razib | August 26, 2006Like sex, altruism is a great mystery in the life sciences, especially in the case of humans (because of is generous expression). Neither kin selection nor reciprocal altruism seem able to explain the scale of human societies, their cooperativeness, their often unselfish nature. Several years back David Sloan Wilson and Elliott Sober wrote Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior to offer their own model, which works within a multi-level selection paradigm which suggests that cooperation and altruism are favored at the level of groups, above and apart from their…
razib | August 26, 2006Kathryn Jean Lopez is very skeptical of the new stem cell method. I think you might have to put a pitchfork in it then, it seems like she would be hyping it if she thought it could go anywhere....
razib | August 25, 2006RPM comments on some issues relating to human genetics. First, he points to the article about how conservatives are going to outbreed liberals, etc. etc. etc. The problem with this article is that the Left & the Right have been around since the late 18th century and history marches Leftward even though one assumes the Right has been breeding at a higher clip for the past 8+ generations. What gives?
First, there is a heritable component to political orientation. That is, a proportion (around 0.5) of the variation in of conservatism or liberalism within the population is attributable…
razib | August 25, 2006My post a few days ago about multiracial humans elicated many comments, and not all of them were flip or for amusement. There are some serious issues, like synergistic and antagonistic epistasis, which I would like to explore in the future. But, I think there are two primary "take home" points:
1) Aside from cases of problematic populations with recessive diseases (frankly, I think Ashkenazi Jews fall under this) the fitness benefit of outbreeding does not stand out so much as to be of great comment in the grand scheme of how you fix upon your one and only. I don't even think it really is…
razib | August 24, 2006Some of you know that I have been in a discussion with Right Reason about the relationship between Christianity and altruism. I will address in full this weekend when I have time many of Steve's arguments. Suffice it to say that I think he places more emphasis on the emergence and crystallization of ideas in texts than I do. But, I noted this this post over at The Inductivist which reports data from the World Values Survey:
Percent saying serving others is very important to them:
Top 10:
Puerto Rico 78.8
Morocco 67.8
Venezuela 67.7
Jordan 67.0
Mexico 63.6
Iran 62.1
Nigeria 62.0
Egypt 61.8…
razib | August 24, 2006Over the past two weeks I've avoided coffee. The main reason is that at my occupational habitat soft drinks are provided gratis, and I've been taking advantage of the opportunity to give my wallet a break. Additionally, the nearby coffee shop is a bit crowded both when I get to work, and during lunch, so walking over to the fridge has been the path of least resistance. But I was having some issues with a task at work which seemed (at the time) insoluble, so I caved and purchased a small 16 ounce coffee. As I put it to my mouth I was taken to a different, more affluent land, and as the odor…
razib | August 24, 2006Shellee asks:
"Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?"
There have been many good answers so far, though I'll leave it to Shellee to sum things up tomorrow.
Short answer:
I am opposed to the death penalty
I am not opposed to war
'
Longer answer:
My opposition to the death penalty is primarily pragmatic at this point. It is too expensive and riddled with problems in terms of the probability of killing someone innocent. Like laws against…
razib | August 24, 2006Over at my other blog I post 10 questions for Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. If you are a genetics nut, what are you waiting for!?!?! Click! (unless you are the type bored by human population genetics) Now that you are back, there is one question that is relevant to the race debate that I had with John Wilkins a few months ago, and I've reposted it below, so reread it. You can make your own decision, but keep in mind that those who strongly reject race as a biological construct make a direct appeal to Cavalli-Sforza. And just to reward you loyal readers, I will tell you that we have another "…
razib | August 23, 2006Stem cell breakthrough promises to overcome ethical objections. I don't know, this is going to be all over the news, well, it already is. I don't think Ramesh Ponnuru or Kathryn Lopez are going to shut up about it for a long time. I am cautiously optimistic, but unfortunately this will be immediately heralded and accepted because of the ethical issues that some have with embryonic stem cells, whether it turns out to be a dead end or not. I have no great insights on this, so go read the articles, or check out the other ScienceBlogs (I happened to check google news, so that's why I hit it…
razib | August 23, 2006Heater Mac Donald has a lengthy follow up article where she responds to her critics.
razib | August 23, 2006
Update: Over at Genetics and Health:
Last month, 12-year-old Bobby Stephens, Jr. died after football practice in Florida. This week, his family learned that he carried genes for both Hemoglobin S and Hemoglobin E. There have only been 27 documented cases world-wide of people who've died as a result of the combination of both of these two genetic mutations.
...
Hemoglobin S. This the predominant hemoglobin in people with sickle cell disease.
...
Hemoglobin E trait is benign. Hemoglobin E is extremely common in S.E. Asia and in some areas equals hemoglobin A in frequency.
...
Bobby had a…
razib | August 22, 2006Curious about what's going on in the Paleo-shire? John Hawks is all about one stop shopping, just fill your mind-cart and you're good to go.
razib | August 21, 2006Unfortunately I haven't had time to set aside a good portion of time to read Coming to Life with any level of depth...so my review will be tardy. But, I do want to point to the others at SB who are stepping up.
Shellee the Church Girl.
Bora
RPM
Nick Tall Dark and faux British
PZ
Others...including me, at some point in the future.
razib | August 20, 2006WorldNut Daily has a story up about a new "documentary" which will try to show how Darwin's theory led to the abomination that was the Holocaust.
First, there is a truth which right-wing religious fundamentalists leverage in these sort of claims: during the early 20th century "progressives" of all stripes, Left and Right, promoted the science of eugenics, which was explicitly Darwinian. Books like Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity illuminate this "lost history." Karl Pearson, the father of biometrics and a major…
razib | August 20, 2006Steve at Right Reason offers up his reasons for how Christianity inculcates a Golden Rulesque altruism.
First, Steve is focused on textual evidence. References in the New Testament. The key issue is this: text can justify behavior, but can it bias it? I am agnostic on this issue at this point. All I would ask for textualists is this: if an alien had only religious texts of various cultures to assess the natures of said cultures, would they be able to make good predictions? I'm not so sure. In many ways textualism seems to me to be post facto abduction. Abduction is great, but it needs…
razib | August 19, 2006William Saletan has a roundup and commentary on the ruckus surrounding circumcision and HIV transmission. There are two issues here,
The health & public policy
The cultural angle
The think the evidence is pretty clear from individual studies and cross-cultural comparisons: all things being equal, circumcision cuts down on the rate of HIV transmission (especially from female-to-male). On the other hand, there are the important cultural issues that are often not mooted with clarity, especially in the United States. You see, the USA is one of the few nations where adult circumcision…