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October 31, 2008
Language vs. genes, similarities & differences permlink
Category: Science
Genetic and Linguistic Coevolution in Northern Island Melanesia: ...Here, we use high-quality data and novel methods to test two models of genetic and linguistic coevolution in Northern Island Melanesia, a region known for its complex history and remarkable biological and...
Posted by Razib at 5:20 PM • 4 Comments
Statistics and religious trends permlink
Category: Religion
I have a piece up for The Guardian's new Comment is Free Belief site, The use and abuse of statistics - Prophecies of the extinction of religion, or its triumph, fall prey to the weaknesses of linear prediction. Implicit in...
Posted by Razib at 1:06 PM • 3 Comments
The fact of the irrational voter permlink
Category: Culture
The Political Gender Gap: Gender Bias in Facial Inferences that Predict Voting Behavior: ...Contrary to the notion that people use deliberate, rational strategies when deciding whom to vote for in major political elections, research indicates that people use shallow decision...
Posted by Razib at 12:29 PM • 4 Comments
"Phoenician" DNA.... permlink
Category: Genetics
Dienekes and Kambiz both hit a new paper which claims to find the Y chromosomal (direct male descent lines) signatures of the ancient Phoenician colonization of the Mediterranean. I tend to see a lot of merit in Dienekes' criticisms, the...
Posted by Razib at 2:20 AM • 1 Comments
October 30, 2008
Jim Manzi on epistasis permlink
Category: Genetics
Jim Manzi has a long post up on epistasis, that is, gene-gene interactions: We could call this process of competing algorithms struggling to find the best solution as fast as possible "meta-evolution". That is, each potential search method must compete...
Posted by Razib at 4:58 PM • 18 Comments
Seed Magazine endorses Barack Hussein Obama II permlink
Category: Blog
You can read all about it. I don't have anything interesting to say on the election, so I'll leave it at that. I'm also closing comments on this post because I'm 99.999% sure you don't have anything interesting to say...
Posted by Razib at 10:32 AM •
Evolution and trustworthiness permlink
Category: Evolution
Evolution of trust and trustworthiness: social awareness favours personality differences (Open Access): Interest in the evolution and maintenance of personality is burgeoning. Individuals of diverse animal species differ in their aggressiveness, fearfulness, sociability and activity. Strong trade-offs, mutation-selection balance, spatio-temporal...
Posted by Razib at 8:59 AM • 0 Comments
The wealthy work harder? permlink
Category: Culture
In response to a Conor Friedersdorf post on hard-working high earners I decided to look around for some data on the differences between socioeconomic categories in terms of hours worked weekly. In the GSS I found a modest association between...
Posted by Razib at 4:50 AM • 7 Comments
October 29, 2008
Princeton Univeristy Press blog permlink
Category: Blog
Princeon University Press now has a weblog. It looks like a good idea in terms of getting publicity for authors of academic books (and ideally, you get some value-add in terms of insight and experience). I wonder if Andrew Gelman's...
Posted by Razib at 1:35 PM • 1 Comments
October 28, 2008
Race as a function of name permlink
Category: Culture
Dienekes has a interesting, if not surprising, post on how names can mold how we perceive people. I've posted on this before. The most extreme illustration of this tendency I've ever read is the fact that during segregation some southern...
Posted by Razib at 6:37 PM • 5 Comments
Where is Obama overperforming? permlink
Category: Politics
There has been a lot of talk of Barack Obama "expanding the map" this cycle for the Democrats. In mid-September when John McCain was at his polling-peak many were assuming that had just been a pipe-dream, and that the traditional...
Posted by Razib at 3:04 PM • 8 Comments
October 26, 2008
Indian American ethnicity permlink
Category: Culture
There was a comment below on Indian American ethnicity in terms of proportion. By "ethnicity," I mean the dominant language-based groups which serve as the organizing unit of many Indian states. The usual figures I see quoted are that 50%...
Posted by Razib at 11:42 PM • 15 Comments
Rise of the zombies? permlink
Category: Culture
William Saletan has an article out on the tendency for many Americans today to always be "hooked in" to technology through mobile devices (cell phones, iPods, etc.). I recall a woman loudly talking about her boyfriend leaving her, and the...
Posted by Razib at 9:24 PM • 8 Comments
October 25, 2008
Manjoo on Ubuntu permlink
Category: Technology
Linux Is Making Me Insane: Grappling with Ubuntu, the free, open-source operating system. I have Ubuntu on my PC through a dual-boot. I also purchased a USB wireless card which was guaranteed to be compatible with Ubuntu plug-and-play. It does...
Posted by Razib at 3:49 AM • 14 Comments
Asian American Republicans-it's a Christian thing permlink
Category: Culture
Obviously the most prominent Indian American politician today is Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana. But Jindal is not very representative of Indian Americans: ...Additionally, there are also industry-wide Indian American groupings including the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and...
Posted by Razib at 12:03 AM • 31 Comments
October 24, 2008
Finns as European outliers permlink
Category: Genetics
Dienekes points to another paper on European population substructure, Genome-Wide Analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Uncovers Population Structure in Northern Europe: In this study, we analysed almost 250,000 SNPs from a total of 945 samples from Eastern and Western Finland,...
Posted by Razib at 3:33 PM • 7 Comments
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