Popper’s ideas are both robust and practical, when you get over the obsession with demarcation and some problems with his methods of exposition. Early in life he was too longwinded and later he was too concerned with vindicating his earlier work.
The really important achievements of Popper were:
1. Getting the philosophy of science out the rut where it was stuck with positivism and inductivism.
2. Retrieving the role of metaphysics with his theory of metaphysical research programs.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/popmeta.html
3. Reviving evolutionary epistemology.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/revmunzpop.html
4. Providing a framework for tradition, evidence, logic, metaphysics and imagination to work in synergy.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/introrandi.html
5. Making an equally significant contribution to the philosophy of politics and the social sciences.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/poppurpose.html

I think british ancestry is generally under reported. For instance my family has an irish surname and we have always thought of ourselves as good irish americans, big st. patricks day celebrations, pilgrimages to ireland etc. Well my aunt started to research our background. My grandfather was 1/16th irish the rest of his ancestry was derived from new england yankee’s cum mormons. In my experience very few people think of themselves as English americans even if the have obviously english surnames like johnson, roberts, baker etc. Were as people I know with german, irish, scottish or scandinavian surnames tend to identify with those ancestries even if they only form a proportionally very small part of their ancestry. I think unless you have recent british ancestry there is little consciousness of british as distinct type of american. Its not an identity that seems to have much sway for people, what does it mean to be british american, there is little contrast to the mainstream culture. Were as if your ancestor spoke a different language, ate different food practiced a different religion that is a more memorable identifier.

I had a memorable argument about this with my closest freind 5 years ago while driving to the grand canyon. He was arguing the position of extreme rewilding, were I was taking the more conservative ecological model worrying about the effect it would have on current ecosystems. I was convinced and when I later saw Zimov and Donlan I was and still am excited. From biology geek perspective the idea of cheetahs and camels roaming our parks is just fun, but the logic to me is much more convincing. Its not just a moral imperative we destroyed these species we should it put it back to rights, it is the logical conclusions from four premises I think equally obvious. Humans are the cause of huge decrease in global biodiversity, the effect of humans on the global ecology is not going to go away, all we can do is try to control what that effect is, biodiversity is good biodiverse ecological systems are more stable and overall more productive(not in terms of human lives neccesarily but in overall life produced). Following from these premises it makes sense for humans to try to undo some of the damage we have done to the environment in order to restore biodiversity which is critically important for the overall ecology of the planet.
There are vast areas of canada, siberia and the USA that are extremely sparsely populated if africans can survive alongside elephants, lions, hippotamuses etc we should be able to survive along side appropriate megafauna as well.

I don’t think there is great deal of evidence supporting the idea crunches and sit ups are dangerous. There is good logic behind it though flexion of the lumbar spine puts sheering forces on the disc which the back is very sensitive to. Even if the risks are minor there is no value in traditional core excercises anyways. The primary role of the core is not lumbar flexion it is to stablize force transfer form the hips and to resist flexion, extension or rotation. Excessive training of the flexion function of the “core” often results in terrible posture as well, the anterior core becomes tight while the posterior core remains week and often hyper flexible. I see this often in gymnasts. I know the world record holder for sit ups and his posture incredibly bad.
If your going to train the core it should be anti Flexion, rotation and extension exercises, like planks, side plancks, l-hold, tuck planche, flags. I don’t think there is great value in core training anyways. I do very little specific core training my training is primarily parkour plus major compound lifts, Squat, deadlift, handstand push up and muscle ups between those exercises every muscle in my body is activated in universal motor patterns applicable to life and sport.

Thats the purpose of the Vibram 5 fingers mentioned in the article Joshua.
I am Parkour and Strength and Conditioning Coach and athlete. From working with athletes it is incredibly clear to me that more time training barefoot equals better healthier athletes. The foot is the foundation of the body when encased in a shoe it can not develop the strength and dexterity it is built for.
People with week, unco-ordinated feet are far more likely to develop knee, hip and lower back injuries, they are also less able to demonstrate agility, speed, strength and co-ordination.
Shoes are useful for sure, I think of them as performance enhancing equipment I can not get the same traction on many surfaces barefoot as I can with good rubber under my foot. A nice hard cushion under the foot alows me to take larger harsher jumps without worrying about injuring my feet. So I do use shoes but I try to go barefoot or in vibrams or similar low profile shoes as much as possible in life and training.

