roots of politics

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061103/ap_on_sc/politics_genetics

From this article:
"Genetic researchers are trying to prove that social attitudes can be
inherited, and have discovered strong correlations between the two.

So far, the political connection has relied on studies by Lindon Eaves,
professor of human genetics and psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth
University. About 8,000 sets of identical and fraternal twins answered a
series of questions on topics such as school prayer, nuclear power, women's
liberation and the death penalty.

Identical twins, who share their entire genetic code, answered more
similarly than fraternal twins, who are no more similar than non-twin
siblings."

Also:
"Some scientists, however, are not ready to embrace the theory.

"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."

Any similarities found in twins' political beliefs can be attributed to
environment, not genetics, Charney said."

But it seems to me that Charney's arguments are the one that are
"incoherent". The claim that "Any similarities found in twins' political
beliefs can be attributed to environment, not genetics," doesn't explain why
identical twins political beliefs are more similar than fraternal twins.

We know that genes influence such emotional attributes as the amount of
fearfulness toward new people and circumstances. I am sure the ability to
empathize with others is influenced by genes. Eg., a susceptibility to
autism is apparently caused by genes, and is characterized by an inability
to empathize.

Our politics are obviously influenced by such emotional factors. In fact,
there have been studies showing links between an adults political leanings
and their personality as children.

A couple of years ago there was an article in "Scientific American" about
why highly intelligent people sometimes have irrational beliefs. The answer
is that they form their beliefs on the basis of emotion; in other words,
they are perfectly normal. Their high intelligence then enables them to
rationalize their beliefs by sophisticated arguments that sound plausible.
It appears to me that Professor Charney is an example of this phenomenon.

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