Over at Mixing Memory Chris expresses frustration at the gap between the general public’s perception of cognitive science and the state of affairs within the discipline. It seems pretty clear that enemy #1 in the battle against disinformation in Chris’ mind is Steven Pinker, though he seems to view Ray Jackendoff positively, who just happened […]

In The Nurture Assumption Judith Rich Harris spends many pages on detailing the ethnographic results from a study of a children’s social hierarchies. I believe she stated that male hierarchies tended to be more stable than female hierarchies. I remember thinking at the time that “masculine” forms of impersonal and somewhat simplistic pecking orders with […]

Carnegie Mellon scientists develop tool that uses MRI to visualize gene expression in living animals “Ahrens’ new approach uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor gene expression in real-time. Because MRI images deep tissues non-invasively and at high resolution, investigators don’t need to sacrifice animals and perform laborious and costly analysis. To trigger living cells […]

In recent posts here and here I looked at the data on educational achievement by ethnic groups in England. This showed substantial differences in attainment by different groups, from Black Caribbeans at the bottom to Chinese at the top, as well as the familiar superiority of girls over boys. I didn’t say much about the […]

I was fascinated to come across Deutsche Welle’s brief article on Jugendweihe, an interesting holiday in Germany (literal translation “youth consecration”) that aspires to be a secular equivalent to religious confirmation ceremonies for teenagers, marking the transition from childhood to adulthood. The German Humanist Association advertises for young Jugendweihe recruits with the promise that “there […]

…or does Paul Wolfowitz resemble a Mirror Universe Dennis Kucinich? (Or, alternatively, does Dennis Kucinich resemble a Mirror Universe Paul Wolfowitz.) All either one would need is a Spock goatee. Or maybe they used to be a single entity split in two by a transporter accident with the friendly-but-totally-pussified half becoming Kucinich and the hardass-psycho-motherf*cker […]

I had intended to post this amusing take on the origins of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, but unfortunately I didn’t get the chance. So now, for those of you with an historical turn of mind, here is (a day late) a short essay “clarifying” the background to the […]

From an article in press in the Journal of Human Evolution >> Increasing skeletal evidence from the U.S.A., Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil strongly suggests that the first settlers in the Americas had a cranial morphology distinct from that displayed by most late and modern Native Americans…. The Paleoamerican morphological pattern is more generalized and can […]

Majikthise knocks this one out of the park with a comprehensive wrap-up on this battle and the propaganda that has been flung around. Go and read it. Posted by TangoMan at 03:06 PM

Islamic woman sparks controversy by leading prayers. More at Muslim WakeUp!. Related: Islam with Chinese characteristics…no, really!. Addendum: Updated link so it doesn’t need registration. Posted by razib at 06:13 PM

Seeing as how there is a controversy of non-linking in the blogosphere (generally in the context of sites with 1-2 orders of magnitude greater number of visitors than GNXP) to the Y-less kind, I have chosen to do my part. Since I don’t read blogs much I can’t really tell you about any diamondesses-in-the-rough, so […]

Those Minnesota behavioral geneticists are at it again. Thomas Bouchard, Laura Koenig, Matt McGue and Robert Krueger have a new paper in The Journal of Personality about the heritability of religiousness that a lot of people have been talking about. Investigating the heritability of religiousness is nothing new, of course. A host of studies have […]

In my recent post on Education and ethnic groups in England I noted that there were some gaps in the statistics. I have been trying to fill these, with partial success… I mentioned three main gaps: a) the statistics covered only state schools, and not private ones b) for education after age 16, the statistics […]

It seems they found some Shetland shit from 3,000 years ago. The indicated diet seems to suggest no great want. Interestingly, in Life in the Ancient Near East the author notes that ration records for “unfree labor” suggest a caloric intake of 3,000 per day, a healthy level. I doubt that ancient peoples had a […]

An e-list on which I participate has been having a discussions of a review by Paula Fredriksen of the new book The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. You can’t read the review online, it is behind TNR’s digital wall, though a subscriber did cut & paste it so that I have read it. My […]

I thought this comment from razib is apropos to my poll, since I hypothesize that mate selection on IQ is an important factor for the XX.in the mating mind one way geoff miller pumps up sexual selection and polygyny is that it is a way to reduce genetic load and avoid mutational meltdown. miller also […]

A some amusing article about the high pitched voices of Neandertals (at least, that is the hypothesis). The piece notes that Steven Mithen, author of The Prehistory of the Mind, is coming out with a new book titled The Singing Neanderthal: The Origin of Language, Music Body and Mind. Reading Mithen’s previous book I am […]

When I read that Rachel Corrie’s parents are suing Caterpillar for violating international law by knowingly selling a bulldozer that could be used to endanger lives, I wondered how matters would be different if the Corries had to pay when they lost this lawsuit. If you don’t recall Rachel Corrie’s saga, think back to 2003 […]

Here are two contrasting approaches to the problems of schoolyard bullying. One punishes the victim and the other finds a unique way to get the message across to the bullies. Principal Bruce Armstrong confirmed that the students had recorded the attack using a camera on a mobile phone. [ . . . .] The school […]

Men and women: The differences are in the genes “This tells us that neighborhoods matter,” Carrel said. “Genes on the X chromosome evolved in five sequential segments or layers. The older segments have fewer genes that escape inactivation than those that developed later in the chromosome’s evolutionary path. This suggests that, as the human species […]