Hand Waving: Nature or Nurture?

I almost threw up this morning--and no, not because I'm fat and bulimic. I was watching CNN and they led a story with the line like "Politics...is it nature or nurture?" They then described a study whereby a group of scientists looked at regions of activity within the brain and were able to find differences between liberals and conservatives and seemed to espouse the nature side of the dichotomy. Naturally, this neural differentiation must imply that republicans are genetically different from democrats.

Ugh...what kind of bullshit are they trying to feed us? What kind of scientific reviewers/editors/writers does CNN employ? And what kind of journal was this study actually published in, if those were the actual points of their results and discussion?

Basically, if there was a genetic basis, two conservative parents would have a very slim to no chance of having liberal kids. AND unless there is some middle aged gene activation, you wouldn't see the trend to become more conservative with age. Also...how about me? I grew up in a republican household, voted for Dole in '96 (god, I'm so ashamed), and shortly thereafter came to my senses--once I broke out of the thought control of my parents when I was about 19.

Though it might allow me to sleep better at night to know that republicans are potentially just mutative freaks of nature.