razib | May 28, 2007Kambiz @ Anthropology.net has an excellent review of the case of the Chinese warlord with "European" ancestry.
razib | May 28, 2007Chris has a long response to Paul Bloom's recent argument about intuition & science & education. You can also see Jake Young's critical take here, as Chris responds in part to some of his issues with the piece.
razib | May 26, 2007I've been blogging since spring of 2002. I've seen 'em come and go. Interestingly, I've noted that three blogs I once followed have sprung back to life after going silent relatively early on in the blosphere's evolution, Ideofact, Rachel Lucas and Brink Lindsey. It's all rather strange to see people pop up into the cyberworld after such a hiatus, I've certainly evolved, but these individuals (less so Brink) have engaged in saltation, if you remember their previous morphs at least.
razib | May 26, 2007Want to make analytic philosophy papers the exemplars of lively and clear prose? Just read some articles from The Harvard Law Review. My own personal experience with lawyers is that most of them know the law as well as a heating & cooling engineer knows the temperature systems of the typical modern building. That being said, heating & cooling engineers don't presume to have insights into the human condition, while many smart lawyers seem to think they do have such general knowledge. Lawyers are the potentates of process, and I give them their due, but they should leave…
razib | May 25, 2007I've received a few emails from friends about this piece in Edge titled Why the Gods are Not Winning. The reason is that I've made it clear that in many ways I think religiosity as we understand it naturally arises out of the intersection of our societies and our cognition, that atheism is not the ancestral "wild type" for our species. In some ways the piece at Edge is a good corrective and offers up a lot of data that people need to know. Recently an acquaintance of mine mentioned that the United States is undergoing a "religious revival." I responded that over the last 10 years those…
razib | May 22, 2007The emergence of a superorganism through intergroup competition:
Surveys of insect societies have revealed four key, recurring organizational trends: (i) The most elaborated cooperation occurs in groups of relatives. (ii) Cooperation is typically more elaborate in species with large colony sizes than in species with small colony sizes, the latter exhibiting greater internal reproductive conflict and lesser morphological and behavioral specialization. (iii) Within a species, per capita brood output typically declines as colony size increases. (iv). The ecological factors of resource patchiness…
razib | May 22, 2007I know most readers have/watch TV, so the Geico Neandertal commercials aren't new to them. But I thought I'd post this on the chance that some haven't seen them, because I really like this one....
razib | May 22, 2007I was having coffee with a friend of mine. She's an attractive young woman who was once a professional model of some promise (she's not single guys, no emails inquiring please!). I simply note this fact to frame the following anecdote appropriately and make clear how incongruous it was. I was explaining to her the ethical issues involved in selective abortion of fetuses who will have Down Syndrome. When I mentioned Down Syndrome a pall seemed to hang over the conversation, and there was a moment of silence. She looked at me very gravely and stated, "I was once tormented and picked on by…
razib | May 19, 2007I have a long review of God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis over at my other weblog. This is part 1 of 2 for this review, with the second focusing on European Islam. If you are a data junkie I highly recommend God's Continent.
razib | May 18, 2007Check out Julian Sanchez's v-log. I agree with the general thrust of his critique, but I'm also intrigued by the possibilities of turning v-logs into mini-Daily Shows as he does with the video splicing here (I assume he didn't spend a lot of time on this). I don't think it is really appropriate for science because it isn't like scientists normally are talking about their work on TV all the time, but perhaps when it comes to something with stem cell policy and the occasional "panel discussions" you see it might be interesting and funny.
razib | May 18, 2007Blackbirds Evolving Uptown:
More than a century ago, some European Blackbirds gave up the commuting life. The traditional routine was to nest in northern forests but head for southern Europe or northern Africa at the first sign of winter. Then some populations discovered that winter in the city isn't half-bad: The microclimate is warm with plenty of tasty leftovers. So strong is the appeal of city life, according to a research team in Germany, that it is has not only changed the blackbirds' behavior, but their genetics, too.
razib | May 18, 2007Martin mulls over the question, Are Humans Polygamous? There is lots of interesting discussion, with a FinnXPer & reindeer lover in the fray. I think part of the confusion here is simply semantical. Cultural anthropologists often tend to define an -ogamy based on the preferred ideal within a society. So you have circumstances where the social ideal is polygyny, but for various reasons most males (and even females) aren't in polygynous relationships. In contrast, behavioral ecologists tend to look at it a different way, the extent of polygyny can be thought of as the ratio of the…
razib | May 14, 2007I don't watch many films, but I thought I would pass this along...
Live and Become, never checked the time. Great film. It was long, but the time flew by.
Hot Fuzz, checked the time only once, 3/4 of the way through the film. Pretty good.
The Namesake, checked the time a fair amount, especially the second half of the film. Tried to do too much.
Spiderman 3, checked the time a lot. Am I old? The special effects didn't do it for me. Give me some 3-D CGI and smells or something new.
razib | May 13, 2007In my post on religious diversity I received this comment:
And for the record, I don't think anybody's religious sensibilities deserve to be put above the law. You want a driver's license, you show your face for the picture. You want to be pharmacist, you sell anything legal. You want to take government-insured patients, you take all of them.
It's no more ridiculous to worship that bull than a book. No less, either.
I agree with the ultimate sentiment in my heart. That being said, proximate judgments and assessments are made with the head. The fool hath said in his heart, "Religion is just…
razib | May 12, 2007The New York Times has a piece which goes over the issue of genetic testing and abortion. Most of the coverage is given over to people who support abortion rights but are not particularly happy about the consequences of the rhetoric of "choice." I'm not old enough to remember, but does this airing of "concerns" remind anyone of some of the sounds made when "test tube" babies were a big social issue? I suspect that most "progressives" given space in this article would concede the importance of points the disability rights activist person makes. That being said, I also suspect that they won'…