and what about "all of the above" the problem may be the following 1. many diseases are essentially a constellation of signs and symptoms. they well be a final common destination of a number of paths 2. we in medical science and biology are using mathematical / statistical techniques from the linear ( 2 dimensional ) space to explore complex phenomena. i.e. our mathematics is not capable (as yet?) of making any sense out of phenomena. 3. I think kjmtchl might be right that SOME syndromes may be the result of rare variants producing similar phenotypes in a Mendelian fashion. But this does not address the fact that some disorders may be related to gene regulation and not to a mendelian form of gene expression. And some may work in the Falconer type model. why cannot all of the above be the correct response? 4. stable systems generally will have negative feedback loops tending to bring the system from temporary instability to stability. the more complex the system the more complex the feedback loops and the inter-relationships and interplay between them, and the more difficult it is to predict the end result.

1. Most charts in use even today are based on Lula Lubchenko's data from Denver in the 1970's. Two problems with this data. A. Mile high city. High altitudes cause smaller birth weights. B. As many have already pointed out there is a trend towards increasing birth weights across the board. Not very well studied. My 2 cents: high carb caloric intakes during pregnacy. Lead to higher blood sugars in the mom, leading to higher blood sugar and thus higher insulin levels in the fetus. nsulin is the most important growth hormone in utero. ergo! Also witha greater Latino polulation in the US (and our proactice is 60-70 % latino). I think many these will have subclinical diabetes and thus high sugars in mom and baby and the concomittant incresed insulin levels in babies. 
 
2. Pernatal testing: I am slowlely coming to the inescapable conclusion that a majority of testing is mainly "pork". In our practice, we get around 8-10 false postives every week. These generate a lot of paperwork follow up letter etc (we do live in a litiginous world. In 20 years of practice, I have so far had one infant where maybe possibly the prenatal testing may have made a differnce to our management and her prognosis- and i use the word maybe exactly as it should be used, ie I am not sure. Most of the conditions on the screen are ones in which either there is no benefit to early diagnosis or there is no effective treatment. Unfortunately the conditions initially screened for Cong adrenal hyppolasia, hypothyroidism and PKU are the ones that make sense, the rest - diminishing returns and "pork", ie public money beins spent to benefit the poitically connected. 
 
a sceptical neonatologist

I went to medical school and so I can say from personal experience that actually practicing medicine calls on only a fairly narrow range of scientific knowledge. In other words, you can easily be a good doctor while believing any number of utterly idiotic things about any number of scientific questions. 
 
As another physician, I disagree 
you can be an adequate doctor 
you cannot be a " good " doctor

hmmm so are females in the autism aspergers spectrum more likely to be lesbian ?

The most important upcoming religion was not mentioned - unsurprisingly. 
 
The new age gaiia - pc cult. 
 
I think the demographics would be close to the unaffiliated group or perhaps the converted buddhists. 16.1 % of the total. my expectation was a bicoastal concentration but it is pretty even with the national distribution. young white income distr pretty close to national. in fact the only place where they differ markedly from the national avg is in marital status - much higher living w partner/ never married. 
 
In any event a very dangerous and disturbing demographic. For my 2 cents, they are the biggest threat to the western tradition of reasoned inquiry than any organized religion. In large part because they are not always percieved as threat to reason, as most (as eg.) bible belt types are. The situation in Europe is considerably worse.  
 
I wonder often if this group will be the eventual death knell of rationalism that has characterised western civillization for the last few centuries.  
 
I despair, for I see the inevitable signs of this decadence everywhere. from the kind of things that this blog rants about, to PC to the current messianic revivalism going on. 
 
Sorry for a slightly off topic post.

Extending the eoin analysis to its logical ( and perhaps ridiculous) conclusion, when all manufacturing becomes completely robotic -there would be no jobs!! 
 
I guess what i am trying to say is that eoin is tending to be too simplistic and populist.

