Genetics, evolution and their various tendrils
"So cute it hurts...."
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
May 12, 2008
Richard Dawkins interviewed by 3 Quarks Daily permlink
Category: Evolution
Here. The embed is the best bet if you can view it; the download often fails (server has been slammed?). Only a moderate amount of discussion about religion; Dawkins talks a fair bit about an obscure field, evolutionary biology. Well done.
Via Accidental Blogger.
Posted by Razib at 10:25 PM•3 Comments
Ways to skin the cousin marriage issue permlink
Category: Genetics
Another article about cousin marriage in the UK. The issue here is simple; you have a National Health Service which covers everyone, and doctors are noticing that Pakistanis are overrepresented in many cases of recessive diseases. The culprit is probably cousin marriage. Here are two points which are both valid:
'In our local school for deaf children, half the pupils are of Asian origin though Asians only form about 20 per cent of the population,' said Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley. 'I also know of several sets of parents in my constituency who are cousins and whose children are severely disabled. I have no doubt that the mothers and fathers being closely related to each is a key factor....
This last claim is hotly disputed by genetic counsellors and Muslim doctors. They point out that the danger of a child having birth defects if the parents are cousins is double that of other children, which means the risk rises from about 2 per cent in the general population to about 4 per cent when the parents are closely related. A risk of 4 per cent therefore does not make it 'likely' there will a genetic problem, as Woolas claimed, say genetic counsellors.
Posted by Razib at 7:33 PM•19 Comments
Browsing biology on the web: NextBio permlink
Category: Genetics
Last year p-ter put up a post pointing to useful online tools such as Haplotter. One of the great things about biology today is that so much of the data from genomics is being thrown out there within reach of the plebs. And a lot of value is being added through user interfaces which smooth the connection between you and these databases. So check out NextBio; from the FAQ:
Posted by Razib at 10:14 AM•1 Comments
Powerset permlink
Category: Blog
...is live. Don't know what I'm talking about? Natural language search; people have been talking about this as the Next Big Thing for a while.... (though I will say, if people have been talking about something, it isn't likely to be the Next Big Thing)
Posted by Razib at 5:04 AM•1 Comments
Religion in China permlink
Category: Culture
Pew has an excellent survey up about the state of religion and religiosity in China. There isn't a lot of good data out of China on this topic for obvious reasons. One of the phenomenon of recent years in the West has been the perception among evangelicals that China is the scene of mass conversions to Christianity. Because of the lack of data there are speculations of hundreds of millions of crypto-Christians; and some in the media repeat these claims rather uncritically (Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power is an example of the power of anecdote synthesized with the hope of evangelicals). It is almost certainly true that the "official" numbers presented by the Chinese government probably lowball the number of Christians, but this survey (skewed toward urban areas, where one assumes Christianity might be more prominent as it is in other East Asian nations) yields a number in the 2-4% range. Higher than what the Chinese government reports, but multiplicatively, not by orders of magnitude. But let's take a closer look at the data.
Posted by Razib at 12:45 AM•12 Comments
Western Muslims permlink
Category: Religion
I have a new sublog over at Talk Islam. My first post, A wrong track for Western Islam?:
Posted by Razib at 3:45 PM•
"Harun Yahya" goes to jail? permlink
Category: Creationism
Via The Corner, Turkish Islamic author given 3-year jail sentence:
Controversial Turkish Islamic author Adnan Oktar was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday for creating an illegal organization for personal gain, state-run Anatolian news agency said....
Oktar, born in 1956, is the driving force behind a richly funded movement based in Turkey that champions creationism, the belief that God literally created the world in six days as told in the Bible and the Koran.
Istanbul-based Oktar, who writes under the pen name Harun Yahya, has created waves in the past few years by sending out thousands of unsolicited texts advocating Islamic creationism to schools in several European countries.
(comments closed because of the inevitable influx of Yahyaites to this post)
Posted by Razib at 5:27 AM•
May 10, 2008
One explanation to rule them all permlink
Category: Culture
I've commented on height genetics now & then. It seems that the quantitative genetic supposition that variation on this trait was due to the cummulative effect of numerous loci of small effect is correct. Recent research has pinpointed about ~5% of the variance. In contrast, skin color variation is mostly due to polymorphism on about 6 loci; most of the variance is due to genes of large effect. This makes specific discussion of skin color easy, but height difficult.
I've been thinking about this when it comes social phenomena. Much of the verbal treatment presupposes a few large effect explanatory variables; but what if that's not correct? What if most social phenomena are contingent upon thousands of small effect predictors? How are you going to talk about this? And since we don't know the "gene" unit of social phenomena where do you even start? Of ourse quantitative social scientists focus on phenomena which do have independent variables of big effect; but most of the action might not be low hanging fruit, but rather dispersed in the canopy.
Posted by Razib at 1:05 PM•7 Comments
The theory of evolution permlink
Category: Genetics
Over at The Scientist Neil S. Greenspan has an article up, Darwin and deduction:
One of the most remarkable but insufficiently noted features of Charles Darwin's conception of evolution is that its logical implications are still being worked out. I am not merely claiming that experimental and observation studies continue to make use of and bear on Darwinian ideas and principles. I am calling attention to the fact that after almost a century and a half, new deductions are still being teased out of his very fertile axioms of descent with modification and natural selection.
One of the primary criterion which scientists use to judge the utility of a theory is its inferential power. It is one thing to describe; but another to predict. This is one reason I recommend all my friends to read The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection; R. A. Fisher's attempt to create a mathematical framework in which to conceptualize the action of natural selection within evolutionary process. To a great extent I think Fisher fails in his grandest objectives, but fundamentally I think the exposition clarifies one's thinking fruitfully.
Posted by Razib at 1:58 PM•0 Comments
Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life permlink
Category: Biology
I notice that the Moon-man is flogging Carl Zimmer's new book. So I feel it's time to pile-on, buy Microcosm! Carl is of course giving a series of talks at fine bookstores near you....
Posted by Razib at 12:23 AM•1 Comments
Sewall Wright & genetic drift permlink
Category: Genetics
Notes on Sewall Wright: Genetic Drift:
Continuing my series of notes on the work of Sewall Wright, this one deals with the subject of genetic drift. I had originally planned to call this note 'Inbreeding and the decline of genetic variance', but anyone interested in the matters covered here, and searching for them on the internet, is far more likely to search for 'genetic drift'. This is one of the subjects most closely associated with Wright, to the extent that genetic drift was formerly often known as the 'Sewall Wright Effect'. My main aim is to help people follow Wright's own derivation of his key results, and to clarify the relationship between genetic drift and inbreeding.
Also, you might be interested in Will Provine's seminal work, Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology. Provine synthesizes science, biography and history in such a manner so as to extract more than the sum of the parts.
Posted by Razib at 12:18 AM•0 Comments
May 7, 2008
Our Enemy, The State permlink
Category: Politics
Last fall I argued that the relatively light death toll of hurricane Sidr was due to improvements in the institutional framework of the Bangladeshi polity. More recently, I suggested that Burma's social & economic deficits vis-a-vis Bangladesh were due to negative government action. Now Chris Mooney has an article up on the reverberations of hurricane Nargis. Here's what caught my attention:
Posted by Razib at 2:07 AM•5 Comments
May 5, 2008
Jim Manzi on Expelled permlink
Category: Creationism
Posted by Razib at 11:27 AM•17 Comments
May 3, 2008
Iron Man permlink
Category:
Saw Iron Man with that genderist SOB Jake Young. All I can say is that it is nice that G. K. Paltrow finally has a hit on her hands after all these years....
Posted by Razib at 3:58 AM•9 Comments
