The social and demographic dynamics of Al-Andalus
A slight detour from Rulers, Religion, and Riches took me to Brian Catlos’ Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain. I’ve enjoyed Catlos’ work before, and he has an engaging narrative style. His books are quick reading and I recommend them, incuding his monographs. But, there is always a weird aspect to his […]
BrownCast Podcast episode 25: Christoph, center-left edgelord on social justice, Islam, and cosmopolitanism
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above. You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than …
South Asian Genotype Project, Spring 2019 update
It’s been a while since I updated the South Asian Genotype Project. Well, I updated almost everyone. A few people had strangely formatted text files, so I’ll go add them tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who has submitted so far! One of the main things that I’ve been curious about is undersampled groups. I finally got […]
Between Tariq and Columbus
I have long followed Brian Catlos’ more academic works, so I was excited to read Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain. Aside from some strange contemporary allusions, this is a good introductory book. If you are curious about more detail, the author has written good monographs. The reason that this work is …
Deep Denisovan population structure
The Denisovan session at the American Society of Physical Anthropology meeting was very interesting. In Science Anne Gibbons reports on the findings, Our mysterious cousins—the Denisovans—may have mated with modern humans as recently as 15,000 years ago: The elusive Denisovans, the extinct cousins of Neanderthals, are known from only the scraps of bone they left […]
Open Thread – Brown Pundits
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 20: This View of Life, Completing the Darwinian…
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 20: This View of Life, Completing the Darwinian RevolutionThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Podcasts) we discuss the “evolutionary thinking” with David Sloan Wilson, the Pr…
This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution
David Sloan Wilson talks about the application of evolutionary theory to policy and people, and his book, This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution. https://pxlme.me/PqJs9Qy6
The arrow of evolution
5,000 years of changeMost evolutionary biologists would agree with the contention that evolution has no long-term direction. In other words, evolutionary change is shaped by the contingencies and exigencies of the present set of circumstances, searchin…
Finishing What Darwin Began
Wilson argues cogently that humanity, both in its biology and its culture, is a product of evolution.
Open Thread – Brown Pundits
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
The population turnover in westernmost Europe over the last 8,000 years
The figure above is from The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years. If you had seen something like this five years ago, you’d be gobsmacked. But today this is not atypical, especially in light of the fact that Spain seems to harbor many good sites in relation to the preservation […]
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 19: Historical Linguistics
The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 19: Historical LinguisticsThis week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Podcasts) we discuss the historical linguistics Dr. Asya Pereltsvaig. The author of Languages of the World and T…
Society creates god, god does not create society
Several years ago I read Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. This was after a long hiatus from reading about the topic of religion from a broad evolutionary perspective. In the 2000s, I read Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, and […]
Open Thread, 03/18/2019
Going back to finishing Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not. My general attitude so far is that I’m skeptical, but the author presents a plausible thesis. Additionally, the book is worth reading because of its engagement with the whole literature in this area. It’s got a […]
Historical Linguistics
Asya Pereltsvaig joins us to talk about historical linguistics, how language evolution relates to genetic evolution (or not), and what sorts of features are important in creating a phylogenetic tree of languages. https://pxlme.me/S7aXK2Bf
BrownCast Podcast episode 24: Shadi Hamid, American politics, Egyptian politics, being online
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above. You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than …
The evolution of languages
Map of language families of the world todayThe story in the Bible about the “Tower of Babel” was the explanation that the ancient Hebrews gave for why there was so much linguistic diversity in the world around them. Ancient people were curious and obse…
The evolution of languages
Map of language families of the world todayThe story in the Bible about the “Tower of Babel” was the explanation that the ancient Hebrews gave for why there was so much linguistic diversity in the world around them. Ancient people were curious and obse…
Open Thread – Brown Pundits
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.