razib
Posts by this author
July 15, 2006
Strong words from a "progressive" site:
Because it further negates their discrimination-based "biblical worldview," the science of human genetics - which has again suggested homosexuality is genetic (determined before birth) and not simply "a lifestyle choice" - is the Christian Right's…
July 15, 2006
In my post below on the phenotypic difference in sensitivity to PTC (and ergo, bitterness), I allude to the fact that until recently the inheritance mode of this simple mongenic Mendelian trait (that is, controlled from one locus in the genome) was assumed to express via a dominance-recessive…
July 14, 2006
Wikipedia is really funny, I mean, what you stumble upon...Nikah Ijtimah "is a form of polyandry that existed in the Pre-Islamic period in the Arabian peninsula." I knew of the purported existence of polyandry in pre-Islamic Arabia (see No God but God), but this, I did not know of:
...there were…
July 13, 2006
In modern philosophy of the mind an unresolved issue is the question of qualia [update: I might be wrong about this actually]. What is 'whiteness' or 'sweetness,' as such? Well, I'm not a philosopher, but one thing that has interested me over the past few years has been the genetics of taste.…
July 12, 2006
A few months ago I posted on a conundrum that faces liberal moderns when it comes to engaging "traditional" peoples. The short of it is that the typical Eurasian pathogen load is deadly over the life history of individuals from many smaller isolated populations. I posted after reading Land of the…
July 12, 2006
Ask a Science Blogger ?:
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?...
Well, I waited this week to see if someone would say what I would say to save me the trouble of responding. Dynamic of the…
July 11, 2006
I don't speak that much about the Evolution-Creation debate in comparison to other Science Bloggers. Fundamentally, it is because I find the elucidation of the fact of evolution far more fascinating at this point in my life than an analysis of the meta-scientific and cultural issues revolving…
July 11, 2006
Gmail's "chat" app is now integrated via AJAX with the email application. In other words, if you've sent someone an email from gmail to gmail you will show up in their user list for chat automatically. I was explaining this to a coworker and I proceeded to demonstrate it. One woman that I always…
July 11, 2006
One of the things that frustrates me about the modern Left is that many secularists tend to pull their punches when it comes to non-white or non-Christian groups. While white Protestant charismatics are sneered at as "holy rollers," black Protestant charismatics are "inspirational" and "spiritual…
July 10, 2006
Helen of Troy by Bettany Hughes offers a panaromic romp across the the Eastern Mediterranean between the end of the Bronze Age and the cusp of the Age of Iron. Hughes, a historian by training, inserts her own insights as to what it must have been to be a woman of the Achaeans within the framework…
July 10, 2006
This is a shout out to regular readers, I'm asking a survey in this entry to get a general feel for who is reading this weblog since I'm 6 monthis into this, so please click below the fold if you are interested in fessing up
How did you find Gene Expression - Science Blogs
Gene Expression -…
July 10, 2006
This is somewhat Onion worthy, but it happens to be true: identical twins now run Poland. Specifically, both the legislative (Prime Minister) and executive branches (President) are under the control of a of monozygotic twin (via ParaPundit).
July 10, 2006
Just a reiteration on prosopagnosia. Let's assume that the findings as to the extent of face blindness pan out (I am willing to grant they found something seeing as there was an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance in the pedigree).
1) I am skeptical that the 2% frequency in the population is…
July 9, 2006
Update: Hawks responds.
John Hawks has not commented on this feature in Wired titled Code of the Caveman. But I'm sure he will, and when he does, I will point you to it because what he says on this topic is worth listening to. But, until then, here are a few points.
1) This extraction of ancient…
July 8, 2006
Charles Lumsden's Of Biocultural Mathematics and Mind is too long for me to summarize in my half roused state. Nevertheless, I suspect some of you will find it of interest....
July 7, 2006
Prosopagnosia is "An inability or difficulty in recognizing familiar faces; it may be congenital or result from injury or disease of the brain." I've talked about this before. Well, Jake "The Superficial" Young now has a follow up post on the paper which elicited my initial skepticism. Since you…
July 7, 2006
Check out Darwin Catholic, a traditionalist Roman Catholic who comments on the intersection between his faith and evolutionary biology (and other things).
July 6, 2006
I am a registered Republican. There, I said it. I'm not a particularly ardent one, but I am not ashamed of being a Republican. I have no idea if there are any other Republican bloggers here at Science Blogs, even nominal ones like myself. Additionally, my impression is that aside from David Ng…
July 6, 2006
This entry is somewhat unconvential, but I will place in the "brain & behavior" category because I want comments on my own feelings & attitudes from those who know some psychology. I am an individual with opinions about the world. I suppose you could say that I'm your typical individual…
July 5, 2006
A worthy (so I believe) repost from my other blog....
[begin repost]
Several years back David wrote about Sewall Wright's Shifting Balance Theory. If you know much about the history of mathematical genetics you know that R.A. Fisher and Wright's disputes over the importance of population…
July 5, 2006
Jake at Pure Pedantry has been on a blog tear posting some seriously funny shit. But this post on Linsday Hohan makes me wonder what the real identity of the guy who blogs at The Superficial is.
A real smokin' readhead below the fold....
July 5, 2006
If you are reading this at paternityzone.com, you should know
1) This content was generated here, under the aegis of Science Blogs.
2) I am not a "contributor" to paternityzone.com.
3) Taking an RSS feed and making it look like regular content without attribution isn't cool.
4) You should ask…
July 4, 2006
Is it just me, or is Miss Albania trying to do an Angelina Jolie? Picture below the fold....
July 4, 2006
On another weblog I got involved in a rather long-winded thread on colonialism in British India. Someone made an assertion about Islam and its relatively non-effect on the subcontinent. This seemed strange. My own family is brown and Muslim, but one can't generalize from one's own experience, no?…
July 4, 2006
The LA Times commissioned a poll and found that:
54% of Americans would not vote for a Muslim
37% of Americans would not vote for a Mormon
21% of Americans would not vote for an evangelical Christian
15% of Americans would not vote for a Jew
10% of Americans would not vote for a Roman Catholic
This…
July 3, 2006
The Guardian has a long piece up by a Muslim who has wrestled with the issue of reconciling his faith with evolutionary theory. The author is a secretary for The Muslim Council of Britain, an organization criticized for its illiberal tendencies (e.g., rejection of the participation of homosexual…