What is the distribution of offspring per individual?
A commenter below notes:
Also, in modern society, doesn’t just about everyone reproduce, such that not only is any particular advantage competing against other countervailing pressures as you note, but also that the “less fit” genomes are not rem…
Why aren’t we all tall?
There’s a fair amount of social science and anecdata that tall males are more reproductively fit. More precisely, males one to two standard deviations above the norm in height seem to be at the “sweet spot” as an idealized partner (e….
The law of reversion to type as cultural illusion
A comment below:
Does the higher genetic diversity in sub-Saharan Africans explain why mixed children of blacks + other couples usually look more black than anything?
As in, the higher number of genetic characteristics overwhelms those of the other pa…
Spicy carrot juice
Those who have dined with me in “real life” know that when I eat savory foods, with the occasional exception of salads, I tend to enjoy a great deal of spice. By “great deal,” I am someone who can down eight habaneros in 15 minu…
Ashkenazi Jews are probably not descended from the Khazars
A few people have asked me about a new paper on arXiv, The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses. Since it is on arXiv you can read the preprint yourself. And, since it is a preprint it is not …
Open thread 8/8/2012
The nature of the restrictions of the comments are relatively free-form on this post. You should maintain some decorum as usual. But you can post links, ask me or other readers questions, etc.
On Jonah Lehrer
Since Jonah Lehrer came up in the open thread last week, I’m going to mention it. First, I’ll preface this by saying that my interactions with Jonah, who I labeled the “boy king of cognitive neuroscience” jokingly at one point, …
Deceiving with data
Matt Yglesias on the enthusiasm for data mining in economics:
Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers hail the way increases in computing power are opening vast new horizons of empirical economics.
I have no doubt that this is, on the whole, change for the…
It takes a village to murder
In a small follow up to Zach’s post on honor-killing. Let’s reiterate something: individuals are responsible for horrendous crimes, and their acts of horror reflect their own choices. But choices don’t occur in a vacuum. Most people are conformist, and … Continue reading →
Regulate the diet industry!
Brandom Keim leaves this comment:
It’s easy to see genomic data regulation in romantic narrative terms — The plucky little guys who want to be free! The big, bad institutions who want to control them! — and it’s also a trap. Interpreting genomi…
The poverty of inheritance
Virginia Hughes has an important post up at The Last Word on Nothing, What Americans Don’t Get About the Brain’s Critical Period. In it she reiterates just how stupid the “Baby Einstein” culture is. The post is important to me specific…
What big money for physicists means
9 Scientists Receive a New Physics Prize:
Several of the winners said they hoped that the new prize, with its large cash award, would help raise recognition of physics and draw more students into the field. “It’ll be great to have this sort of show…
Biology discovers arXiv (sort of)
Last year when Dr. Joseph Pickrell posted Why publish science in peer-reviewed journals? at Genomes Unzipped many of the responses naturally turned to criticism of such a system which overturned the conventions of publication in biology. The critiques …