New Experiment Shows Rats Have more Empathy than the Tea Party

By Lee way

With numerous safety nets on the chopping block, and talk circulating on the elimination of some of them, this new experiment seems appropriate. Carried out by neuroscientists at the University of Chicago it demonstrates the  existence of empathy-driven behavior in laboratory rats.

Watch:

The rat freed his brethren rodent without thought of reward.  The concluding factor is that helping others is a biological fact – it’s in our brain. So, we can also then conclude that evolution has either skipped over the majority of a political party or a notable faction of their brain is missing (there is some sarcasm in that statement….sort of).

AATP reports:

There were also cases in which the rat retrieved the chocolate chips first but didn’t eat them until after freeing the other and sharing the chocolate with them. There was, however, one significant gender-based difference. Females were more consistent than males both in learning how to open the door and in using this skill to free a trapped companion.

(My bold. Female blogger here.)

The underlying assumption that cuts without the creation of jobs will cure our economic woes is false. Without money circulating in the economy, there is a lesser economy.  Financially and most certainly morally these extreme partisan decisions are not sound, but they do garner votes within the Republican base.

For example, the number of Floridians in poverty surpassed 3 million in 2010, yet the Florida Legislature cut state programs aimed at helping those facing unemployment and poverty.

The group’s report study found that “one of every six Floridians and almost one of every four children under 18 live in poverty”:

In more bad news for Florida, the state recorded the third-highest rate among the states in the percentage of residents without health insurance (21.3 percent). The percentage of children under 18 years old without insurance was the fourth-highest in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Florida ranked as the fifth-worst state in the nation on a measure of income inequality (Gini Index) used by economists to measure the gap between those making most of the income and those making the least.

One of the worst polled Governors if not the worst, governs Florida. Gov. Scott’s brain or lack thereof should be a major concern. A rat would have more regard for the state’s citizenry. By the way, Scott of course is supported by the Tea Party.

Furthermore, detainees held without being charged remain at Gitmo under deplorable conditions, some of them innocent yet not one peep has come out from the right wing base over this astonishing lack of humanity. There is an exception to every rule; “There are still innocent people there,” Lawrence Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the Associated Press. “Some have been there six or seven years.” That statement was made in 2009.

H/T: Americans Against the Tea Party

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