razib | April 11, 2006I just skimmed through Human Biological Variation today. It was somewhat disappointing, the exploration of topics was often too superficial and I really didn't need a review of what mitosis, meiosis and Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium were. They do collate some interesting data in the latter portion of the book, but the only one I'd like to pass on is about blood groups. This is one genetic trait which most of us happen to know about our own status in regards to, I'm an A, my father is a B and my mother is an A. But we are often under the impression that this is capricious, and the variation in…
razib | April 10, 2006Gary Marcus, author of The Birth of the Mind, has a pithy piece in The New York Times, From Squeak to Syntax: Language's Incremental Evolution, which sketches out the refinements that the new science of genomics is adding to our understanding of the origins of language. In fact, one could argue that it isn't adding, it is actually building the initial foundations. Many of you probably also know that the Linguistic Society of Paris banned the discussion of the origin of language in 1866 because it seemed to be simultaneous attractive and intractable. Though Noam Chomsky was one of the major…
razib | April 9, 2006No, not really, but perhaps a British newspaper will pick up this meme and I'll be responsible for a butt-load of misinformation. You gotta get fame somehow! Anyway...
Cohort effects in a genetically determined trait: eye colour among US whites:
The prevalence of blue eye colour among non-Hispanic whites in NHANES-III was 57.4% (95% CI: 50.1-64.7) for individuals born between 1899 and 1905 compared to 33.8%...for those born between 1936 and 1951. No association was found between survival and eye colour, nor was a cohort effect evident for primary ancestry. However, proportions reporting…
razib | April 9, 2006Well...Mitt Romney's stock is starting to rise from what I can sense, not that I'm much of a politics follower. I've expressed why I'm skeptical of Romney's candidacy, in short, I doubt Americans are ready to elect a non-monotheist to our highest office. That being said, here is a revealing quote from the president of the Latter Day Saints:
Although there's nothing in Mormonism and Evolution to suggest any high church official agrees with that accommodation, the next to last document in the book, a quote from current church president Gordon B. Hinckley, is revealing. He told a reporter in…
razib | April 9, 2006Just to reinforce the "Live Journal" flavor of this weblog...I have to recount a Craig's List story. I was recently looking for an apartment to rent, and I was playing email/phone tag with a guy "Zeke" who was subletting his extra room. When I was looking at a different place "Zeke" called me, and the guy whose place I was looking at told me that he worked with the same "Zeke" (he heard me say his name) Anyway, there were time issues with the second place I visited, so I was late at my third place, and when I called "Zeke" to postpone, he was like, "OK, I'll do something else." Finally…
razib | April 9, 2006A week ago I interviewed cogntive psychologist Justin L. Barrett. Dr. Barrett studies religion as a natural phenomenon, and I asked about the nature of individuals who are atheists. He responded:
As self-proclaimed atheist Jesse Bering has observed it can be very hard to identify true atheists. He even suspects that they comprise a very tiny number of people. By true atheists, I mean people that consistently hold no belief (cognitive commitment that motivates behavior) in superhuman agency. Lots of people say they don't believe in superhuman agency (including gods and ghosts) but will…
razib | April 8, 2006I'm a Dubliner! Thanks to grrlscientist, of course :)
You Belong in Dublin
Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions.
You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.
What European City Do You Belong In?
razib | April 7, 2006Nancy Etcoff has a nice piece about twins, genetic predispositions, context and psychology.
razib | April 6, 2006I have just finished reading No Two Alike by Judith Rich Harris. A review will be forthcoming, after I've digested the material and can offer up some coherent reflections. But one of the things that is great about Harris' book is that its review of the literature is both thorough and engaging. In one of the last chapters she points to the research of Mary Cover Jones published in 1957 in Child Development, "The later careers of boys who were early- or late- maturing." In short, the research suggests that late maturing boys are disadvantaged in the dominance game for their whole lives in…
razib | April 6, 2006On my other weblog someone is asking about genetics & evolution texts. Specifically they were wondering about the order in which to read Principles of Population Genetics, Evolutionary Genetics and Quantitative Genetics. That was actually the order I suggested, the first book is more basic and broader, while the two latter texts are more specific. In fact the last book is to some extent an elaboration of just one chapter in Principles of Population Genetics. Additionally, I recommended Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics if you want to take the "next step" in specialization (the…
razib | April 5, 2006Evolgen has an interesting post about going to a math department seminar where the topic was genomics. He goes over some questions mathematicians had about biology and their misconceptions. I don't know...I talked to a woman this January who has an undergraduate math degree, and she told her boyfriend (a friend of mine) that she was surprised that biology could be interesting!
