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[Adventurer]

Last Updated: Friday, 28 March 2008, 11:01 GMT

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The search for the 'political' gene



By Julian Joyce
BBC News


Activists sometimes say "politics is in my DNA" - but there may be more truth in that than they realise. Research now suggests some of our voting habits may be hard-wired into us from birth.
When Liberal Democrat MP Matthew Taylor set out to trace his birth parents at the age of 35, nothing prepared him for what he describes as a "stunning" discovery.

Along with the news that his biological mother was alive and well and living in New Zealand with a family of her own, came another revelation - that his great-grandfather had been, like himself, a Liberal MP.

It made Mr Taylor, adopted as a newborn baby and now representing the Cornish constituency of Truro, reassess his beliefs on the eternal question of nature versus nurture.

"The fact that I followed my great-grandfather into politics is surprising enough," he says. "But the fact that I chose the same sort of politics is more than just coincidence. The odds in favour of that happening by accident must be miniscule."

'Miniscule' odds

MELBROOKESPOLITICS

[Funkdafied]

I wouldn't call 50/50 miniscule odds ...

[stillnotking]

Just what we need, more idiotic misinterpretation of genetics from clueless journalists.

There is no "political gene". I mean, are we supposed to believe that Matthew Taylor's family has some kind of "Liberal Democrat MP" gene?

Obviously the mind is shaped by the genes, and I have no doubt that certain kinds of minds gravitate strongly to particular political philosophies. Short people are more likely to be jockeys, too -- does that mean there is a "jockey gene"?

[Ya-ta Boy]

I think that there is a 'political gene' in the sense that we are social, not solitary, animals. I am of course taking 'political' as meaning behaviors that allow us to live in groups.