Four years ago I (and others) got in a dispute with Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt (DL) about their claim that birth month had a meaningful impact on later success in professional sports because kids born in January were “old” for their age group and were, therefore, more likely to make elite travel, national teams […]

In 1997, Sports Illustrated asked “What Ever Happened To The White Athlete?” Unsure of his place in a sports world dominated by blacks who are hungrier, harder-working and perhaps physiologically superior, the young white male is dropping out of the athletic mainstream to pursue success elsewhere Read the whole thing. Some excerpts and comments below.

What is the single best reference for refuting the notion that “race is only a social construct” for a non-scientist? I don’t know. (Suggestions welcome in the comments.) But Neven Sesardic (previously praised here) does a marvelous job in “Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept,” (pdf) Biology and Philosophy (2010, forthcoming). It is […]

The debate over global warming is relevant to GNXP (previous posts here and here) not so much because our readers are interested in climate science but because the dynamics of the debate — scientific “consensus” versus politically incorrect minority view — have relevance to various debates over human biodiversity. With that background, I would be […]

The cover story for Sports Illustrated two weeks ago described the dominance of the South Eastern Conference (SEC) in US college football. “More players are invited to the NFL combine each year from the SEC than from any other conference,” Ole Miss’s [Head Coach] Nutt says when asked about the quality of the athletes who […]

Bruce Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein write (pdf) in Nature: “Let’s celebrate human genetic diversity.” (Hat tip: Steve Sailer.) The current moral position is a sort of ‘biological egalitarianism’. This dominant position emerged in recent decades largely to correct grave historical injustices, including genocide, that were committed with the support of pseudo scientific understandings of group […]

Tyler Cowen explains “Why Steve Sailer is Wrong.” For regular readers of GNXP, the resulting discussion is neither new nor interesting, but I thought it valuable to go through Cowen’s post in detail. Cowen is a smart guy with interesting things to say about many topics. Why is he so flummoxed by this one? Cowen […]

Via Steve Sailer and Half Sigma, we have this New York Times op-ed by David Brooks on work (pdf) by Will Dobbie and Roland Fryer on the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ). Brooks writes: The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center […]

Brad Delong reports that Yale professor Chris Blattman is looking for suggested readings for his class “Why is Africa poor and what (if anything) can the West do about it?” Blattman’s syllabus (pdf) seems excellent but includes nothing on IQ. What reading(s) would the GNXP crowd suggest he add? I expect that your suggestions will […]