December 31, 2007
Gay heads of state (as in, obligate homosexuals) permlink
Category: Culture
So, I just found out that Sayyed Qaboos bin Sa'id Al 'Bu Sa'id, the Sultan and autocrat of Oman, is a homosexual. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But that got me thinking, are there any other homosexual heads...
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Posted by Razib at 7:14 PM • 12 Comments •
Formalization & process permlink
Category: Evolution
Rich Lawler has an insightful comment: It's interesting to note that a few of the most insightful observations about the evolutionary process were first promulgated verbally, then later proven mathematically (unlike H-W equilibrium). These include runaway sexual selection (first adumbrated...
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Posted by Razib at 6:22 PM • 7 Comments •
Sex ratio & migration via X & Y permlink
Category: Genetics
Looking for Nm* values for humans I stumbled across an interesting paper, Estimating sex-specific processes in human populations: Are XY-homologous markers an effective tool?: ...To test this idea, we analyzed XY-homologous microsatellite diversity in 33 human populations from Africa, Asia...
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Posted by Razib at 9:56 AM • 1 Comments •
December 30, 2007
p's & q's vs. verbs permlink
Category: Science
Evolgen and Popgen Ramblings have put up posts where they criticize a parameter of the acceleration paper. John Hawks responds in the comments. But I thought this line was priceless: Nah, you're not a dirty anti-adaptationist! All these labels are...
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Posted by Razib at 7:28 PM • 7 Comments •
It's about inevitability.... permlink
Category: Evolution
Laelaps has an excellent post up, Evolution's Arrow, which you should read. Set some time aside, it is long. I don't know enough about paleontology to comment with great insight on the many of the topics which Laelaps alludes to,...
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Posted by Razib at 4:08 PM • 3 Comments •
December 28, 2007
Category: Blog
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Posted by Razib at 9:59 AM • 6 Comments •
December 27, 2007
Obesity is heritable, not genetic permlink
Category: Genetics
Genome Wide Association (GWA) Study for Early Onset Extreme Obesity Supports the Role of Fat Mass and Obesity Associated Gene (FTO) Variants. Even if this is true, these correlations between particular alleles and obesity hold for the modern German lifestyle....
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Posted by Razib at 1:27 PM • 7 Comments •
Vitamin D: why evolution may matter permlink
Category: Evolution
Mark of Denialism left a comment below re: Vitamin D deficiency: I wouldn't call that evidence thin biff. The role of vitamin D in tuberculosis was actually pretty well nailed by studies of immigrants in the UK which demonstrate that...
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Posted by Razib at 9:47 AM • 6 Comments •
The Elders of Ron Paul permlink
Category: Politics
Ed and Mark are asking what's up with Ron Paul and the Neo-Nazis? I think...it's complicated. Colugo sketches out the general lay of the land pretty well, Ron Paul is a "paleo," specifically a paleolibertarian. He derives his ideology from...
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Posted by Razib at 5:11 AM • 6 Comments •
December 25, 2007
The Ascetic Style in American Atheism permlink
Category: Religion
On this Sunday's Weekend Edition on NPR there was a piece titled Removing Religion from the Holidays a Tall Order. Much of the story focuses upon Greg Epstein, a Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, and his attempt to forge a new...
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Posted by Razib at 12:52 PM • 19 Comments •