Dopamine, serotonin, sex and woo

[Marrena]

My personal theory about woo is that believing in things that are false is an evolutionary mechanism that contributes to the survival of the species. In particular it is intrinsically tied up with sex. High dopamine signals to the brain that food is plentiful and it is time to procreate, because when we were evolving, the main source for elevated dopamine was omega-3 fatty acids, and those come from wild game, seafood and bugs. High dopamine is correlated in men and particularly women with high libido. High dopamine makes people believe all sorts of things like "she's really into me," "he's going to love me forever," "my dick is enormous," "there are benign supernatural beings watching over us," "fairies live in the woods," "I can see auras," "life is good." Of course schizophrenia is a disease where this gets out of whack and dopamine goes too high, but in the normal course of things with high dopamine from natural food sources this doesn't happen (omega-3 fatty acids actually protect against schizophrenia).

Low dopamine and high serotonin is a brain state from living on exclusively carbs, evolutionwise when game wasn't plentiful and it wasn't safe to have children. This brain state particularly in women correlates to low libido. It is the natural state of modern American and Canadian women because we eat grain-fed beef and poultry rather than free-range (which changes the chemical composition of the meat from being high in omega-3 fatty acids to being high in omega-6 fatty acids), and also because of our intake of caffeine, lots of bad carbs and of course antidepressants.

What I'm saying is that hunter-gatherer societies are more woo-filled and people have a lot more sex. In fact, I think that the story of the Garden of Eden really is early man's grappling with the neurochemical changes caused by a shift to agriculture; man no longer "walked with God," and women were suddenly a lot less fond of "snakes" and had pain in childbirth (women in cultures with high omega-3 fatty acid consumption have less labor pain).

This is also why drugs that raise dopamine can cause people to have religious experiences.

My point is that woo is a form of sexual display, especially in women. And without this tendency to imagine fantasies and believe in one's fantasies, people would have a lot less sex.

[Apathia]

Marrena, are you aquainted with Marnia.
She also has a number speculations on the realtions of dopamine, sex, and spirituality.
http://www.reuniting.info/
(Be warned. Wooish tendancies.)

[quarky]

Woo has survival advantages. Why else would it exist and prevail? Wisdom usually comes after reproductive age. Good post, Marrena.

[Niobe]

Woo has survival advantages. Why else would it exist and prevail Just because it's not negative enough to be selected against doesn't mean it's therefore advantageous. There are plenty of neutral or slightly negative things that spread unhampered.

To quote "why people believe weird things"

The reason is that discovering a meaningless pattern usually does no harm and may even do some good in reducing anxiety in uncertain situations. So we are left with the legacy of two types of thinking errors: Type 1 error: Believing a falsehood and type 2 error: rejecting a truth. Since these errors will not necessarily get us killed, they persist.

[Denver]

A lot of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids (such as protecting against schizophrenia) has also been said to only apply when that consumption is done during formative years (children), when the body is building itself toward adult hood. At that point, it has been said to matter much less, if at all.

[quarky]

Just because it's not negative enough to be selected against doesn't mean it's therefore advantageous. There are plenty of neutral or slightly negative things that spread unhampered.

To quote "why people believe weird things" I think you just helped make my point. less negativity?

[Marrena]

Placebo effect for one. No one can argue that that isn't a beneficial effect.

I personally believe (and have experienced) the beneficial value of very high omega-3 fatty acid intake. I am a scientist first and foremost, and would love to get funding for my study, I've got a PI at Columbia University ready to go and an offer to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. I have noticed my woo factor has gone up as my orgasms have gone up; I generally have about fifty orgasms a day. I also wrote a popular book helping women to overcome female sexual dysfunction through diet--the neurotransmitter effects (and circulation effects) are real, even in adults. Here's a link on some current studies on the mental effects of omega-3's.

http://www.oilofpisces.com/depression.html

[Ivor the Engineer]

Placebo effect for one. No one can argue that that isn't a beneficial effect.