Butter is very healthful it messes up your trend line.
I am interested in the trend line on margarine which is terrible processed crap.

“maybe the first world isnt all that hot either”
Just ask Cavalli-Sforza about it.

Comparing the population of Irish outside of Ireland to inside of ireland is not particular relevant to pashtuns in pakistan. An irish last name or family tradition of Irishness is no guarantee of significant Irish ancestry in the USA and to lesser degree Australia and the UK, beyond ancestry the cultural traditions of Ireland are not so strongly maintained in other countries and there is not separate language. 
 
For example, my family had a tradition of irishnes turns out we are about 1/64 irish, and I don’t detect any particular irish cultural traditions. They were catholic but that was by way of far more recent polish ancestry.

“That map makes no sense at all. It beggers belief to suggest more people want to move away from Canada (18%) than away from, say, Pakistan (10%).”
It’s clear that the percentages shown on the map are regional averages. After all, it’d be very weird if exactly all countries across the same geopolitical regions somehow showed equal percentages of persons wishing to move out.

John the calories in calories out hypothesis, simply doesn’t work because metabolism is flexible. How much nutrition we derive from food and what we do with those calories and building blocks is determined by hormonal response to food, bacterial activity in the gut, etc etc. 
 
The body is generally good at maintaining homeostasis and many people are able to maintain body composition homeostatis despite wild variations in calorie intake and exercise. I have worked with athletes who have had to increase their calorie intake by 3000 calories before any weight gain. I have worked with severely overweight women eating less then 2000 calories a day who promptly lost weight when put higher calorie but more nutritious diets. The fact that increasingly large segments of the population are suffering a disease state of continual weight gain indicates there is something more going on here.  
 
There some good evidence in the low carb camp, low carb dieting is definitely more effective and more sustainable I do not think it is entirely convincing though, the evidence that people can be perfectly healthy on very high carb diets is also strong. I am most intrigued currently by the evidence that differences in gut flora correlate strongly with obesity. http://mayoclinproc.highwire.org/content/83/4/460.full

When I was an anthropology undergrad I was fascinated by the implications of the then recent findings on hybridization in canids and what it implied for the human population history.

It seemed to me that canids as cursorial social carnivores provided an interesting analogy for population history in humans. If the eastern wolf Canis Lycaon could act as conduit for genes from the coyote Canis latrans into the gray wolf Canis Lupus it seemed to me that the model of a perfect cladistic tree splitting but never coming back together would likely not work in human lineage either. Its very exciting to see similar results coming out now in humans. At that time wolves were considered one holarctic species expect the controversial canis lycoan, now we see evidence for distinct populations in the Himalayans and india that have been seperate for hundreds of thousands of years. This kind of cryptic population structure seems like it to might be a good model for Pleistocene population dynamics in humans with much of the structure from that period wiped out by later demic expansion leaving just tantalizing hints like this.

I do think given the controversy over mutation rates the most parsimonious explanation is still that Denisova is simpy an asian erectus, and the reason we do not see its genetic signature in other asian population is that it was pushed into south east asia during the last glacial maximum and encountered modern humans there. Still I would not be surprised at all to find out once again things are more complicated.

JWM and Dave Both hit on key concepts here.

Its not just cats, cattle and humans, in fact the relative brain size of almost all domesticates is smaller then their wild ancestors http://tiny.cc/ty6n9 . This just part of a suite of changes that characterize domesticates. Including reduced size, a more pronounced forehead, a shorter foreface, overall increased morphological diversity, a wider range of coat colors, long hair, curly hair, naked skin, and reduced dentition. Most of these characteristics are seen in modern humans relatives to our ancestors. Compared to erectines and neanderthal and even early AMH modern humans are less skeletally robust, have shorter forefaces and larger foreheads and smaller teeth in more crowded jaws. Compared to chimps we are characterized by being having naked skin, long hair of an astonishing variety of color and form and increased morphological diversity even within genetically homogeneous populations.

