Jonah Goldberg‘s latest National Review Online column examines the scientific proof that conservatives’ brains can’t handle the brilliance of liberal arguments.

Over the past decade, a new fad has taken hold among academics and liberal journalists: Call it the new science of conservative phrenology. No, it doesn’t actually involve using calipers to determine intelligence based on the size and shape of people’s heads. The measuring devices are better — MRIs and gene sequencers — but the conclusions are worse. The gist is this: Conservatives and liberals don’t just have different world views or ideas, they have different brains; the Right and Left are just hard-wired to think differently.

Author Chris Mooney compiles much of this research for his new book The Republican Brain, which purports to show that conservatives are, literally by nature, more closed-minded and resistant to change and facts. His evidence includes the fact that conservatives are less likely to buy into global warming, allegedly proving they are not only “anti-science” but innately anti-fact, as well. “Politicized wrongness today,” he writes, “is clustered among Republicans, conservatives, and especially Tea Partiers.”

That’s an entirely understandable view for Mooney to hold. He’s a soaked-to-the-bone liberal partisan. But he crosses the line into pseudoscientific hogwash by trying to explain every political disagreement as a symptom of bad brains. For instance, Mooney claims Republicans have trouble processing reality because Republicans think Obamacare will raise the deficit. No really, stop laughing.

Jonah also earns bonus points for describing Fidel Castro as “the global dashboard saint of recrudescent left-wing asininity.”