Updated: Wednesday, 07 Mar 2012, 3:42 PM EST
(NewsCore) - Researchers at Oxford University say a drug commonly used to treat heart disease may also make patients less racist.
In their study, published in the journal Psychopharmacology this month, volunteers given a dose of the beta-blocker propranolol scored lower on a test to measure subconscious racial biases.
The researchers believe their thought-provoking findings could prove that biases are based on automatic, non-conscious emotional responses in the brain -- which propranolol blocks -- though they cautioned that the drug is not exactly a pill to cure racism.
Three dozen white, mostly British volunteers participated in the experiment. Half were given propranolol and the others were given a placebo before taking an Implicit Association Test (IAT), a common tool in social psychology to gauge subconscious attitudes with snap word and picture associations.
The volunteers who took propranolol scored much lower on the racial IAT and a third of them achieved a negative score, meaning a majority of their subconscious associations were non-racist. No one in the placebo group had such results.
Propranolol had no effect on the participants' "explicit," or conscious, prejudices, which were measured when the volunteers were asked to rate how they felt about different groups, including white people, black people, homosexuals, Muslims, Christians and drug addicts.
"Implicit racial bias can occur even in people with a sincere belief in equality," Sylvia Terbeck, lead author and experimental psychologist at Oxford University, said in a statement. "Our results offer new evidence about the processes in the brain that shape implicit racial bias."
Terbeck explained in an email that scientists have previously shown that propranolol hinders brain responses to fearful and emotional stimuli.
"We suggest that automatic emotional responses are involved in racial prejudice," she told NewsCore.
Professor Julian Savulescu of Oxford University's Faculty of Philosophy, a co-author, damped the prospect that the finding puts a "cure" for racism on the horizon.
"Biological research aiming to make people morally better has a dark history," he said. "And propranolol is not a pill to cure racism. But given that many people are already using drugs like propranolol which have 'moral' side effects, we at least need to better understand what these effects are."
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpps/health/heart-drug-may-curb-subconscious-racism-dpgonc-20120307-to_18419731
littlegreenpills posted:
we should all take some to treat our visceral negative reactions to social injustice
An easier way to do this is to get married and have children.
Being a responsible parents means narrowing your horizons and priorities and withdrawing from theoretical flights of fancy. Once you have another human life to look after, what purpose is it worrying about slums in Gabon or death squads in Pakistan. You will buy a safe car, lock the doors when driving near the ghettos, forget this nebulous notion of “social justice” and focus your attention on the ultimate human purpose: Raising your young to be of reproductive age themselves.
Then when they go to college you can go pick up trash in parks or knit scarves for inner city kids and shit like that.
Problem solved, no drugs needed, just spoof and ovum.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Problem solved, no drugs needed, just spoof and ovum.
sex is a weapon; it's like a drug - Spock
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
just use MDMA
you still need science.
game, set, match. 
guidoanselmi posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
just use MDMAyou still need science.
game, set, match.
Yeah but if science (and the racism, classism and alienation it produces) didn’t exist then nobody would need drugs.
Ironicwarcriminal posted:littlegreenpills posted:
we should all take some to treat our visceral negative reactions to social injusticeAn easier way to do this is to get married and have children.
Being a responsible parents means narrowing your horizons and priorities and withdrawing from theoretical flights of fancy. Once you have another human life to look after, what purpose is it worrying about slums in Gabon or death squads in Pakistan. You will buy a safe car, lock the doors when driving near the ghettos, forget this nebulous notion of “social justice” and focus your attention on the ultimate human purpose: Raising your young to be of reproductive age themselves.
Then when they go to college you can go pick up trash in parks or knit scarves for inner city kids and shit like that.
Problem solved, no drugs needed, just spoof and ovum.
ironic war crimlets
Ironicwarcriminal posted:littlegreenpills posted:
we should all take some to treat our visceral negative reactions to social injusticeAn easier way to do this is to get married and have children.
Being a responsible parents means narrowing your horizons and priorities and withdrawing from theoretical flights of fancy. Once you have another human life to look after, what purpose is it worrying about slums in Gabon or death squads in Pakistan. You will buy a safe car, lock the doors when driving near the ghettos, forget this nebulous notion of “social justice” and focus your attention on the ultimate human purpose: Raising your young to be of reproductive age themselves.
Then when they go to college you can go pick up trash in parks or knit scarves for inner city kids and shit like that.
Problem solved, no drugs needed, just spoof and ovum.
counter-point: that u think being unawkward enough to get married is actually easier for the typical rhizzonite
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
An easier way to do this is to get married and have children.
Being a responsible parents means narrowing your horizons and priorities and withdrawing from theoretical flights of fancy. Once you have another human life to look after, what purpose is it worrying about slums in Gabon or death squads in Pakistan. You will buy a safe car, lock the doors when driving near the ghettos, forget this nebulous notion of “social justice” and focus your attention on the ultimate human purpose: Raising your young to be of reproductive age themselves.
Then when they go to college you can go pick up trash in parks or knit scarves for inner city kids and shit like that.
Problem solved, no drugs needed, just spoof and ovum.
agreed. also resist imposing market rationality on your family, have tons of kids (literally, in tom's case)
take the red pill and you get to see just how far the RaHoWa goes.
this
like "don't want kids? then don't have one and shut the fuck up"
"Biological research aiming to make people morally better has a dark history," he said. "And propranolol is not a pill to cure racism. But given that many people are already using drugs like propranolol which have 'moral' side effects, we at least need to better understand what these effects are."
is actually a really good (vital) reason to do a study of this kind, IMHO, but The Actual Story (i.e. what journos will publish and what direction the grant's program managers will try to push the research) is the "Researchers Claim Heart Drug May Curb Subconscious Racism" because that's what will "sell" to wealthy TED-talk attendees.
THIS IS A SHINING EXAMPLE OF HOW SCIENCE AS AN INSTITUTION IS SO CORRUPT !!!!
Meursault posted:
Elaine, you gotta have a baby
Groulxsmith posted:
i am a massive retard.
Groulxsmith posted:
as usual, xckd put it best...
they offered me the blue pill (crotchspawn) and the red pill (video games). i chose the red pill
Groulxsmith posted:
as usual, xckd put it best...
lol thats so sad
aerdil posted:
i guess filled in hair is a signifier for being more hip and exciting and selfishly hedonistic & materialistic
vapid blonde derpina versus cute gamer girl
Groulxsmith posted:
as usual, xckd put it best...
my mind fills in goatkcd automatically now