meditation and prayer and although it can be a bit scary to contemplate at first, this research raises no substantially new issues; just that some Christians tend to get a bit nervous, probably mainly because science is too often seen and even used in faith unfriendly ways.