I personally believe (and have experienced) the beneficial value of very high omega-3 fatty acid intake. I am a scientist first and foremost, and would love to get funding for my study, I've got a PI at Columbia University ready to go and an offer to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. I have noticed my woo factor has gone up as my orgasms have gone up; I generally have about fifty orgasms a day. I also wrote a popular book helping women to overcome female sexual dysfunction through diet--the neurotransmitter effects (and circulation effects) are real, even in adults. Here's a link on some current studies on the mental effects of omega-3's.

http://www.oilofpisces.com/depression.html

How the hell do you get any work done!?

[Marrena]

I can have them rapidly in succession because of the right brain chemistry, strong PC muscle tone, right hormone balance and good circulation. With things in balance, I can have one every ten seconds, or less sometimes if I'm very aroused. I teach other women how to do this too; it's not that hard, actually, and strictly physiological.

But anyhow, my point, if I have a point here, is that high dopamine can contribute to delusionally optimistic sexual self confidence, which can help one's reproductive chances.

[Marrena]

Marrena, are you aquainted with Marnia.
She also has a number speculations on the realtions of dopamine, sex, and spirituality.
http://www.reuniting.info/
(Be warned. Wooish tendancies.)

Hmmm...not sure I buy that. I think one's natural state is to have dopamine so high that post-coital drops wouldn't affect a person.

On the other hand if her research shows that hunter-gatherer societies have high divorce rates, that blows my theory right out of the water.

Eh, shouldn't muck about with relationship theories anyhow, I should stick with what I know--physiology.

I will say that women who go on my diet generally find their marriages improve and their husbands lots happier. But there are exceptions, some men don't like their spouses with high libido.

[EvilBiker]

How the hell do you get any work done!?

Smiling broadly, perhaps?

[Dogdoctor]

It would be interesting to see a study showing that frequency of sex is directly correlated to amount of woo believed. Don't have no info but suspect this won't be true.

[Marrena]

References for the dopamine/female libido connection:

Szczypka MS, Zhou QY, Palmiter RD. “Dopamine-stimulated sexual behavior is testosterone dependent in mice,” Behavioral Neuroscience. 1998 Oct;112(5):1229-35.

Hull EM, Lorrain DS, Du J, Matuszewich L, Lumley LA, Putnam SK, Moses J. “Hormone neurotransmitter interactions in the control of sexual behavior,” Behavioural Brain Research 1999 Nov 1; 105(1):105-16.

Buffum, J. “Pharmacosexology: the effects of drugs on sexual function. A review” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 14:5, 1982.

Bartlik, B. D., Kaplan, P., Kaminetsky, J., Roentsch, G., & Goldberg, J. (1999). “Medications with the potential to enhance sexual responsivity in women.” Psychiatric Annals, 29(1), 46-52.

Shrivastava, R. K., Shrivastava, S., Overweg, N., & Schmitt, M. (1995). “Amantadine in the treatment of sexual dysfunction associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.” Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 15(1), 83-84.

Rosen, R.C., Ashton, A.K. Prosexual Drugs: Empirical Status of the New Aphrodisics. Archives of Sexual Behavior 22:521-543 (1993).

Taberner, P.V. Aphrodisiacs - The Science and the Myth. University of Pennsylvania Press (1985).

Pfaus, J. G., & Everitt, B. J. “The psychopharmacology of sexual behavior.” In F. E. Bloom & D. J. Kupfer (Eds.), Psychopharmacology: The Fourth Generation of Progress (pp. 743-758). New York: Raven Press 1995.

and a doctor I'm working with at the NIH who is an expert on fish oil hired an anthropologist to research worldwide associations of eating seafood or simply seafood itself. One of the associations was woo: mysticism, along with non-violence, compassion and religious interest in men. In women it was sex--Venus on the half shell, etc.

Here's an high serotonin, low woo study

American Journal of Psychiatry (http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/160/11/1965?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=Serotonin+Spirituality&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT#F1)

dopamine and meditation (http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Peter%20Fenwick%201.11.03%20The%20Neuroscience%20o f%20Spirituality.pdf)

Dopamine and mysticism

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/158/8/1346-a

[Piggy]

Marrena, are you aquainted with Marnia.
She also has a number speculations on the realtions of dopamine, sex, and spirituality.
http://www.reuniting.info/
(Be warned. Wooish tendancies.)