"Clearly globalisation is empirically bad for workers in richer countries: contrast workers wages in the U.S. from 1945 to 1975 with the growth in wages from 1975 to now, and abandon the textbooks." 
 
any discussion of wages without what these wages aree able to purchase is inadequate. The CPI was designed to try and address this question, but is inadequate to the task in the 21st century because it measures things that were important in the 50's and 60's. Look around you a little. the kind of " stuff" people with even incomes below 50,000 have in their homes today.... the baubles, computers cell phones cell phones for teenage kids, cameras videa cameras, cars, microwaves, dishwashers, gadgets, wardrobes, ....I mean you just name it are just exponenetially more than a generation ago. The overall standard of living in american homes is UNPRECEDENTED in human history. There was anice op ed piece in the NYT about this sometime in the last week or so... for those interested. 
 
As regards all manufacturing moving to China. Yes it has. However, has anyone paid attention to some salient points about the chinese economy in relation to the US.  
1. The chinese business model, like most SE asian business models is based partly on cheap and almost infinite credit available to manufacturers via state controlled finacial institutions and the goal being market share not profit. 
2. Wal mart likely makes a bigger profit on chinese goods than the manufacturer does. ie a major chunk of the profit stays in the west. 
3. a big chunk of the revenue generated by the chinese is then in one way or the other invested in western institutions, basnks or just kept in dollars or euros. 
4. so we are purchasing goods from the chinese in a manner that completely commodities them ( very low margins, to at times selling at a loss), whatever revenue is generated is then esentially given back to us to keep safely for them. 
 
sounds like a good scheme to me! all these people are working for me, at unrealistically cheap rates and then giving the money i give themfor their labor, back to me. Bring it on !! 
 
Please try to remember fellas that economic imperialism didnt die with the british empire. just the form it takes changed and is constantly changing. 
 
also remember- unemplyement rates havent gone up; in fact we are importing labor at ungodly rates to perform work that our so called unemployed out of work population is unwilling to do. 
 
the american underclass on welfare has a higher standard of living than middle class people in most parts of the world. The fact of the matter is that even the american welfare queen is being subsidized by the labor of the chinese factory worker.  
 
why the commotion???

For asian indians expect some of these numbers to change. High school asian indian kids born and brought up in the US are undergoing a very rapid (what I call) ghetto-ization. Upper SE indians have clustered in upscale suburbs in major metro areas. As such for the kids, 80% or more of their social interactions occur with other indian kids. And this runs the gamut, AP classes; cliques; dating;watching bollywood movies in preference to hollywood; parties where the music is bollywood and bhangrapop etc etc etc. the list goes on. This subculture is evolving very rapidly.

here is what volokh has to say about it 
 
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_02_03-2008_02_09.shtml#1202446904

a little off topic but does larry summers have parkinsons disease??? his facial expressions (or lack thereof) seem to suggest this.

why does this not surprise me! The degree of nubmerical illitracy in medical oaoers is quite astounding. Even in academy position papers.

but many of us are social retards and it helps us close the gap with normals. 
 
How true- ubernerds just dont intuit things very well I suspect, they need a generalizable theory to apply, prove, disprove, or modify. does that make us them part of the asperger spectrum????

as i like to say  
from a pagan to a heathen - "Merry Xmas"

What if prolonged use of the memory- and attention-boosters leads to compensatory changes that lead to the drugs being a requirement to function normally? 
 
So!

