Monthly Archives: December 2011

Risch’s Conjecture

Posted on December 28, 2011 by gcochran9

As some of you already know, Henry and I have put forth the hypothesis that the observed high intellectual achievement of Ashkenazi Jews is a result of natural selection for intelligence over the Middle Ages. We think there’s a pretty … Continue reading →

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Finals Week

Posted on December 20, 2011 by harpend

Finals Week

I have a 15 year old with several undesirable traits. We had an intense discussion two days ago about whether “clothes picked up from the floor in your room” is satisfied by “dirty clothes simply kicked under the bed.” I prevailed, but an hour or so later he gave me a note saying “Here is your Christmas message, Dad.”

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Clines and Races

Posted on December 19, 2011 by gcochran9

Often we hear people argue that that racial classifications are arbitrary, and therefore race does not exist.  Actually they say a lot of things, most of which are pretty nebulous, but this point does come up. What if they were … Continue reading →

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An axe-age, a sword-age

Posted on December 11, 2011 by gcochran9

“Genetic differentiation between Early and Middle Neolithic populations was significant (FST∼0.13, P < 10−5), suggesting that genetic drift played an important role at this time.” Riiight.      

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Done Quickly

Posted on December 3, 2011 by gcochran9

I’ve never seen anyone talk about it much, but when you think about mass extinctions, you also have to think about rates of change You can think of a species occupying a point in a many-dimensional space, where each dimension … Continue reading →

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