Monthly Archives: October 2018

A few years back, Henry Harpending  was giving a talk at the University of Michigan, and a prof there ( Richard Nisbett ) corralled him for a couple of hours, before the talk. Nisbett  (who often argues in favor of … Continue reading →

A few left-wing biologists are trying to spread the meme that highly polygenic traits are unstable: they might play out entirely differently in a different environment, presumably in a way that  zeroes or reverses any trait differences that they don’t … Continue reading →

It’s hard to come up with a plausible scenario in which the Axis wins WWII. But what do I mean by ‘plausible’?  No aliens intervene, nobody gives the Germans perfect foresight, or detailed plans for a minimal cost-and-time nuclear weapons … Continue reading →

David Reich says that around 4500 years ago, the existing Y-chromosomes in Iberia were almost entirely replaced. “The collision of these two populations was not friendly; instead, the men who arrived almost completely pushed out the local men.”  Spanish scientist Íñigo … Continue reading →

There are all sorts of interesting possibilities generated by polygenic risk scores that I have not yet seen discussed anywhere. There are existing tests  that you can’t fake ( without explicit cheating).  You could pretend to be dumber than you … Continue reading →

“In social psychology, fundamental attribution error (FAE), also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the concept that, in contrast to interpretations of their own behavior, people tend to (unduly) emphasize the agent’s internal characteristics (character or intention), rather than external factors, in explaining other … Continue reading →