I think there is data 
however 
1. I dont think they have controlled for maternal IQ, protestations by lead investigators, to the contrary 
2. This is drug company data with immense marketing potentials and pitfalls and they will not share raw data with anyone (except maybe the FDA)

As a practising neonatologist I really feel the need to weigh in on this (in a somewhat disjointed post- limited time. 
There are currently formula wars going on- predominantly between Meade Johnson Nutritionals and Ross (,a subsidiary of Abbot), makers respectively of the Enfamil and the Simulac brands of infant formulas. Enfamil contains a substantially higher dose of DHA and ARA than does Simulac. Consequently the Meade Johnson people are making claims about the IQ and retinal effects of enfamil and the simulac people are refuting the claims. I had the pleasure(?) a few months ago of attending a Meade Johnson sponsored wine/ dinner event where the featured speaker was the lead investigator for the meade sponsored study. He claimed that the high PUFA content actually increased IQ. Out of around 30-40 neonatologists present, I was the only one to arise from my Merlot induced stupor to ask the question - something about the 600 lb gorrilla in the room being maternal/ parental IQ. The response was stunningly aggressive for a laid back group such as it was. Of course they had controlled for maternal IQ, details were not presented and the vitriol was such that there was no further point in extending the discussion ( I have enough of a malcontent reputaion in local neonatology circles). 
 
Bottom line: 
 
Given available data and subjecting it to analysis more rigorous than most lead authors would want, I personally cannot conclude either way regarding the putative associations between Br milk PUFA's and IQ.  
 
Either way, this obscurantist pc-luddite claim re neer-magical powers of br milk is patently absurd. Br milk is simply a aqueous mixture with major and minor componenets. Some of these have phyisiologic roles and some are simply along for the ride. Nutritional science ( is there such an entity ?? ) is bit by bit making progress in understanding the biochemical/ physiologic role of various components of this aqueous mixture. And there is no reason to conclude that an artficial product- Formula - cannot EVER equal or exceed the nuatral product. 
 
As far as imuumologic claims re br milk 
the literature is replete with unmitigated garbage interspersed with some good stuff. 
 
The one major immunologic component to br milk is the presence of secretory IgA in br milk, which via the enteromammary circulation provides amodicum of protection against pathogens that are present in the mothers gut. and so the secretory IgA confir a transient passive immunity against enteral pathogens the infant is most likely to be exposed to in the near future. 
 
As far as the WBC in br milk are concernedliterature abounds with the kind of garbage I had the dubious distinction of once attaching my name too. My only defense is that i knew not even the ABC of clinical or other research at the time and was just doing what i was told to do by my ( idiot? ) bos
More....

Again i would like to add - as a neonatologist who deals with these issues day by day- the breatfeeding story is currently undecipherable scientificaly. The genre is full of poorly designed studies, outright myths, opinion masquerading as fact, propoganda, political correctness; occasionally interspersed with some sound studies. without trying to dis anyone many of the comments above fall into the mythology category. 
 
The PC angle works thus, virtually any garbage " research" that says br feeding =good' formula = bad has a better than even chance of getting pubished. 
 
The first paper I ever published as a fresh green trainee who didnt know any better was about the possible active immune functions of leukocytes in breast milk. I am sorry to say- if I could remove my name from the study, I would gladly do so. It was utter unmitigated garbage- I am embarrased by it (needless to say my faculty preceptor whose brainchild this piece of shit research was is currrently a top adminstrator reviewing grant proposals at the NICHD. My co trainee on the study who had no such scruples is now the top doc executive at a childrens hospital, and I opted out of this unethical crap that goes for medical research and am very happy in practice).  
 
to summarize: 
 
1. a lot of breat milk studies - utter crap 
2. Formulas undergoing constant eimprovement wrt constituents. No earthly reason why they cannot get pretty durn close to br milk over time.  
3. If Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA)are truly the link between br feeding and IQ, then rest assured - the formulas made by Meade johnson have as much/ more PUFA than br milk, nad i am guessing the other companies are going to follow suit as soon as they can. 
 
So unless you are jewish or catholic - stop guilting obsessively about br feeding. reject the religion of the boob

a comment from a neonatologist: 
 
1. If PUFA are that important ( and the aap says that the jury is still out- but what do they know) there are plenty of PUFA in formulas now. 
 
talk of politically incorredct message from someone in my profession

But perhaps some evidence that the seriousness of attempted murder is not a constant across cultures.

I have been told by reliable sources that neckties reduce brain blood flow!!