Brain Panic and why partisan voters don't think (applies to low carb) page

[kenn]

These are all telltale signs of dogmatism, fanaticism and even cultism. All these factors can be regularly observed in the low-carb community, and my experience illustrates what happens when people deeply committed to a belief system are confronted with conflicting evidence. Instead of being able to examine that evidence with impartiality, or even welcome it as an opportunity to expand their knowledge base (as a person who is truly committed to learning and progressing readily would), they literally experience turmoil in their brains and react in a most irrational and emotional manner.

Low-carbers are hardly alone in experiencing this “brain panic” when contradictory sensory data begins flowing into their one-dimensional noggins

During the 2004 US Presidential election, researchers used functional neuroimaging to study the neural responses of thirty committed partisans presented with negative information about both their preferred and opposition candidates[Westen D, 2006].

The purpose of the study, led by Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, was to observe “how partisan brains reasoned during the polarized 2004 election. The answer: they didn’t. When confronted with compelling negative evidence about their candidate, the brains of Democrats and Republicans registered conflict and distress.

Whereas the circuits normally activated during dispassionate reasoning appeared to be in a persistently vegetative state when faced with a reasoning task with negative implications for the partisan’s candidate, circuits charged with regulating emotion and dealing with conflict lit up our computer screens like the Fourth of July, firing rockets into reason until our partisans had arrived at emotionally comfortable conclusions.”[Westen D, 2007]

The Political Brain by Drew Westen

Reader Mail: Abandoning Low-Carb, Cholesterol Hogwash, Corn Oil and Fat Loss, and more! | AnthonyColpo

[Apex Predator]

This should be interesting...

[Owly]

It's okay, I'm sure kenn will assure us that libertarians never experience any such phenomena since they are such paragons of rational thought and are never, ever fanatical or cultish in their approach to politics.

[Alex Good]

Tl;dr

[Apex Predator]

The problem with libertarians is getting them to get along. It's like herding cats.

[kenn]

It's okay, I'm sure kenn will assure us that libertarians never experience any such phenomena since they are such paragons of rational thought and are never, ever fanatical or cultish in their approach to politics.

red herring

[Mike Gager]

Vote Ron Paul!

[Owly]

red herring

If you're going to accuse me of logical fallacies, at least pick the right one. I'd say that was more of a circumstantial ad hominem than a red herring.

[davem]

my my, trolling post is trolling.

[kenn]

If you're going to accuse me of logical fallacies, at least pick the right one. I'd say that was more of a circumstantial ad hominem than a red herring.

red herring

introducing irrelevant facts or arguments to distract from the question at hand