razib | March 28, 2006Below is an image that should strike fear into the hearts of all birds, from below and above, evil knows no bounds! On a serious note I was chatting with a friend of mine about the possible hypotheses for the domestication of the dog, and when we moved onto cats he remarked that I'd had it flipped around, it was the cats who domesticated us....
razib | March 27, 2006Interesting report out, Evolutionary biology research techniques predict cancer. Medicine has been around for thousands of years, from the "healings" of shamans to the "theoretical" paradigm of Galen. It seems possible that until the last 100 years or so medical techniques were just as likely (or more likely in many situations) to exacerbate illnesses as they were to help. The medical arts might be an outgrowth of our psychological biases, not materialist considerations (an analogy with financial "analysts" might be appropriate). Purely empirical sciences focused on proximate aspects of…
razib | March 27, 2006This whole conversion story in Afghanistan has been in the news recently. The Christian Science Monitor attempts to put the issue of conversion from Islam to another religion in an international perspective. I am cautious about making large generalizations without qualifications, but I will offer that as a civilization, "Dar-al-Islam," has particular issues with conversion when set against "Hindu" or "Christian" civilization. Though the difference is quantitative, not qualitative, some facts are so naked that caveats can not truly cover up the shame.
There are "Muslim" nations where…
razib | March 26, 2006Apropos of my earlier post relating to heritability...this is the sort of confusing gibberish that ends up making it into the press, Professor researches genetics of gambling. He tries to clear up problems of communication:
This quote has been misconstrued. In the logical development of any investigation of the genetics of a disorder, once something is shown to run in families and appears to have some heritable component, molecular genetic approaches follow. Studies can be done with small numbers of DNA samples, as I propose doing, but definitive studies require thousands of DNA samples. I…
razib | March 26, 2006There is an important paper out on calculating heritability (JAVA applet). Heritability is an important and misunderstood concept. Some people have argued that heritability is fallacious reification, a biostatistical construct which has no real relevance (or reality) outside of its utility in quantitative genetic models. But its entwinement with various concepts within evolution and genetics means it can't be ignored, love it or hate it.1 Heritability is the proportion of phenotypic variation within a population that is attributable to genotypic variation.
This has two quick…
razib | March 26, 2006Does my blog own me? Since girl scientist started it, I Ihad to go along....
18.75 %
My weblog owns 18.75 % of me.Does your weblog own you?
razib | March 25, 2006The first week of spring, and two birds have already been the victims of domestic selection....
razib | March 25, 2006John Lynch comments on an impending list of Ph.D. scientists who dissent from Darwin. He doesn't care, and neither do I, ho hum. As I've noted in the past (and plenty of others have) these lists are usually stacked with physical scientists, and within the life sciences they are slim on individuals from integrative fields where evolution plays a large role. Rosters of scholars who dissent from Darwin is part of a public relations ploy meant to leverage the fact that most humans don't have a great grasp on the specificity and the specialization which a course of scientific work entails.…
razib | March 24, 2006Well, I've been having fun reading John Hawks' posts on the term "genomics," and I'm sure Evolgen thinks I'm a bit too preoccupied with the three old thugs of population genetics...but this article, Marriage of Math and Genetics Forges New Scientific Landscape is kind of funny, the past is the future! After all, both R.A. Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane were trained as mathematicians, and Sewall Wright was a lover who regretted his early lack of experience. Over a year ago PLOS had a article out, Mathematics Is Biology's Next Microscope, Only Better; Biology Is Mathematics' Next Physics, Only…
razib | March 24, 2006About a month ago I asked around for some bio-geek-rhymes. MC Coffee Mug, AKA The Genius, stepped forward. Props to the thug (and PUBMED too).
Matako-chan, represent!
MC Coffee Mug rap
yo I'm down for chuck d like
Thomas Huxley
where my bulldogs at this shit
is getting ugly
punk please styles are various
and sundry
found the game like amerie in jamaica wanting
leapt in cos cats wasn't really hungry
break ya off a fireball like chun li
gave ya girl a dose of oxytocin in her undies
trust me fundies do not want to test
I got bullets in my power point
I'll put'em in a chest
tryna get in my head…
razib | March 23, 2006Did you know that Angelina Jolie is an atheist? I didn't...
