Reply #3: I always figured RW assholery was rooted in a genetic inadequacy

[havocmom]

Looks like I may have been correct all these years
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x59013

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/11/do-these-genes-make-my-heart-seem-big-study-finds-a-gene-for-empathy-.html

...
To make a long story short, they did. The researchers put 192 college students at UC Berkeley through a pair of experimental tests -- one that measured their ability to infer the emotional state of others from looking at their facial expressions and another that measured their jumpiness when warned that a loud blast of noise was imminent. The students also were asked to rate their own levels of empathy and ability to handle stressful situations.

The one in four subjects who inherited a variation in this allele called G/G were significantly better at accurately reading the emotions of others by observing their faces than were the remaining three-quarters of subjects, who had inherited either a pair of A's or an A and a G from their parents at this site. Compared to the three-fourths with A/A or A/G variations, the G/G individuals were also less likely to startle when blasted by a loud noise, or to become stressed at the prospect of such a noise. And by their own reports, the G/G subjects were mellower and more attuned to other people than were the A/As or A/Gs.

The group's findings would appear to strike a decisive blow for nature over nurture in shaping who we are and how we behave. In fact, subjects were asked to rate how nurturing their own parents were, and researchers found that a subject's genetic inheritance seemed a better predictor of his empathic disposition than did his mother and father's parenting styles.

But UC graduate student Laura R. Saslow, a co-author of the paper, cautioned that genetic inheritance -- nature -- is never the sole determinant of our personalities. While researchers will get closer to filling in the inborn components of our personalities, the environments in which we've been raised will always interact with our genetic inheritance and shape how it expresses itself, Saslow says.
...

Interesting stuff. Looks like your co-worker didn't get as evolved as you. ;) The science seems to indicate that!

Sadly, it seems RW think tanks have known about this a LONG time, and have nudged nature along by relaxing media ownership laws decades ago, so they can control so much communication and create the environments which will "shape how it expresses itself".

edited for typos