Back when I was a kid I used to really enjoy reading books about Voyager, in large part because they were jam-packed with color pictures of the planets. Today you can get a lot of data and images just online…and I don’t check it out enough. We take so much for granted, in the 1930s […]

Readers who are somewhat familiar with Islam should check out this comment over at Jason Soon’s blog by a Muslim named Amir Butler. It is, in essence, a long apologia for “Salafism.” After reading Western Muslims and the Future of Islam much of what he is saying is intelligible to me (and I know a […]

In Descarte’s Baby the psychologist Paul Bloom puts a mild evolutionary psychological spin on child development and ties it in thematically with the concept of Cartesian dualism as an innate trait of human cognition (I agree with him there, I have to remind myself that my body isn’t just a flesh puppet, it is me). […]

From Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World: …The German Turks in my queue for a 1998 workers’ charter flight to Berlin seemed a tribe apart from other queues filled with more sophisticated-looking Istanbul businessmen and holiday-makers. They were indeed of different origin, since Turkey had sent village folk to work in […]

Just so you know, I think The Life of Meaning has potential to be the archeological version of what John Hawks is to paleoanthropology or Chris to cognitive psychology. Mark’s latest post is titled The War on Trees, which caught my eye in light of this story in The Times that chronicles the expansion of […]

Evolution at Two Levels: Gene and Form, is an article (based on a lecture) given by Sean Carroll, author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Evolgen has more. If you haven’t read the book, but read this article, save your money (I don’t think the first half of the book is worth it for the savvy […]

I’ve just made brief post up on my blog regarding the rather virulent and violent strain of homophobia in the Muslim world, as a problem in itself and as a marker of deeper problems. Out of curiosity, how would GNXP readers go about trying to remedy these issues? What techniques of mimetic engineering would you […]

I’ve just made brief post up on my blog regarding the rather virulent and violent strain of homophobia in the Muslim world, as a problem in itself and as a marker of deeper problems. Out of curiosity, how would GNXP readers go about trying to remedy these issues? What techniques of mimetic engineering would you […]

I figured I’d just reformat the poll results from The Telegraph that are making the rounds. Q: Do you think the bombing attacks in London on July 7 were justified or not? 6% – On the balance justified11%- On the balance not justified77%- Not njustified at all6% – Don’t know Q: Whether or not you […]

…but getting bloody irritated. I was going to go into London yesterday around midday, switched on the TV to check travel details, and thought it was Groundhog Day. As I couldn’t go yesterday, I was planning to go today (right now!), switched on the TV again, and find a suspected bomber has been shot dead […]

PERSPECTIVE:SIGN EPISTASIS AND GENETIC CONSTRAINT ON EVOLUTIONARY TRAJECTORIES: …We show that it is the consequence of a particular form of epistasis, which we designate sign epistasis. Sign epistasis means that the sign of the fitness effect of a mutation is under epistatic control; thus, such a mutation is beneficial on some genetic backgrounds and deleterious […]

From The Economist: …For a new generation of British Muslims, such behaviour represents the stirrings of a new identity whose common denominator is not ethnic origin, but religion…. …Soon after America’s invasion of Afghanistan, a poll of British Muslims found that among those over 35, some 30% saw religion as their main source of identity. […]

This post on the demographics of young Americans over at Pearsall’s deserves some comments.

I have previously covered the main front in the struggle against freedom of speech in Europe – hate speech laws. Now it’s time to move on to another, more low-profile phenomenon: The Government Oriented (or “Organized”) Non-Governmental Organization, or GONGO for short. The GONGO is a tax-payer-funded organization, set up by the government to promote […]

Abstract: …Although rs2076530 was not associated with sarcoidosis in either African American sample, a three-locus haplotype that included rs2076530 was associated with sarcoidosis across all three study samples. Multivariable logistic regression analyses showed that BTNL2 effects are independent of human leukocyte antigen class II genes in whites but may interact antagonistically in African Americans. Our […]

A few years ago I told Randall Parker that I was reluctant to really tackle “Islam” because I didn’t know enough. I know I post here and there (a lot) on the topic, but mostly they are not thematic or interconnected, just random drive-by jottings strewn across the public-web-space. Of late I’ve realized I will […]

In many discussions where genes and sociology intersect there is often a group of individuals who will deny that one can truly make non-trivial assertions about genetic effects over the generations, that interactional influences, whether they be gene-to-gene, gene-to-environment, or even more complex feedback loops, make talk of “heritability” null and void. I’ve talked about […]

QIMR Scientists Identify Genetic Links to Human Intelligence: The QIMR group, led by Professor Nick Martin, has identified specific locations on Chromosomes 2 and 6 as being highly influential in determining IQ. To do this, they applied multipoint linkage analysis to data from 634 sibling pairs (including non-identical twins) from Australia and the Netherlands who […]

Article in the San Bernardino News suggesting Ebonics as a way to raise academic achievement for Black students. There are so many things wrong in that article, I’ll stick the two most basic that it is hard to believe I have to state them: 1) I would like to see one, data-backed and independently tested […]

Robots replace child jockeys in Arab camel race. Don’t liberal do-gooders know that families in Bangladesh depend on the remittances sent by the child jockeys? Update: Just want to make clear, the initial post was meant in mirth. I really didn’t know how serious the whole “camel jockey” thing was.