The face of Ariadne
In response to my post from this weekend positing that the Sardinians are a particularly pristine distillation of the genetic heritage of Europe’s first Neolithic farmers, a friend suggests that I compare & contrast Sardinian actress Caterina Murino and the depictions of women which one sees on the walls of Minoan palaces. The Minoans being […]
Ron Bailey Unzipped
Over at Reason Ron Baily has an excellent piece up, I’ll Show You My Genome. Will You Show Me Yours? He reviews his results from two genotyping chips, and has placed his results online. I doubt readers of this weblog will learn anything that new, though the article might prove illuminating to friends & family. […]
To study humankind, AAA responds
This morning I received an email from the communication director of the American Anthropology Association. The contents are on the web:
AAA Responds to Public Controversy Over Science in Anthropology
Some recent media coverage, including an article in the New York Times, has portrayed anthropology as divided between those who practice it as a science and those […]
Around the Web – December 13th, 2010
Estimating Heritability Using Twins. Luke Jostins lays out the A’s, E’s, and C’s. Very informative. This part was kind of funny though: “Interestingly, the Bioscience Resource Project post cites this paper, which makes their mistake somewhat surprising.” Wonder if Luke is making a reference to the tendency for people not to read papers they cite […]
Live not by visualization alone
Synthetic map
In the age of 500,000 SNP studies of genetic variation across dozens of populations obviously we’re a bit beyond lists of ABO blood frequencies. There’s no real way that a conventional human is going to be able to discern patterns of correlated allele frequency variations which point to between population genetic differences on this […]
The study of humankind: questions, answers, and good faith
John Hawks, Anthropology in transition:
Of course, by the 1980’s, anthropology was already disowning many of the central figures of its early development. If they had not themselves been tools of the colonialist oppressors, they were dupes of their knowing research subjects. Lewis is quite correct — many students of anthropological theory were no longer required […]
What is this “Western culture” you speak of?
This is my comment of the month:
Pontifications about “Western culture” bother me. The people who use the term seem to assume that “we” are part of “Western culture” and know what it is. No explanation is necessary. But if you stop and think about it, in what sense are a Hungarian peasant farmer and a […]
Excavating the Neolithic genetic strata
After linking to Marnie Dunsmore’s blog on the Neolithic expansion, and reading Peter Bellwood’s First Farmers, I’ve been thinking a bit on how we might integrate some models of the rise and spread of agriculture with the new genomic findings. Bellwood’s thesis basically seems to be that the contemporary world pattern of expansive macro-language families […]
Mark Madoff suicide
Long time readers know that I’ve been fascinated with the whole Bernie Madoff saga over the past few years. It looks like one of Bernie’s sons, Mark, committed suicide on the two year anniversary of his father’s arrest. If you haven’t, I strongly suggest you read this profile of the elder Madoff’s time in prison:
Madoff […]
Open Thread – December 11th, 2010
Weird story about twin brothers contesting paternity, Who’s Your Daddy? Paternity Battle Between Brothers:
“With identical twins, even if you sequenced their whole genome you wouldn’t find difference…they’re clones,” said Dr. Bob Gaensslen, a forensic scientist at Orchid Cellmark labs in Texas. “There are a few things in science that are cut and dried and this […]
Verbal vs. mathematical aptitude in academics
It isn’t too difficult to find GRE scores by intended major online. In reviewing articles/posts for my post below on anthropology I noted the distinction made between quant & qual methods, and aversions to regressions and scatter plots (or the supposed love of biological anthropologists for these tools). That got me wondering about the average mathematical […]
Friday Fluff – December 10th, 2010
1. First, a post from the past: Natural selection of a human gene: FUT2.
2. Weird search query of the week: “cognitive miser”.
3.Comment of the week, in response to The history of us all:
1. I take it you think Angus Maddison’s Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD is too technical for […]
Painting the human tree of life
Tishkoff et al.
Reading Peter Bellwood’s First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, I’m struck by how much of a difference five years has made. When Bellwood was writing the ‘orthodoxy’ of the nature of the expansion of farming into Europe leaned toward cultural diffusion. Today the paradigm is in flux, as a new generation of […]
“The” unbearable “whiteness” of “science”
Anthropology a Science? Statement Deepens a Rift:
Anthropologists have been thrown into turmoil about the nature and future of their profession after a decision by the American Anthropological Association at its recent annual meeting to strip the word “science” from a statement of its long-range plan.
The decision has reopened a long-simmering tension between researchers in science-based […]
A cloud forest in….
A “cloud forest”
The lush image above is of a cloud forest biome. Can you guess where it is? The Arabian country of Oman! How’s that for a surprise? I had known of the Green Mountain of northeast Oman, which is ~3000 meters above sea level and receives ~15 inches of rain (enough for shrubby […]
Does majoring in science make a difference?
On occasion I get queries about what distinguishes people with science backgrounds from those who don’t have science backgrounds. I think an anecdote might illustrate the type of difference one is expecting. Back in undergrad I was having lunch with my lab partner, when a friend saw us and decided to chat with us as […]
This book is a big *wow*
War in Human Civilization is an awesomely well written and dense book. Like The Horse, the Wheel, and Language it is a scholarly work which stays broadly engaging and relevant to a wider audience than specialists. Highly recommended if you have some spare time over Christmas. This is naturally not a endorsement of every claim […]
Notes & links – December 9th, 2010
Of arsenic and aliens: What the critics said. Carl Zimmer’s correspondence dump is gold.
Linear Population Model: Explores a linear model to examine genetic population admixture results and human prehistory. I read every post on this weblog after I stumbled upon it yesterday. The major focus seems to be to use ADMIXTURE results along with formal […]
How close are scientific disciplines?
Chemistry likes to think of itself as the “central science.” Is that true? Intuitively it makes sense. But how can we measure that more rigorously? In comes the Stanford Dissertation Browser:
The Stanford Dissertation Browser is an experimental interface for document collections that enables richer interaction than search. Stanford’s PhD dissertation abstracts from 1993-2008 are presented […]
Polarization on abortion in the USA
Some comments below made me want to look at attitudes toward abortion in the USA by ideology over the decades. I know that political party polarization on social issues has played out mostly over the past 20 years or, but I assumed that this was less evident in ideology (mostly, liberal Republicans became Democrats and […]