The divisibility of human ancestry
The class human or H. sapiens refers to a set of individuals. On the grand scale it’s really not all that clear and distinct. When do “archaic” humans become “modern” humans? Taking into account human variation, what is a …
The geography of genes tells us only so much about history
L. L. Cavalli-Sforza’s The History and Geography of Human Genes is a book I reference a great deal. Cavalli-Sforza is the godfather of the field of historical population genetics, the phylogeography of humankind. Though his work was on classical…
The “evo-devo” peak
Jerry Coyne has a post up which critiques an extremely breathless review of a new book, Epigenetics Revolution. Overall I agree with the thrust of Coyne’s take. Epigenetics is real, and probably important, but it doesn’t imply that there…
Twin studies are not useless
A few friends have pinged me on this piece in Slate, Double Inanity: Twin studies are pretty much useless. The headline is bold, but the piece is just a sloppy mishmash. It’s really something amenable for a major “fisking,” but I gene…
Raising funds on Google+ vs. Facebook
As some of you know I’ve been looking for a Malagasy genotype. I found one. Or at least a potential one. At this point I need to have the person genotyped. I’ve sent the kit overseas, and within 1-2 months I should have a post up analyzing …
Eugenics as a luxury of the affluent
In the comments below Jason says in regards to the connection between eugenics and genocide and the “slippery slope”:
In your current comfortable first world circumstances, you are right the slope is perhaps not that slippery. I hope you ar…
The rap guide to evolution
Darwin Got It Going On:
The lyrics are, for the most part, witty, sophisticated and scientifically accurate; and they lack the earnest defensiveness that sometimes haunts lectures on evolution. I spotted one or two small slips — a confusion of the pr…
People don’t accept evolution just because they’re smart
Mike the Mad Biologist asks:
If we look at each wordsum category separately, which ones are significantly different? I ask because the trend seems to reflect the liberal-conservative split (low and high lean left; middle leans conservative). It also se…
Smart people accept evolution
At Culture of Science there’s a little discussion about whether acceptance of evolution indicates intelligence. Looking at the GSS data there doesn’t seem to be a strong causal relationship when you control for other variables. But there is…
Evolution is a signal for real Republican populism
New York Magazine has a rundown of the attitudes of some of the G.O.P. candidates for the nomination in regards to evolution. Remember, this is an issue which is split down the middle in the American populace, but elites have a strong skew toward accep…
Friday Fluff – August 19th, 2011
1) Post from the past: The arc of evolutionary genetics is long.
2) Weird search query of the week: “sandra laing genetics.” This was actually the #1 query the past week. That’s the strange part, as Sandra Laing isn’t in the n…
Evolution doesn’t fit our generalities
“Is Evolution Predictable?” asks a piece in Science. Here’s the first paragraph:
If one could rewind the history of life, would the same species appear with the same sets of traits? Many biologists have argued that evolution depends …
A real America
Akila Raman and Alireza Vaseghi: Akila Sunhee Raman and Alireza Vaseghi were married Saturday at the InterContinental hotel in Kansas City, Mo. The Rev. Mary W. Fisher, an evangelical Christian minister, officiated at a nondenominational ceremony incor…
Looking for a few good 145+ I.Q. individuals
Cross-posted from Discover My friend Steve Hsu gave a talk at Google today. Here are the details: I’ll be giving a talk at Google tomorrow (Thursday August 18) at 5 pm. The slides are here. The video will probably be available on Google’s TechTalk channel on YouTube. The Cognitive Genomics Lab at BGI is using […]
None dare call it eugenics
In the comments below Phillip Lemky observes:
Hi Razib. I find disturbing all this talk of assortative mating and biological castes, as it sounds eerily similar to eugenics. Please correct me if I’m mistaken to be making this connection.
This is a co…
There would have been a Plato without Plato
In the comments of my post “Platonism is useful only when it’s useful” several people made a few references to Plato, as well as Platonism. That is fair and makes sense. And there’s a deep strain of anti-Plato sentiment amongst resp…
The HGDP made less racist!
Back in the 1990s there was a lot of controversy around the Human Genome Diversity Project. In fact there were whole books devoted to the sociology of the project. Though on some of the details critics of the project may have had a point, their overall…
Looking for a few good 145+ I.Q. individuals
Above is the distribution of self-reported I.Q.s of the readers of this weblog according to the 2011 survey. I point this out because my friend Steve Hsu will be giving a talk at Google later today. Here are the details:
I’ll be giving a talk at…
Platonism is useful only when it’s useful
Below John Farrell posted an amusing comment:
Razib, are you implying there was no clearly defined ‘ontological leap’ from the animal to the human??? I’m going to have to clear this with the CDF in Rome.
The figure to left illustrates the simult…
What does a critical race theorist call a black man with a Ph.D.?
Malcolm X asked two generations ago: ““What does the white man call a black man with a PhD?” His response? “A nigger with a PhD.” In this frame Malcolm X was repeating objectively the state of affairs in American society at the time. Visible black ancestry marked someone as black, and other social variables were […]