Apathia, this is a total tangent and off-topic, but... who's the kid in your avatar? Is that from a Twilight Zone episode? It looks familiar.

[fuelair]

I can have them rapidly in succession because of the right brain chemistry, strong PC muscle tone, right hormone balance and good circulation. With things in balance, I can have one every ten seconds, or less sometimes if I'm very aroused. I teach other women how to do this too; it's not that hard, actually, and strictly physiological.

But anyhow, my point, if I have a point here, is that high dopamine can contribute to delusionally optimistic sexual self confidence, which can help one's reproductive chances.
Spoken with/worked with Susie Bright?

[fuelair]

Billy Mumy sending someone out to the cornfield.

[Marrena]

Spoken with/worked with Susie Bright?

Better than that--met with Betty Dodson, showed her. Rachel Kramer Bussel tried my thing, had the expected results and blurbed my book, and I've gotten pretty good press, all things considered. Some bad too, of course. The Times ripped me a new one.

My run is pretty much over now, book publicity all done except for an interview on HBO with Katie Morgan that's coming out next spring. Before all the brouhaha I wanted a study--now that it's all over I still want a study. I've got a very pretty doubleblind placebo-controlled crossover trial, a PI with his own FSD clinic, an offer to publish in the Journal of Sexual Medicine and I've lost funding three times. I have no hope now of private funding because I've blown all possibility of method patent rights with my showboating, it's public domain now, and government funding I don't have a snowball's chance in hell, even if the Republicans are finally voted out this fall.

[Apathia]

Apathia, this is a total tangent and off-topic, but... who's the kid in your avatar? Is that from a Twilight Zone episode? It looks familiar.

As Fuelair answered, it's Billy Mumy in the classic Twilight Zone episode about the omnipotent kid who you'd better not cross or he'd send you to the cornfield or maybe turn you into a jack-in-the-box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)

[Piggy]

As Fuelair answered, it's Billy Mumy in the classic Twilight Zone episode about the omnipotent kid who you'd better not cross or he'd send you to the cornfield or maybe turn you into a jack-in-the-box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_Good_Life_(The_Twilight_Zone)

That's what I thought. Perhaps the creepiest TZ episode evah!

[fuelair]

That's what I thought. Perhaps the creepiest TZ episode evah!And we all say "Thank you, Mr. Bixby, for writing that little horror story!!!!!"

[fuelair]

For the interested, I believe this is the book referred to: http://www.amazon.com/Orgasmic-Diet-Revolutionary-Libido-Orgasm/dp/0307353435/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218172587&sr=1-1

[Ivor the Engineer]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15236835?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

The role of dopaminergic systems in the control of sexual behavior has been a subject of study for at least 40 years. Not surprisingly, reviews of the area have been published at variable intervals. However, the earlier reviews have been summaries of published research rather than a critical analysis of it. They have focused upon the conclusions presented in the original research papers rather than on evaluating the reliability and functional significance of the data reported to support these conclusions. During the last few years, important new knowledge concerning dopaminergic systems and their behavioral functions as well as the possible role of these systems in sexual behavior has been obtained. For the first time, it is now possible to integrate the data obtained in studies of sexual behavior into the wider context of general dopaminergic functions. To make this possible, we first present an analysis of the nature and organization of sexual behavior followed by a summary of current knowledge about the brain structures of crucial importance for this behavior. We then proceed with a description of the dopaminergic systems within or projecting to these structures. Whenever possible, we also try to include data on the electrophysiological actions of dopamine. Thereafter, we proceed with analyses of pharmacological data and release studies, both in males and in females. Consistently throughout this discussion, we make an effort to distinguish pharmacological effects on sexual behavior from a possible physiological role of dopamine. By pharmacological effects, we mean here drug-induced alterations in behavior that are not the result of the normal actions of synaptically released dopamine in the untreated animal. The conclusion of this endeavor is that pharmacological effects of dopaminergic drugs are variable in both males and females, independently of whether the drugs are administered systemically or intracerebrally. We conclude that the pharmacological data basically reinforce the notion that dopamine is important for motor functions and general arousal. These actions could, in fact, explain most of the effects seen on sexual behavior. Studies of dopamine release, in both males and females, have focused on the nucleus accumbens, a structure with at most a marginal importance for sexual behavior. Since accumbens dopamine release is associated with all kinds of events, aversive as well as appetitive, it can have no specific effect on sexual behavior but promotes arousal and activation of non-specific motor patterns. Preoptic and paraventricular nucleus release of dopamine may have some relationship to mechanisms of ejaculation or to the neuroendocrine consequences of sexual activity or they can be related to other autonomic processes associated with copulation. There is no compelling indication in existing experimental data that dopamine is of any particular importance for sexual motivation. There is experimental evidence showing that it is of no importance for sexual reward.

