razib | April 18, 2009Update: Readers pointed out that these results are from the cumulative data set from 1972-2002. So the % who favored laws against interracial marriage were ~40% in 1972, and ~10% in 2002, averaging out to ~25% across the years. The relative differences though seem to remain the same across categories. The nature of party identification in the 1970s also likely explains the peculiar results there.End Update
The GSS has a question of the form:
Do you think there should be laws against marriages between (Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans) and whites?
The sample sizes are huge for this question,…
razib | April 17, 2009In light of the relatively recent interaction of Bantu farmers and Pygmies in Central Africa, this paper is of note, Genetic and demographic implications of the Bantu expansion: insights from human paternal lineages:
The expansion of Bantu languages, which started around 5,000 years before present (YBP) in west/central Africa and spread all throughout sub-Saharan Africa, may represent one of the major and most rapid demographic movements in the history of the human species. Although the genetic footprints of this expansion have been unmasked through the analyses of the maternally-inherited…
razib | April 17, 2009A much more thorough post by Dan MacArthur on the recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine & genomics.
razib | April 16, 2009Another response by Etienne Patin, lead author of Inferring the Demographic History of African Farmers and Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers Using a Multilocus Resequencing Data Set, to a follow up post:
As to your hypothesis represented by the cladogram, this is a quite reasonable and interesting idea. Actually, the only method that we could use to prove it is to find human remains of Pygmies dating back to Bantu expansions, in regions that were colonized by Bantus. Population genetics cannot infer the presence of extinct populations. However, as stated in our article, Western and Eastern Pygmies may…
razib | April 16, 2009There are some really weird comments about Albania below. Part of these confusions have to do with ambiguities as to the religious identity of Albania, traditionally majority Muslim, but after decades of Communism very secular. What exactly are the religious breakdowns? How religious are Albanians? Additionally some of the same questions are thrown toward the Bosnian Muslims. Are Balkan Muslims true religious moderates, or, are they simply secular Europeans whose ancestors practiced the Muslim religion?
The World Values Survey can help answer these questions, or least put some numbers on…
razib | April 16, 2009The New England Journal of Medicine has a series of articles up on the impact of new genomic techniques on medicine, specifically in the domain of pinpointing genetic markers which are correlated with increased risk of a particular disease. David Goldstein has a skeptical take up on the future returns of genomewide association studies, while Joel Hirschhorn is more hopeful. There is another review which takes a middle path, emphasizing the relatively marginal predictive power of many of the risk alleles, but suggesting that techniques and results are bound to improve.
Probably the most…
razib | April 15, 2009I found the references to Finland very interesting in the latest episode of South Park. Good riddance!
razib | April 15, 2009When Did Your County's Jobs Disappear? An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country Well done.
razib | April 15, 2009Diary of a visit to a coffeehouse run by a madman. See some of the Yelp reviews.
H/T The Elf.
razib | April 15, 2009Male Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk: No Further Evidence Needed, According To Review:
The clinical trials included in the review took place in South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya between 2002 and 2006, and included a total of 11,054 men. The results show that circumcision in heterosexual men significantly reduces their risk of acquiring HIV by 54% over a two year period, compared with uncircumcised men. This reduced risk is the best estimate of the average effect and the researchers report that the true risk will be reduced by between 38 to 66%. Further research, however, is required to establish…
razib | April 15, 2009A year ago I mentioned that the Religious Landscape Survey showed that a majority of American Buddhists believe in God. Some people wondered as to its generality as a finding. Does this apply in Asia? It seems likely. The World Values Survey has data on Buddhists in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan in terms of God belief. Here are the data:
Buddhist who believe in God, Yes/No
Yes
No
Taiwan
83.9
16.1
Japan
56.7
43.3
Singapore
86.3
13.7
The Japanese data are the most important. The Japanese are a secular people, so if Japanese Buddhists generally believe in God it is a…
razib | April 15, 2009Genetic Evidence of Geographical Groups among Neanderthals:
The Neanderthals are a well-distinguished Middle Pleistocene population which inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East. Since the 1950s paleoanthropological studies have suggested variability in this group. Different sub-groups have been identified in western Europe, in southern Europe and in the Middle East. On the other hand, since 1997, research has been published in paleogenetics, carried out on 15 mtDNA sequences from 12 Neanderthals. In this paper we used a new methodology…
razib | April 15, 2009Joel Grus, who was a blogger at Gene Expression in 2002, and who is responsible for the banner graphic, has a weblog up promoting his book Your religion is false! (But so is everyone elses.).
razib | April 14, 2009
The Hapsburgs are one of those royal families who are relatively well known, and in the minds of the public are to a great extent the emblems of the downsides of inbreeding. To painting to the left is of Charles II, king of Spain, the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs, and an imbecile whose premature death at the age of 39 ushered in a period of dynastic chaos which led to the War of Spanish Succession These conflicts between France and other European powers were one of those turning points in history, a sad capstone to the long reign of the Sun King, Louis the XIV. France's position as the…
razib | April 14, 2009Teacher who survived polar bear mauling at zoo 'was depressed over job':
Rifles had already been issued to marksmen and Heiner Kloes, a zoo spokesman, said: "This woman's behaviour not only put her life in danger but also that of the staff who had to rescue her.
"However, we do have guns and we would have been prepared to use them without hesitation if it was felt it was the only way to save the woman."
...
On Monday it emerged that she is a teacher who had been driven to despair by her failure to find a job.
Related: Woman attacked by polar bear (live footage).
razib | April 14, 2009Chaplain's E-mail Sparks Controversy:
In a private e-mail to a student last week, Abdul-Basser wrote that there was "great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment [for apostates]) and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand."
...
"I believe he doesn't belong as the official chaplain," said one Islamic student, who asked that he not be named to avoid conflicts with Muslim religious authorities. "If the Christian ministers said that people who…
razib | April 14, 2009I've suggested before that the idea of Turkey entering the EU is a farce. One could make the economic case that it is far too large and poor to be absorbed easily (unlike the Eastern European nations Turkey is nearly as populous as Germany). But there is a strong cultural case too. Turkey is a very religious nation in a European context. It is more Creationist than the United States. Though Turkey is secular for a Muslim nation, it is not secularfor a European nation. But many people seem to be intent on accusing Europeans of racism or discrimination based on their evident disinclination to…
razib | April 14, 2009I've been on this domain for over 3 years. So I have a fair amount of google analytics data. Care to guess which the top 10 sources are for readers to this weblog in terms of nationality? Answer below the fold.
razib | April 14, 2009Accelerated Adaptive Evolution on a Newly Formed X Chromosome:
Sex chromosomes originated from ordinary autosomes, and their evolution is characterized by continuous gene loss from the ancestral Y chromosome. Here, we document a new feature of sex chromosome evolution: bursts of adaptive fixations on a newly formed X chromosome. Taking advantage of the recently formed neo-X chromosome of Drosophila miranda, we compare patterns of DNA sequence variation at genes located on the neo-X to genes on the ancestral X chromosome. This contrast allows us to draw inferences of selection on a newly…
razib | April 13, 2009Two highly recommended Bloggingheads.tv below the fold on religion. First, the cognitive science of religion in Why Are We Religious?, and second religion & conservatism in God and Man on the Right. My co-blogger at Secular Right, Heather Mac Donald, is getting into it with a future columnist for The New York Times.