This is aimed at provoking discussion on the problems of an elderly population. In most Western countries the proportion of old people in the population is rising. The increase is greater in some countries than others, due to differences in migration, birth rates, and life expectancy. It is greatest in Japan, and lowest in the […]

12-Year-Old Who Scored Perfect SAT Score Wants To Remain A `Regular’ Kid. Excerpt: When Vinodhini (Vino) Vasudevansays she wants to keep away from the media, many people are surprisedHow can the first 12-year-old to score a perfect 1,600 on the SAT want to keep away from the media, many wonder. The test is conducted for […]

I was busy during the “brights debate a few weeks back, but Steve Sailer’s recent comments jogged my memory. As one of the only theistic Gene Expressors, I’ll concede that atheists’ unpopularity is for the most part undeserved. Having known several atheists in Europe (and many whom I suspect are closet atheists in America) I […]

Godless stated he wouldn’t post about Jews, but I’m not him, so I feel no restraint. Someone referenced Greg Cochran’s new essay How The Ashkenazi Got Their Smarts, so I feel obligated to link to it on Jerry Pournelle’s site. Enjoy & discuss…. Update from Godless: Well, if it’s “Jeurasian” week at GNXP, I did […]

Ok, I can’t hold back on the cognitive elite post. In America, science/eng is for losers. Period. Of course, I speak from the biotech/biology point of view, and this is the group to which most of my following comments will apply. However, I believe that my comments largely apply to chemists, engineers and computer people […]

The CIA FACTBOOK entry on Turkey states that it is “99.8% Muslim (mostly Sunni).” Most surveys of Turkish Islam that the public is aware of give the impression that Turkish Islam is Sunni Islam, specifically of the Hanafi tradition promoted by the Ottomans, which is also dominant in central & south Asia. But go to […]

Ibn Warraq has a new book, Leaving Islam. Andrew Boston has a review over at Frontpage Magazine. Check out Warraq’s site, Secular Islam, if you are interested in the ex-Muslim movement. Posted by razib at 09:50 AM

I’m currently reading Hitler’s Jewish soldiers, an important and disturbing book I’ve blogged about before but hadn’t actually been able to get hold of until now (I bought a copy at Waterstone’s, an excellent book store chain here in London). This work fascinates me as much for its study of human psychology and as a […]

This article in The New York Times titled “I.B.M. Explores Shift of White-Collar Jobs Overseas” no doubt sends shivers down the backs of every worker-bee in the IT sector. There are a few things to address here. * Now college educated people understand the rage that blue-collar workers who expected lifetime employment at $45,000-60,000 a […]

Eric Lien of Mixed Asian has a trifecta of interesting posts. First, the racial breakdown of sports participation in Malaysia. Then, two articles address the “Asian marriage gap,” here & here (the backstory here is that an Asian-American activist is disputing Steve Sailer’s interpretation and explanation of interracial marriage statistics that he first elaborated in […]

I have alluded to a “transnational” post-ethnic elite before on this blog. This is a microcosm of what I mean (from The Washington Post). Some relevant excerpts: There is also a class element to the new mobility. The young Europeans who are relocating are most likely to be the university-educated elite, not factory workers or […]

Lethal stereotypes: Hair and eye color as survival characteristics during the Holocaust asserts a new study excerpted over at Dienekes’ blog.

Interesting opinion from an atheist who defends the Church of England as a potent force for secularism. The nutshell of the argument is that the C of E acts as a vaccine against more virulent forms of religion. Christopher Hitchens once expressed similar opinions in Freethought Today. Until recently all of Scandinavia had state supported […]

The Washington Post reports that a gene variation makes some people more vulnerable to clinical depression after a major trauma (e.g. divorce, job loss). The article utters nary a word about IQ or testosterone, but offers this tidbit: “Moffitt’s study, being published today in the journal Science, involved Caucasian patients, specifically a group of New […]

I don’t agree with Christopher Hitchens on many issues, but this line from a profile in Frontpage Magazine hooked me: Because of September 11, his mission now is “to defend the enlightenment, to defend and extend the benefits of rationalism. By all and any means necessary”. [my emphasis -R] The interpretation of this line, the […]

I am all for letting other cultures develop at their own pace-but I also think we should be honest about their differences from liberal democracy. Chris Mooney points out what “Islamic Democracy” usually means in practice. Here is an excerpt of a recent post: More evidence comes from a 2000 piece in the Washington Post […]

Article (free) in The Economist about the doom & gloom over the greying of Europe. One thing that the article points out, at current rates of societal aging, immigration can’t make up the balance and save the pension systems of many European countries. This doesn’t even take into account the dangers of supporting white Christian […]

From The Economist: A “PEACEFUL virus”, is how Colonel Muammar Qaddafi described HIV to the African Union this week. Along with malaria and sleeping sickness, the Libyan leader said, it is God’s way of keeping white colonisers out of Africa. “Brother Qaddafi” has a sick sense of humor. Read the full article in the extended […]

Excerpt from Tony’s Blair’s speech to the U.S. Congress yesterday: “The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify around an idea. And that […]

This New York Times article on the “Great Leap Forward” is a pretty good survey of the issues at hand. As stated, “anatomically modern humans” existed in Africa 100,000 years ago, but it wasn’t until ~50,000 years B.P. that there was a ratchet up toward the hallmarks of modern sapiency. The breakneck speed of cultural […]