[Marrena]

That's baloney.

I'm not saying it's the only thing women need--women need the right balance of dopamine and serotonin, robust free testosterone, good genital circulation, and strong PC muscle tone can only help, but the evidence is there.

Dopamine itself has a definite role in sexual function. First, dopamine is critical to the medial preoptic anterior (MPAO) hypothalamic nuclei. MPOA activity is maximal on sexual arousal, declines with initiation of the sexual act, and decreases ejaculation.11,12 Dopamine agonists microinjected into the MPOA of male rats facilitate and dopamine antagonists inhibit sexual behavior.

Then he goes on to mention the reward system that you speak of.

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/16/1/37

http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:16109498

Pathological hypersexuality developed in 13 patients with PD and two patients ultimately diagnosed clinically with MSA. Hypersexuality began within 8 months after starting dopamine agonist therapy in 14 of 15 cases, including four on agonist monotherapy. It resolved in the four cases where the agonist was stopped, despite continued levodopa therapy. This was not an isolated behavioral problem in most, with additional compulsive or addictive behaviors coinciding in nine patients (60%). A systematic literature review of pathological hypersexuality in PD revealed similar medication histories; combining these cases with our series, 26 of 29 patients (90%) were on adjuvant dopamine agonists.

One humorous outlier

http://www.theannals.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/7/1178

And here's a case study with hypersexuality and hallucinations

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6685318

http://www.epda.eu.com/medInfo/medInfo-DopamineAgonists.shtm

[Ivor the Engineer]

IIRC, PD is not just a lack of Dopamine, there are changes in other messaging pathways of the brain. So I'm not sure how translatable the case-reports of PD patients developing hyper-sexual behaviour in response to Dopamine agonists are to healthy individuals.

For example, consider testosterone. The levels can vary widely and gross changes (such as castration in men, or injections in bodybuilders) are required before significant behavioural differences occur.

So I'm rather sceptical that altering an otherwise healthy diet can have enough of an impact physiologically to significantly affect sexual behaviour. On the other hand, I'd imagine the psychological effects could be quite significant.

I hope you get the funding and chance to change my mind.;)

[Marrena]

Oh NOW you've got me going! :( Make fun of my woo all you want, but my science is very good! :p

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g791866981~db=all~tab=toc~order=pubd ate

Now Angela Gregory said my approach was new and strange, although couldn't hurt to test out.

Here's my book with a search inside so you can see what I recommend, although happy to post all particulars here. The thing in itself can be written in one page, most of the book is persuading women to try it and the science behind it.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Orgasmic-Diet/Marrena-Lindberg/e/9780307352651

Here are admittedly non-blinded tests:

http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/show/segments/view/orgasmic-diet/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22593988/page/3

My diet will improve libido in three out of four people who try it, some in a minor way, but typically pretty dramatically. Men generally take one week at full dose, women take four weeks (due to menstrual cycle fluctuations influencing libido also). Two weeks additional to ramp up to the full dose.

Don't taunt me with the fact that I can't get a study! I understand why IRB laws are there, but any MD is going to want reimbursement.

