Month: January 2019
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The ancient DNA oligopoly and the stories people tell about David Reich
There is a very long piece in The New York Times Magazine, Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old Traps?. It’s the talk of DNA-Twitter for obvious reasons. The very fact that you have a long piece in The New York Times…
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The state of Neanderthals in early 2019
PNAS has published a paper, Limits of long-term selection against Neandertal introgression. It’s from a preprint which I blogged this summer. What are the major takeaways here? It’s been about 10 years since the draft Neanderthal genome was…
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How your Neanderthal functions in the human genome
What does it mean that you have Neanderthal ancestry? Everyone agrees now that that ancestry exists, but does it make you any different from what you’d be otherwise? From a scientific perspective, one might ask what the function of Neanderthal genetic …
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To understand Neanderthals we need to understand ourselves
In 2010 researchers sequenced the whole genome of a single Neanderthal. From comparing this genome to that of humans alive today they concluded, to their surprise, that many modern human populations had Neanderthal ancestry! More specifically, all popu…
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Supporting the Brown Pundits “BrownCast”
When Zach, Omar, and myself began the BrownCast I said that at some point we’d have to think about how we could make it self-supporting. Some people are already complaining about the production quality. There’s a reason for that: I’ve been doing all the editing. I literally had never used Audacity before, and as most…
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Liberty and justice for all
Saudi Teenager Who Fled Family Embraces All Things Canadian. (O.K., Maybe Not Winter.): She wants to go to college to study architecture. She would like to take English classes. She is wondering about how to harness her newfound media stardom. … …
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Open Thread – Brown Pundits
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
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An Iyer in the Whitehouse
As most of you probably know, <<<Kamala Harris>>>’ <<<mother>>> (who raised her after she was divorced from Harris’ father was an immigrant from India. A Tamil Brahmin physician, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris instilled a sense of Indian culture in her daughter. At least according to Harris’ Indian. The weird thing about Harris for me is…
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Open Thread, 01/14/2019
Robert Alter has a new translation of The Hebrew Bible out. I really like Alter’s work. In particular, Genesis: Translation and Commentary. But read all his stuff! NPR has an interview with him up right now. He admits that he did the translation …
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A Hindu in the Whitehouse?
Tulsi Gabbard is running for President. She is a devotee of Gaudiya Vaishnava Hinduism. Her father is half-Samoan, and due to her dark looks and Hindu religion, she is often assumed to be South Asian. And, she does have connections to South Asian culture through her religious affinities. That being said, I assume this is…
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Forgetting the past
How could the Indo-Aryans have been from somewhere else if it is not recorded in their traditions? This is a common question that comes form many Indians. It is an entirely Indo-centric perspective. This is a description, not a critique. After all, the Indo-European Greeks have no lore of migration in the Hesiod. Many, such…
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The genetic palimpsest of the Horn of Africa
Over the last few days I’ve been looking at genetic data related to the Middle East, and as part of that process, I added some Ethiopian samples (in particular, Beta Israel). Which has brought me to thinking about the issue of the origins of the …
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The diversity of modern Arabians
Genetic variation of ArabiansAt the confluence of Europe, Asia, and Africa, it is no surprise that the Middle East is genetically diverse and varied, just as its complex history would suggest. With numerous ancient peoples, from Egyptians to Sumerians,…
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On the edge of Africa and Eurasia
Rub’ al KhaliThe sands of Arabia harbor romantic allure for many, despite their desolation. At the nexus between Eurasia and Africa, the Arabian peninsula serves as both a conduit and barrier for trade and migration. On its northern fringe arose the fi…
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Brown Pundits – Episode 7, Sarah Haider, Islam, identity, and the “public life”
The latest BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes 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. The guest this week is Sarah Haider. She is executive director of Ex-Muslims of North America.…
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Open Thread – Brown Pundits
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
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Open Thread, 01/07/2019
Because of BookBub I get notified of a lot of book deals. For example, The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy and the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia and Han China is now $1.30 on Kindle. This is like when The Shape of Ancient…
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Toward a mature conservatism
India scientists dismiss Einstein theories: In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha – whose elephant head is attached to a human body – showed cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told medical staff at a…
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The variation in religion and our evolutionary history
As my post on intelligence was quite successful, I thought perhaps I would offer up something similar on religion, since that’s a topic where I have been giving opinions based on fragments of my own views for some time. The point in this post is …
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How is Austin getting less diverse? Not racially
Lawrence Wright has a new book out, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State. One thing I see him saying is that Austin is less diverse. Since he’s lived there for many decades, he has some personal data to bring to the tabl…