Another materialist young female celebrity below the fold....
Quote:
Of her religion, Portman says, "I'm much more like the product of a doctor than I am a Jew." She is uncomfortable about the concept of the afterlife. "I don't believe in that. I believe this is it, and I believe it's the best way to live."
razib | March 23, 2006I've received several emails about this study, Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority. This shouldn't surprise too many people, but I think some perspective is in order. I think the results are probably accurate, but, I also think that the belief is wide but shallow.
I went to high school in an area that was about 75% Republican and half Mormon. One time during our American Government class the teacher, Mr. Nelson, was giving a talk about the First Amendment, and he stated that in the United States you could believe in any God you wanted to, or no God at all. This last…
razib | March 22, 2006Dan Dennett will be on Radio Open Source today to talk about his book Breaking the Spell. I've been getting into it on the comment boards.
Update: Re: Dennett's book, I read it. It is a good review of the literature, though I highly recommend you go straight into the primary sources (though for Rod Stark, stick to A Theory of Religion, it is dry compared to his other stuff, but far less polemical and grating).
Related: The nature of religion and Breaking the Spell, Who Dan Denett think he be foolin'?.
razib | March 22, 2006Some of the Science Bloggers are coming up with taxonomies of biologists, physicists and anthropologists and chemists. This is great, and I don't have anything to add except that it is always important to remember that science the method is irrelevant without the science the culture. It itself is embedded within the broader culture, and as books like The Lunar Men show science's growth and efflorescence are tied together with currents that sweep through the broad expanse of a society. Attempts at "modernization" of a "traditional" culture via science as in the 19th century Egypt of…
razib | March 22, 2006I saw The New World last night. It was pretty dull, but can anyone else see the resemblence between Q'Orianka Kilcher and Jewel Kilcher?
(coefficient of relatedness 1/8)
razib | March 22, 2006Data from The American Religious Identification Survey is floating around the blogosphere right now. One of the points noted is that the number of Americans who avow "No Religon" has gone from 8.2% to 14.1% of the American population between 1990 and 2001. Now, one meme floating around is conflating this increase with an increase in the number of atheists. But, one has to be careful, just because someone rejects organized religion does not imply that they reject theism ( belief in a personal God). In fact, just because someone rejects theism does not imply they reject organized religion (…
razib | March 21, 2006Dienekes points me to this article, Aurignacian ethno-linguistic geography of Europe revealed by personal ornaments. In case you don't know, the Aurignacians were the first modern humans in Europe and flourished between 35-20,000 years BP. It isn't surprising that cultural diversity was a feature of our species at this point, the famous "Great Leap Forward" had come and gone, but this story reminds me of a book I read a few years ago, The Ancestress Hypothesis. In many ways the author's argument is a focused response to the ideas promoted by Geoffrey Miller in The Mating Mind. While…
razib | March 21, 2006Chris of Mixing Memory has an important two part series that explores the recent discussion of cognition by those with partisan viewpoints. As usual he clears up some big confusions, hopefully this will get read/linked across the web.
razib | March 21, 2006A review paper worth checking out in Molecular Ecology, Variation within and among species in gene expression: raw material for evolution. The salient bit:
We find: (i) microarray-based measures of gene expression are precise given appropriate experimental design; (ii) there is large inter-individual variation, which is composed of a minor nongenetic component and a large heritable component; (iii) variation among populations and species appears to be affected primarily by neutral drift and stabilizing selection, and to a lesser degree by directional selection; and (iv) neutral evolutionary…
razib | March 21, 2006Well, because sometimes it results in babies born without eyes! Detailed commentary here. Think the title is asinine? Well, the National Society of Genetic Counselors suggests that cultural respect trumps individual and social prudence. In Britain cultural sensitivity has resulted in serious consequences for their Health Service. Man is not an island, he swims in the sea of his fellows (only a quasi-libertarian would state that as if that was news! I plead guilty)....