[Marrena]

Oh, and here is hypersexuality in meth users

http://www.stuartxchange.com/Shabu.html

Of course over time that wears off, as the body adjusts to the drug.

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

Don't taunt me with the fact that I can't get a study! I understand why IRB laws are there, but any MD is going to want reimbursement.

:confused:

I wasn't! I was wishing you good luck.

[Marrena]

I'm sorry, I'm sensitive. It's vexing!

And I know the testosterone/libido question is very controversial, particularly in women. But TRT in women passed clinical trials with as much proof of efficacy as Viagra did in men--it was pulled for safety concerns.

[BenBurch]

Marrena,

Nice to meet you. I know several of Ms. Dodson's friends, as it happens, but have never had the pleasure of meeting her myself. Welcome to JREF.

-Ben

[BenBurch]

I would also point out that there were reports of hypersexuality in people who used to drink Radium Water. And that has baleful effects not too dissimilar from those who take meth to its logical conclusion...

I wonder if the mechanism in the brain was similar?

[Marrena]

Marrena,

Nice to meet you. I know several of Ms. Dodson's friends, as it happens, but have never had the pleasure of meeting her myself. Welcome to JREF.

-Ben

Thank you. Did you ever meet her boyfriend? He's a very athletic young man.

Interesting about radium water. I'm quite certain my way is healthful, the Inuit have been on a similar diet for millenia with no ill effects.

[JFrankA]

I have no comment on this, because I know nothing about the omega-3 fatty acids or anything like that. I do find this subject facinating.

What can I say? I love hyper-sexed, 50 orgasms-a-day women! :)

Good luck with your studies. I'll be watching this thread.

[Marrena]

Well thank you!

[quarky]

gosh. female orgasms have nothing to do with what a partner tries? Is she just as likely to get off if I don't do the dishes tonite? If I give her fish oil, can I wear my dirty undies? Fifty orgasms in a day is real scary, from a male orgasm perspective. Two good ones would get it. Females are very mysterious to me; more so as I get to know them.

[Marrena]

Actually we are not all that different. The fifty a day I am having are vaginal orgasms, not clitoral orgasms. My clitoral orgasm rate is pretty standard for someone my age (42)--two or three a week. Of course I can have lots more with a vibrator, my record for clitoral is 27 in a row, but for manual stimulation and under ten minutes I'm pretty average in frequency.

Vaginal orgasms I come on penetration without foreplay and generally keep on having orgasms every five strokes or so. It's pretty ridiculous. But believe it or not, there are quite a few men who are my equal when it comes to orgasms. In men, prostate orgasms correspond to vaginal orgasms. I was pleased to find out that my diet helps men who already have this ability greatly improve it, which makes sense.

So theoretically you could experience what it feels like if you are experimental and openminded. Although there is the danger of falling into woo.
:wickedwit:

[Beerina]

Woo has survival advantages. Why else would it exist and prevail? Wisdom usually comes after reproductive age. Good post, Marrena.

Not necessarily. If it is a side-effect of a useful ability (associational learning) that is not a particularly harmful side effect (or at least less detrimental than the useful part is useful) it will continue, with the side-effect more like a parasitic meme than anything else.


Male mosquitos pollenate an awful lot of tiny flowers. That's useful (to plants and thus to us). But females suck your blood (no jokes, pleeze.) A negative effect. A slight win for us and the ecosphere as a whole. That doesn't mean female mosquitos aren't akin to a parasite we must endure.



So religion might serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and be highly detrimental, but, like the mosquitos, the upside, associatonal learning, far outweighs this downside.

Note that the memes evolve and compete with each other. Superstitious behavior -> animism and spirituality -> polythesism -> monotheism. Note also the evolution of ethical concepts to justify barbaric behavior, such as torture and murder, said ethical sub-memes being the basis of making the person feel OK with what they're doing, all along actually instantiating horrific behavior.


Note politics is basically the same thing, but with "benefit of The People" replacing "God", almost word-for-word. Note also how horrible economic systems such as communism, that have terrible plague-like parasitic effects, still survive nice and well, even from the mouths of those suffering under it, and especially, even in the face of obvious success of other systems. It's another evolved variation of the meme, same result, but asserting it's own power (q.v. separation of church and state in the US.)

