Razib Khan’s Content Aggregation Site
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God is back! (in Russia)
For over ten years I have been making fun of John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge’s 2009 book God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World. […]
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Open Thread – 10/17/2020
The thread is open. Three new podcasts this week in case you aren’t subscribed. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with things and I just can’t be bothere with detailed show notes. As I mentioned before I’m recording interviews for a new podcast I’m starting up separate from the others I run. I’m just throwing them on…
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The rise of Indicus!
A few years ago an ancient DNA paper on cattle was published, Ancient cattle genomics, origins, and rapid turnover in the Fertile Crescent. It’s a pretty good paper with interesting results. The paper confirmed pretty strikingly that there was a punctuated and massive expansion of indicus ancestry across the Near East between 3,500 and 4,000…
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Their Muslim Problem—And Ours
Every now and then there is a controversy on Indian-Twitter which bleeds over into my timeline that I have to notice. Some quick observations: – There are those who lambast the critics of this ad. Many of the critics are low-IQ vulgarians. So the criticism is not without foundation. But, most of the responses dodge…
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Has China won by beating coronavirus?
About three weeks ago the Chinese reported a few instances of community spread in Qingdao. Five days ago a story broke that there were now 13 individuals. The government said […]
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To my sons: be a man as Poitier is!
The death of Olivia de Havilland made me very sad. For many years I had tracked the passing of various “Golden Age” movie stars. I myself don’t remember this period, […]
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Prime Day!
It’s “Prime Day” (well, the second). I know it has nothing to do with Prime Day as such, but I really do recommend all of you read Who We Are […]
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A more nuanced model for the settling of the Americans
The genomic formation of First American ancestors in East and Northeast Asia: Upward Sun River 1, an individual from a unique burial of the Denali tradition in Alaska (11500 calBP), […]
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Open Thread – 10/11/2020
I notice that Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present is on sale. Am I a sucker for cheap Kindle books with high page counts? Yes. But […]
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Climate change is a development problem
In the comments below there is some mention of the problems that Bangladesh will face due to increases in global sea level. The hypothesis is that there will be a mass migration to India as Bangladeshis flee low-level zones which are going to be inundated. I don’t think this is capturing the real issue: if…
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Beyond the Bangladeshi basket-case
Coronavirus has been an economic disaster all across South Asia. But, beyond that, there are changes that have occurred before the pandemic and will continue after. For example, Bangladesh’s per capita GDP now higher than eastern and northeastern India: Bangladesh’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is now higher than most Indian states in eastern…
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Economic data on South Asia
So what are the reasons for various differences statistically?
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Noakhali rape victim video
Bangladesh: Protests Erupt Over Rape Case: Protests in Bangladesh erupted this week after a video of a group of men attacking, stripping, and sexually assaulting a woman went viral, Human Rights Watch said today. Protesters called for the resignation of Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal over the government’s failure to address an alarming rise in…
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Week 1, Gene Expression book club
Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe starts rather quickly and succinctly out of the great. The author reviews the extant literature and folk […]
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Open Thread – 10/10/2020
Some cool podcasts will be posted soon. Already posted two on the Patron page, including a very cool one where Mukunda and Jahanarra talk to Michael Fortner. A professor at CUNY, Fortner is the author of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment. I’ve also posted a podcast with Devang…
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China, strong government, free society, India, weak government, strong society
In our discussion on the podcast, Abhinav talked about China and India in relation to society vs. government. I stumbled on this chart from Pew that illustrates it. China’s government controls religion much more than India’s government. But on a personal level, the Chinese have much more freedom in their religious identity. Indians are simply…
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Gene Expression Book Club – it’s off!
So I’ve started reading the two books we selected: – Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War – Not Born […]
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Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and genetics
Recently a few people have been asking me about Armenian, Turks, and genetics. Mostly because I’ve written about this topic before. Unless you’ve been asleep you know that there is […]
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Brown Pundits Browncast episodes 128 and 129
This week two quick episodes with two sagacious repeat guests. – With Jasper Gregory I revisit the situation in Vietnam. From coronavius, to BLM, to K-Pop. – With Abhinav Pradesh I discuss the Hathras rape, how it relates to caste politics in UP, and the various Dalit groups in that state. You may notice a…
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Population structure in West Bengal and Bangladesh
The Genomes Asia 100K has put their Indian paper out. It’s OK, and mostly focuses on the fact that Indians are enriched for inbreeding vis-a-vis other world populations. There are several layers to this. In some cases, as among South Indian Hindus and Muslims, there is cousin-marriage. But, in other cases, for example, Scheduled Castes…