Imagine my surprise the other day when listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme when Caroline Quinn said that new research suggests that people's brains automatically block information that might undermine their views.

Have a listen here, item ran at 08:55 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/li.../tuesday.shtml

Research in the USA carried out using functional MRI techniques looked at 10 people in a scanner. Here’s where it gets a bit iffy though from a valid experimental point of view.

They got together 10 signed up republicans and 10 democrats and showed them pictures of their own and the other leader and watched different areas of the brain light up

Two areas that showed activity were expected but two other areas to do with emotional responses also lit up when shown the opposing leader thus proving that we seek data to strengthen out beliefs and disregard data that undermines them.

We are almost there guys and gals, a few more experiments and NLP will be on the radar.

John