Racists are stupider than they need to be

by Prometheus 6
November 18, 2003 - 7:28am.
on Seen online

I believe I saw this in my pre-blogging days. It will come as no surprise to those who see mind as a emergent function of brain activity.

Brain scan 'identifies race bias'

A brain scan that can apparently root out racists has been developed by scientists.

The technique was used on white volunteers shown photographs of black individuals.

In those with racist tendencies, a surge of activity was seen in part of the brain that controls thoughts and behaviour. Scientists believe this reflected volunteers' attempts to to curb their latent racism.

After interacting with real black individuals, the same group performed poorly in a task designed to test mental resources.

The American researchers concluded that harbouring racial prejudice, even unintentionally, stirred up an inner struggle that exhausted the brain.

via Baldilocks, who asks:

Wonder if the good scientists at Dartmouth asked any members of *other* races to volunteer for this experiment?

A legitimate question. It's possible for near identical world-level behavior to have different emotional roots in different people, so it's possible that minorities who hate mainstream folks to have different brain activity patterns than mainstream folks who hate mnorities. But I wouldn't really expect it.

A LITTLE LATER: George at Negrophile links to two mare articles that drop science on the topic. Reading all three articles was enough to surface an unpleasant recognition: that people who attempt to restraing racial impulses may be the ones most affected by this.

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