razib
Posts by this author
November 16, 2007
Simpler mode of inheritance of transcriptional variation in male Drosophila melanogaster:
Sexual selection drives faster evolution in males. The X chromosome is potentially an important target for sexual selection, because hemizygosity in males permits accumulation of alleles, causing tradeoffs in…
November 15, 2007
It's almost Friday here in the United States. The latest update I can find is that 200 people have died due to typhoon Sidr. These are almost certainly "early returns," and the numbers will keep going up. Like pre-modern battles most of the fatalities won't be directly due to the cyclone. Social…
November 14, 2007
I've discussed heritability quite a bit on this weblog. Over the past 5 years of blogging on genetic topics this is the #1 issue I've been attempting to nail into the heads of readers because it is a concept which is critical in correctly modeling the world around us. It isn't an idea which is in…
November 13, 2007
NOVA's documentary about the Dover Creationism case, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, aired tonight. If you don't have a TV, or missed it and don't have a TIVO, etc., you can watch it online on the 16th.
November 13, 2007
I don't post much on politics because I really have little value to add. And with my diverse readership in regards to politics I can't really be throwing posts to the effect of "look at these idiotic conservatives/liberals!!!" and expect to get a bunch of "right on!" comments in response. But I…
November 11, 2007
On page 380 of Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory I stumbled onto some interesting data from the 1970s. The paper was Admixture Studies and the Detection of Selection , and its aim was to gage the extent of white ancestry within black populations. They generated a measure, M, for…
November 10, 2007
Just a note, as I've read most of it now I'm starting to think that Alan Templeton's Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory is an excellent complement to R.A. Fisher's classic The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Fisher's prose is dense, and sometimes it is a bit much to extract…
November 10, 2007
I'm curious about the readers of this weblog as we've been queried by the higher ups, but I don't know much aside from readers whose handles I am familiar with. I've set up a small survey with two questions, the first which asks which other science weblogs you read and the second on political…
November 9, 2007
So, check out this retarded post at the Huntington Post, Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human Behavior:
Plain talk: The Darwinian prop of the lone cowboy rugged conservative bundle of selfish genes has now been pulled out from under the cowboy and the lone cowboy has…
November 9, 2007
Due to positive mentions from readers and friends I finally got Alan Templeton's Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory. I've read a few chapters and skimmed through much of the book, and my current take is that it's a bit too wordy in the exposition. I'd have preferred that there be…
November 9, 2007
Picked up a book, Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers, a nice little survey spun off into a short book. The authors primarily used a sample of respondents (N ~ 350) from some atheist clubs in the San Francisco area. The respondents were older (median ~ 60), well educated (…
November 8, 2007
A few weeks ago I posted about Neandertal red-hair, and offered a note of caution:
Red hair emerges because of a lack of balance between the production of dark eumelanin and red-yellow pheomelanin. When both are down regulated in terms of production one obtains ash blonde hair. I am not totally…
November 8, 2007
Genetics Has A Role In Determining Sexual Orientation In Men, Further Evidence:
In other research, Witelson and research associate Debra Kigar, had found that left-handers have a larger region of the posterior corpus callosum -- the thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the…
November 7, 2007
The title says it all; my first thought when I saw the picture & the caption on The Washington Post's website was to wonder how bad the drought in the American South was! Ah, but it's the other Georgia....
November 6, 2007
Over at the Sepia Mutiny blog there has been seem dispute over whether Pervez Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan. Some contributors are appalled, while others are urging caution. One of the posts was titled In defense of a dictator, and it understandably drew a lot of…
November 5, 2007
Moderation of breastfeeding effects on the IQ by genetic variation in fatty acid metabolism:
...Breastfed children attain higher IQ scores than children not fed breast milk, presumably because of the fatty acids uniquely available in breast milk. Here we show that the association between…
November 4, 2007
Just a note to all the nerds, Beyond Belief II is complete. Here is a list of speakers. Many familiar faces, but some new ones too. It will be posted at The Science Network when editing is completed.
Update: PZ has a summary.
November 4, 2007
Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science has an interesting post up, Income, religious attendance, and voting:
Church attendance is a strong predictor of how high-income people vote, not such a good predictor for low-income voters.
Why? I think the most likely explanation is that…
November 4, 2007
In my post below I wanted to emphasize that religion has several distinct and independent dimensions. Too often in our modern era religion is reduced purely to the dimension of confession or belief because of its relative accessibility to outsiders. Here is some of that complexity on display, from…
November 3, 2007
I've gotten tired of Firefox freezing when Newsweek.com (and other sites) loads. Recently Firefox started freezing in gmail when I tried to use the search. But the UI for Safari, Opera and IE are inferior in my opinion. Any recs for something similar to Firefox that doesn't freeze all the time?
November 3, 2007
From a New York Times Magazine piece about Antony Flew. Here is the most shocking part:
When I asked Varghese, he freely admitted that the book was his idea and that he had done all the original writing for it. But he made the book sound like more of a joint effort -- slightly more, anyway. "There…
November 1, 2007
Thank you to everyone who donated! To me the most gratifying thing is to know that so many students are being affected. Let's do this again next year!
November 1, 2007
William Saletan has a piece up over at Slate, Jewgenics, which covers his reactions to a talk (you can view it online) sponsored by AEI around Jon Entine's book Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People. I've read the book, though I don't have time to listen to the talk…
November 1, 2007
Here is another write up of Genetic determinants of hair, eye and skin pigmentation in Europeans. Generally echoes my own impressions, though I offer the link in the hope it is more readable! The paper was hard to reduce because of the contingency and polymorphism across the many genes affecting…