razib
Posts by this author
I just found this article by Heather Mac Donald in Slate, Send a Message to God: He has gone too far this time. She published it two years ago, and somehow I missed it!
Jason Rosenhouse has a nice post on the rate of mutation within the genome. David plumbs the depths of J.B.S. Haldane's 2s. Peromyscus posts on the ladies looking for possible "extra-pair matings." A**man posts on short guys.
Yesterday I watched Will Wilkinson and Ezra Klein on Blogging Heads. Will, as many of you will know, is a pragmatic libertarian (oh, they exist), while Ezra is a liberal. I was struck by (somewhat appalled in fact) by Ezra's irritation and contempt for the philosophical nerdiness of many…
Jonah over at The Frontal Cortex has some commentary up on the gay sheep story. A reader pointed out that this controversy started off with some wild claims made by PETA. Nevertheless (more at Andrew Sullivan's), no matter the details of the claim, there are a few points I'd like to pick up on....…
Jason Rosenhouse and John Hawks have both commented on the introgression of cattle alleles into wild bison. J & J have hit many of the salient points, but let me suggest one issue: not all genetic loci are created equal. That is, "neutral" markers should be weighted less than "functional"…
With all the controversy around Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, no one seems to be publicizing the first two Buddhists in the House, Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Hank Johnson (Georgia).
Over the past month or so I've been blogging chapter 5 of Evolutionary Genetics: Concepts & Case Studies. This chapter covers "stochastics processes," basically the random elements in the flux of gene frequencies in biological populations. Now, I'm a selection man for real, but to understand…
Over in The Corner they are talking about eugenics. Of course my friend John Devilshire, I mean, Derbyshire, started it all off.
1) I think Jonah Goldberg is correct that eugenics we do will be not called eugenics, while eugenics which is ethically objectional will be thrown under that term.
2) I…
Over at Accidental Blogger Ruchira Paul has a profile up of Barbara Forrest, philosopher and science activist. I've long admired her coauthor Paul Gross, who I've had the pleasure of being mildly acquainted with on internet mailing lists, and I props to Dr. Forrest as well. I don't talk much…
Differential fitness costs of reproduction between the sexes:
We found that increasing number of offspring (parity) and rates of reproduction were associated with reduced parental survivorship, and significantly more for mothers than fathers. Parental mortality resulted in reduced survival and…
Over at my other blog 10 questions fo Heather Mac Donald. You might remember Heather from her recent dust up with other conservatives in regards to her secularity.
The headline says it all: Down screening urged for all pregnant women.
Related: To breed a better human - we have the technology.
Science told: hands off gay sheep:
Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of "gay" sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.
You can read the whole article yourself. Randall Parker has been saying for years that…
Genetic Evidence for the Convergent Evolution of Light Skin in Europeans and East Asians:
...these results point to the importance of several genes in shaping the pigmentation phenotype and a complex evolutionary history involving strong selection. Polymorphisms in two genes, ASIP and OCA2, may…
Earlier this week I sketched out the general theoretical basis for not denying unexpected deviations from expectation, so to speak, when it comes to quantitatve traits. The main issue is that varying genetic backgrounds leave unaccounted for gene-gene interactions, and so our predictions when two…
Life has been occupying me, why, between good wine (I prefer mild Chardonnay), work, books and beautiful women who detest science fiction I haven't been able to resume my survey of Evolutionary Genetics: Concepts & Case Studies. Nevertheless, I'd like to point you to Jason Rosenhouse's…
I work on two machines in the mid-to-high 2 Ghz range with 1 gig of RAM on a regular basis. And yet the new YAHOO MAIL "Beta" has consistently crashed and throttled Firefox multiple times within the last few days. If your AJAX app does this you're worse than Microsoft.
Client: Is my app Web 2.0TM…
John Lynch has a post up about Richard Dawkins' lack of theological sophistication in The God Delusion. John is basically reiterating the point that Dawkins did not truly engage theological arguments for theism on a very high or sophisticated level. In fact, John levels the implicit charge that…
A few months ago I posted Discrete continuity in genetics to show how the granular nature of genetic inheritance may still manifest to our perception as continuous variation (i.e., quantitative traits). I used skin color as a model trait because it is easy to relate to, and we are beginning to…
Below I spoke of historical perspective, while earlier I referred to Christmas as "universal pagan wine poured into a particular Christian chalice." I thought I might elaborate upon this.
First, the cultural and historical origins of Christmas are multi-textured. Though Christians assert "Jesus is…
I'm reading The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather. Most people know I'm a classical history buff (e.g., I've read a fair number of the late Michael Grant's works). Now, one thing that always strikes is this: 2,000 years ago a political organization existed which stretched from Scotland to…
Steinn Sigurðsson has an has an amusing post up about his multicultural Christmas. Here is the "American Infidel," Robert Ingersoll, on Christmas (1892):
This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal.
This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of…
New paper in PLOS Genetics, Low Levels of Genetic Divergence across Geographically and Linguistically Diverse Populations from India. Here's the conclusion:
Populations from India, and groups from South Asia more generally, form a genetic cluster, so that individuals placed within this cluster are…