Monthly Archives: October 2017

Orcas, killer whales, have occasionally attacked (and in a few cases killed) their trainers, but to the best of my information, no human being has ever been eaten by an orca. Why the fuck not? Are we not good enough … Continue reading →

Jacob Sullum, in Reason, says that there’s no chance that a detailed pathological study of Stephen Paddock’s brain will explain why Paddock committed mass murder. He quotes Szasz. A mistake. Sullum’s claim is incorrect. Now and then we manage to … Continue reading →

There are parts of Europe, Switzerland and Bavaria for example, that are seriously iodine deficient. This used to be a problem. I wonder if fish on Friday ameliorated it: A three-ounce serving size of cod provides your body with 99 … Continue reading →

Full utilization of camels created desert power, a bad thing for civilization. Steam engines replacing sailing ships had approximately the opposite effect: ended piracy. Which two sf novels am I channeling?

Making things better in the long run in not really an objective of the justice system, since the mental universe of those running it has no picture of how that could be done. But it may have happened anyway: over … Continue reading →

I have said before that no currently popular ideology acknowledges well-established results of behavioral genetics, quantitative genetics, or psychometrics. Or evolutionary psychology. What if some ideology or political tradition did? what could they do? What problems could they solve, what … Continue reading →

Razib Khan suggests that the fact that we could and did interbreed with Neanderthals shows that they were really ‘human’, whatever that means. I don’t think that is necessarily the case.

Pretty much every species is subject to sexual selection: heritable characteristics that lead to more mates or better mates can be favored by natural selection. Typically, sexual selection favors different strategies in males and females. Generally, males can gain fitness … Continue reading →