Gene Expression
Archives for February, 2006
Politics Quiz
Posted by Razib Khan on February 21, 2006 Below the fold are the results from a politics quiz I took. Nothing surprising, but just a testament that Seed is politically latitudinarian….
Dancing parameters
Posted by Razib Khan on February 21, 2006 Biology is sloppy. I always say “all parameters held equal” or “all variables controlled” because there are so many factors to consider. I am now reading a classic, The Genetics of Human Poulations, by L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and W. F. Bodmer, and here is an interesting bit from the chapter on population structure: consanguineous rates…
The society of science
Posted by Razib Khan on February 21, 2006 A few days ago Janet posted on the importance of critical faculties in science in response to a series of posts by PZ and John on how we get the public to understand science (mostly evolution in this case). Critical thinking is obviously important in science, as is experimentation, model building, reproducibility, etc. etc. If…
Selection at work?
Posted by Razib Khan on February 21, 2006 A story in The Economist, titled the fertility bust (in the “Charlemagne” column), offers this interesting tidbit: Germany is something of an oddity in this. In most countries with low fertility, young women have their first child late, and stop at one. In Germany, women with children often have two or three. But many have…
Technical issues
Posted by Razib Khan on February 21, 2006 I’ve increased the security of comments (required email, etc.). This might cause issues, more here.
The story of symbolic algebra
Posted by Razib Khan on February 20, 2006 Chad is not happy with my previous post where I consider that we shouldn’t expect that everyone should be able to pass algebra conditional upon a deep understanding of the subject. First, let me state that my post was in part operating outside what I will call the “Cohen narrative.” Rather, I wanted to interject…
Multiculturalism
Posted by Razib Khan on February 19, 2006 Update: Link fixed. I have a long post on my other website commenting on Amartya Sen’s new piece in The New Republic, Chili and Liberty. First paragraph below: Amartya Sen has an interesting piece in The New Republic titled Chili and liberty: the uses and abuses of multiculturalism. Sen’s piece addresses the paradox in the…
One book to educate them all
Posted by Razib Khan on February 19, 2006 OK, a question. Imagine that you are the only adult left in the world and everyone else is under the age of 6. Assume helper robots obviate the need to micromanage the lives of the children, toddlers and infants in your care. You can choose one book from each of the disciplines of humanity to…
Gene loss in humans
Posted by Razib Khan on February 19, 2006 Tim posts on the recent PLOS paper Gene Losses during Human Origins published by the Wang et al. If that gets you all excited, check out The Origin of Subfunctions and Modular Gene Regulation and Preservation of Duplicate Genes by Complementary, Degenerative Mutations. I might lionize the contributions of R.A. Fisher, Sewall Wright and J.B.S.…
Science Blogs technical issues
Posted by Razib Khan on February 19, 2006 Orac is having technical issues with SB, and on some blogs comments post very slowly. I just wanted to post a notice because the problems are spotty and some of us aren’t having issues.