Monthly Archives: May 2017

Scott Alexander talks about our paper, Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence. He thinks it a good explanation of a burst of contributions by Ashkenazi Jews in the exact sciences in the early 20th century. His guys then comment extensively, if … Continue reading →

Milton said ‘who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? ‘ – but he was wrong. I’ve seen it put to the worse time and time again. A major fraction of western universities are … Continue reading →

Part II of my recent interview with James Miller is now up.

Average IQ scores have gone up a lot over the years, although they seem to be plateauing. Do I think that people really got smarter over that period? Based on real-world accomplishments? Not one bit. Probably they’ve gotten a bit … Continue reading →

The Beaker culture is an archaeological culture that existed in the late Copper Age and early Bronze age in western Europe, characterized by a particular style of pottery drinking vessels, but also by developments in copper metallurgy, archery, etc. It … Continue reading →

Suppose that the narrow-sense heritability of IQ is 0.7 [ in typical western circumstances: no ball-peen hammers), and the non-genetic variation is almost all caused by mysterious unshared-environment effects – not the school you go to or the books in … Continue reading →

I’m interested in hearing about significant innovations out of contemporary China. Good ones. Ideas, inventions, devices, dreams. Throw in Outer China (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore).

Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true – but sometimes, desperately wanting something to be true pays off. Sometimes because you’re actually right (by luck), and that passion helps you put in the work required to establish it, … Continue reading →