razib | April 4, 2006Seed has a new in house weblog, Stochastic, and our resident intern Katherine Sharpe is asking about the best science books for laypeople...which would be a long list. But, I can unhesitantly offer the most influential science book in terms of making me explore many domains of the natural sciences and their intersection with our species' history and social development: Cosmos, by Carl Sagan.
razib | April 2, 2006Ed Brayton says there is a double standard in how people judge Islam and Christianity. That is, criticism of Christianity is tolerated, while criticism of Islam frowned upon (or at least generalization). I put in two reasons why this is so on this comment boards, first, Islam is treated as a quasi-ethnic group, an identity you are born with (and Islamophobia occupies much the same mental slot as racism for many people). Second, Muslims are perceived by many on the Left to be part of the non-elite which may become part of their broad coalition against right-wing interests.
But there is…
razib | April 1, 2006Via grrlscientist here is my EgoSurf result: 5715.
You can check me: .
Since this uses google I think that explains the high showing of grrlscientist and the low rank of Glenn Reynolds. I have noticed that some blogs are high driven by referrals from other blogs and others by by search engine traffic. My non-Seed weblog has always been driven by a large percentage of search engine traffic, and links come in from diverse sources (online class syllabii for example). More political blogs might be deriving their traffic from a tighter circle of sites and so don't come up as high as they…
razib | April 1, 2006Just noticed that there is now an epigenetics weblog out there. Epigenetics is one of those terms you have to know...and it seems that this new weblog doesn't just follow model organisms (e.g., S. cerevisiae) but tries to tie the topic humans.
razib | March 30, 2006Below is an image which offers evidence for functional analysis in the context of The Pliocene Pussy Cat Theory.
Clearly the bipedal posture allows humans to recline in a fashion where the feet can be raised and utilized for more efficient feline insulation.
razib | March 30, 2006Interesting paper out in JAMA, Coffee, CYP1A2 genotype, and risk of myocardial infarction:
The association between coffee intake and risk of myocardial infarction (MI) remains controversial. Coffee is a major source of caffeine, which is metabolized by the polymorphic cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) enzyme. Individuals who are homozygous for the CYP1A2*1A allele are "rapid" caffeine metabolizers, whereas carriers of the variant CYP1A2*1F are "slow" caffeine metabolizers....Intake of coffee was associated with an increased risk of nonfatal MI only among individuals with slow caffeine metabolism…
razib | March 29, 2006You want to know what John Hawks sounds like? He'll be on Radio Open Source tomorrow (there should be a web feed). I talked to David Miller about getting John on the show before he became famous in Slate, so I am going to take a little credit for this. John and Spencer Wells will be "facing off." John, can you ask Spencer to make his email address more accessible? I'm tired of people emailing me and asking about ways to contact him!
Update: John was really amused throughout the whole show. Spencer Wells asked kind of sarcastically (?) if I was "Richard Dawkins." No, I'm not, Spencer :)…
razib | March 29, 2006I have a maxim, "beware of British newspapers." I guess I should add the BBC to that list after reading this slapdash piece, Obese men 'have lower IQs'. Speaking as a normal weight individual with a BMI of 22.8 I don't have a personal axe to grind, but this study screams correlation does not equal causation.
The Boston study found that men with a BMI of 30 or more scored on average 23% lower marks in tests of mental acuity.
The authors make some noise about blood circulation, and I'm sure you can posit thousands of halfway plausible causative components, but perhaps fat dudes are just…