This week’s issue of Nature (20 May) has a long obituary of John Maynard Smith by Eors Szathmary and Peter Hammerstein.

The obit is also available online here. This is a Nature webpage dedicated to JMS, and includes a 15-page bibliography of his publications and a selection of his papers from Nature.

Warning: even at 15 pages, the bibliography is far from complete. It doesn’t include JMS’s numerous book reviews in the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and Nature itself. Nor do I see his historical essays on Weismann and Galton, and various other ‘occasional’ publications. I suspect that the items omitted from the biblio would make a respectable career’s work for most of us!

Posted by David B at 04:34 AM

Study links folic acid gene mutation to birth defects. How do you remedy the problem? Folic acid supplements!

Posted by razib at 09:06 PM

Steve has some data implying that smarter whites tend to vote a bit more Democratic (control-f “Q. Do smart whites vote Democratic?”). The effect isn’t as strong as many in the chattering class might presume. I think this has to do with selection bias and projection of the small sample, as Steve suggests. From what I gather, the chattering class is disproportionately drawn form persons who majored in liberal arts at elite universities, and this group tends to be rather Leftish (think New Democrats as the Right end of the spectrum). If you looked at those who majored in science & engineering at the same schools, I suspect they would less liberal, but most of these people do not become public intellectuals.

Posted by razib at 12:53 PM

Pooch breeds identified by genes.

Salient points:

1) One “ancient” branch, three recent ones, of canis familiaris.
2) The importance of functional genes in effecting the phenotype of the dog. That is, the three recent clades look very different, even if their origin was on the order of hundreds, not thousands, of years. Note that “ancient” breeds were re-bred from the genetic background of the canine population in the recent past (the same “look” can be replicated through selection biasing a breeding population).
3) Dogs are man’s best friend if they can help us with understanding human diseases.

via Steve Sailer.

Posted by razib at 09:01 PM

Imagine if you will – the combination of powerful software with genetic engineering and you might well be designing your own children with the help of softare from morphases.com

Play with their software and either create the most beautiful creatures we could imagine or screw it up and create some abomination

Posted by TangoMan at 03:32 AM

Here is a Beliefnet interview with Asma Gull Hasan, author of Why I am a Muslim. To me, her life seems to typify an unstable equilibrium between the two worlds of traditional Pakistan (insert random Muslim culture) and 21st century United States. She is not easily identified as a Muslim woman because she wears no head-scarf, let alone resembling a “Black-Moving-Object.” But in some of her social mores, she is obviously rather conservative, and though very few Americans are virgins on their wedding day, she seems to be saying that this is an important thing to do if you are going to be a Muslim. Of course, there are American Christians who reject pre-marital sex, and walk the talk (this is important), but they are often perceived to be in an adverserial relationship with the mainstream culture. This is exactly what Asma is obviously not comfortable with-rather, that niche is taken up by the vocal minority of American Muslims who enforce the wearing of head-scarfs in social situations. Is pre-marital sex a necessary condition of being a modern American? Of course not, but, I am skeptical that most American families live in terror that it will get out in the community that their daughter or son has engaged in such activites (even if they espouse a contrary ideal). Americans do not live in such structured extended families where “honor” and “reputation” are codified, enforced and related in such a way that the behavior of individuals echoes throughout a social network. Asma Gull Hasan does not live in an extended family either, but the picture she paints of the assimilated American Muslim culture indicates that that sort of mentality has yet to be eroded by the atomizing impact of Western culture.

Posted by razib at 11:19 PM

Seems like the new King Arthur movie is more The Winter King than The Once and Future King. Arthur is a Roman defending Romano-British civilization ~500 and Guinevere seems to be a Pictish princess. The Saxons look suitably barbaric. Why the peculiar title? Arthur’s knights are Sarmatians, an Iranian people who occupied the same niche in east-central Europe that the Avars and Magyars later would. Historically some of the Sarmatians who were defeated by Rome in Pannonia were resettled along Hadrian’s Wall. Some have suggested that certain Arthurian motifs point to a Sarmatian influence….

Posted by razib at 01:12 AM

Excellent article (free registration) on the current state of evolutionary psychology.

Via Steve Sailer.

Posted by razib at 12:28 AM

In the post below on Blue vs. Red States, godless aired the possibility that Blue staters might be more open to reducing the age of consent, I was curious, so I looked the data from this site, and didn’t really find a pattern. Below are the states sorted by age of consents 16 and below, and those who are at 18 (I used the higher age if there was a split).

Young ones….

Hawaii 14 Gore
Idaho 14 Bush
Colorado 15 Bush
Connecticut 15 Gore
Virginia 15 Bush
Alabama 16 Bush
Alaska 16 Bush
Delaware 16 Gore
Georgia 16 Bush
Indiana 16 Bush
Kansas 16 Bush
Maine 16 Gore
Maryland 16 Gore
Michigan 16 Gore
Minnesota 16 Gore
Mississippi 16 Bush
Montana 16 Bush
Nebraska 16 Bush
Nevada 16 Bush
North Carolina 16 Bush
Ohio 16 Bush
Pennsylvania 16 Gore
Rhode Island 16 Gore
South Carolina 16 Bush
Vermont 16 Gore
Washington 16 Bush
West Virginia 16 Bush
Wyoming 16 Bush

Well aged….

Arizona 18 Bush
Florida 18 Bush
Iowa 18 Bush
Massachusetts 18 Gore
New Hamsphire 18 Bush
New Jersey 18 Gore
North Dakota 18 Bush
Imbler 18 Gore
Tennessee 18 Bush
Utah 18 Bush
Wisconsin 18 Gore

Posted by razib at 10:49 AM

The Onion reports a story of a average woman at a Science Fiction convention becoming a relative hottie. Hilarious.

Posted by scottm at 02:02 AM