Monthly Archives: April 2013

  I was thinking again about the consequences of having more small-effect deleterious mutations than average.  I don’t think that they would push hard in a  particular direction in phenotype space – I don’t believe they would make you look … Continue reading →

So far, although I have occasionally been called an ‘extreme right winger’,  an anarchist, or a Commie, I have only once been called a God-damned hippie – due to this article of mine. A metaphorical cee-gar to the first person … Continue reading →

Once upon a time, I thought a lot about evolution and pathogens.  I still do, on occasion. It used to be the case [and still is] that many biologists thought that natural selection would inevitably tend towards a situation in … Continue reading →

[“On a chilly Ohio Saturday morning in 1979, some time after divorcing his first wife Linda, Jim Lewis awoke in his modest, middle-class home next to his second wife, Betty. Jim – a romantic, affectionate type – was determined that … Continue reading →

Some of you may remember the Presidential election in 2000.  It was pretty close – boiled down to a few hundred votes in Florida. If Bush carried the state, he’d win the Electoral College by one vote. If not, Gore … Continue reading →

In mathematics we often prove that some proposition is true by showing that  the alternative is false.  The principle can sometimes work in other disciplines, but it’s tricky.  You have to have a very good understanding  to know that some … Continue reading →

I have long wished for someone to put Dan Freedman’s little movie about racial behavioral differences in newborns on the web, and lo!  someone has done so. Take a look.  

Hamilton’s rule says that altruistic genes should increase in frequency when rB > C,  when r is the identity-by-descent relatedness of the  recipient to the actor, B is the fitness benefit to the recipient, and C is the fitness cost … Continue reading →

One of the funnier patterns in modern American life is some individual stating something true but unsayable, followed by the ritual public recantation.  There are generally unsayable things (a  constantly expanding list), and then there are others that are only … Continue reading →