What a polished root kit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_kit) this religious/political meme has evolved!


In any case, given organized religion is only 10k years or so old, maybe somewhat older, but not much, it's possible we're just living in a period where religion hasn't had time to evolve away yet. But the apparent scientific assumption that it must be beneficial, or else it wouldn't be here could very well be bass-ackwards, and show an intellectual conceit consistent with religion, that the current state of humanity is more or less "done" to major changes.

No, we may be in an era of highly rapid change. We just don't see it for all the trees in our way.

[repete66211]

I can have them rapidly in succession because of the right brain chemistry, strong PC muscle tone, right hormone balance and good circulation. With things in balance, I can have one every ten seconds, or less sometimes if I'm very aroused. I teach other women how to do this too; it's not that hard, actually, and strictly physiological.

May I volunteer? You know, in the interest of science.

Immature jokes aside, these are some very interesting ideas you have here.

What is your impression of someone who responds well to a dopamine reuptake inhibitor but who has no issues with low libido?

[sanguine]

Male mosquitos pollenate an awful lot of tiny flowers. That's useful (to plants and thus to us). But females suck your blood (no jokes, pleeze.) A negative effect. A slight win for us and the ecosphere as a whole. That doesn't mean female mosquitos aren't akin to a parasite we must endure.


On that note, the only talk I've ever been to by a biologist suggesting the extermination of a species was on mosquitos*. Replying to someone asking if we don't just pesticide them all out of existence for ecological reasons:

"No, it's that we aren't able to. If we could kill them all, we would."


*Anopheles gambiae, specifically.

[SynapticDancer]

Hmm.. I'm wondering if there is a way to opertionally define 'woo'? To say that increases in omega 3 and dopamine also increase 'woo-like' beliefs can't be substaniated until there is measurable criteria for 'woo'.

I am interested however, in the implications of what you're saying, specifically regarding dopamine. Most of my understanding of this NT is that it is more or less social, correlated with forming and maintenance of personal bonds. I've also come to understand that in concert with oxytocin, this NT plays a role in trust.

When I think of people who subscribe to excessive amounts of 'woo' (and I stress this is not a scientific definition of the construct, but just my sense of it if you will, excessive being accepting and believing) I think of people that are perhaps a little too trusting, or naive. And all of the positive, woo-like emotions you describe regarding but not limited to sexual behavior would seem to fall into the category of increased levels of social bonding, with trusting positive beliefs about the world.

I'm wondering if excessive trust might be a related factor to propensity to accept wooish beliefs, connected with these elevated levels of dopamine you describe?

[JoeTheJuggler]

I think you just helped make my point. less negativity?
Not really. You said any character that persists must have "survival advantages", and that's just not true.


On the topic of belief in strange things (what most people here call "woo"), I think all of that is just a relatively innocuous side effect of brains that evolved for people living in social structures.

Some of the things those brains do (pattern recognition, face recognition, the ability to infer intention or agency, language, maybe even obedience to authority, etc.) are highly advantageous to an individual living in a social group but can lead to side effects (Type 1 errors) such as seeing faces in the clouds, inferring agency when there is none, seeing patterns in random stimuli, etc.

[JoeTheJuggler]

My point is that woo is a form of sexual display, especially in women. And without this tendency to imagine fantasies and believe in one's fantasies, people would have a lot less sex.

Then how do you explain the persistence (and increase) in rational, skeptical thinking?

I think claiming a predisposition to wooish or non-wooish thinking is dangerous. That sounds a lot like the old claims that girls are innately bad at mathematics (based on observations taken in an era when girls were discouraged from studying mathematics). I think "woo" thinking corresponds with a lack of exposure to critical thinking skills and the importance of evidence--similar to the way illiteracy and innumerancy correspond to a lack of education in reading and math.

At the very least, I'd like to see evidence that supports the notion that these kinds of thinking patterns are hard-wired and not learned before I'd start entertaining explanations for why they are so.