The belyaev Domestic fox experiments http://tiny.cc/diffx, provides a very intriguing clue as to why this might be. Belyaev was able to induce all of the morphological changes typical of domestic animals in foxes by breeding for a single characteristic, Tameness. Tameness can be conceived of as openness to novel social situations and strangers. This is characteristic of all juvenile animals but rare in adult wild animals. Selection for this trait seems to effect developmental genes which have major effects in morphology resulting in these typical patterns of morphological change.

Domestic animals are generally less intelligent then their wild ancestors but they appear to have domain specific capacities for social learning and thinking that their wild ancestors don’t http://tiny.cc/cjfpt.

I suspect that the development of just such capacities as been one of the primary selective patterns behind the development of modern humans. We may have lost some individual brain power but without the evolution of those social capacities I doubt we would have ever been able to harness that brain power to build civilization. I also think it’s quite likely that the selective environment of civilization has selected for a horde new adaptions on traits like IQ and time preference which would have not been as advantageous for our paleolithic ancestors.

A priori it makes since that wolves would provide a good analogy to pleistocen human population dynamics as they occupy similar niches. That was what my thesis was going to be about before I decided to focus on Gymnastics coaching and Parkour.

The model seems especially appropriate now because of new findings in both fields. In addition to the evidence of introgression in modern humans from Neanderthals and Denisovans. It now look’s like there are two newly found distinct lineages of wolves in the himalayas and india respectively http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/Suppl_3/S1.abstract
With separation from the main gray wolf clade on the order of 400,000 years and 800,000 years on the MTDNA line. This is not dissimilar to estimated distance between AMH and neanderthals and AMH and denisovans. The paper intimates that hybridizing might be happening right now between himalayans and gray wolves which would fascinating to study in general and as an analog for the dynamics of the AMH and archaic hybrdization events. It would be very interesting to see the autosomal DNA from these areas.

Furthermore there is evidence of an ongoing lineage separation on the british columbian coast between marine hunting wolves and interior wolves focused on ungulates http://www.raincoast.org/files/publications/papers/Munoz_et_al_2009_JBiogeog.pdf

Combine that with the dynamics of Canis Lycaon, Canis Lupus and Canis Latrans in eastern north america and there is evidence of some very interesting dynamics in the wolf lineage.

I think that this is good possible model for archaic human population dynamics in the Pleistocene. With a relatively stable adaptive tool set and niche archaics were able to spread out across a huge range similar to that of the wolf. With a degree of behavioral plasticity and low population density it would not be to difficult for lineages to separate and follow slightly different adaptive lines but achieving full reproductive isolation would be uncommon. Just as some circumstances would push populations apart other circumstances could just as easily reverse the speciation process. At any given time there might have been quite a few sub species following fairly separate adaptive paths before coalescing back into a mainline population or going extinct when circumstances changed.

Super excited, I think this one will let us know if the series can get back on track. One not as good book is not to big a deal but if this one is not better I would suspect he has simple become overwhelmed by the story ala jordan, I still have an optimistic outlook that he will get it back under controll on this book and be able to finishing in 2 more books.

I am also a big fan of the price of nothing series as well. My take on the aspect emperor so far, its very good, he avoids exactly the main problems seen in other big fantasies he doesn’t get caught up following too many threads, if anything the judging eye is tighter then previous novels. Bakker also stretches out in style bringing in more of a horror influence which is fun.

That said there are flaws, none of the characters in the aspect emperor are yet as compelling as Kelhus, Cnaiur, or Conphas, and the philosophical underpining that were so fresh in the prince of nothing don’t have quite as impact in the second go around so far.

To anyone who is fan of both Martin and Bakker I would also recommend Joe abercrombie. Who explores similar inversions of the classic fantasy tropes with his own unique and interesting take.

Dont know if you know this. But english is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn…. Just thought i would throw that out there.

I took oath to USA not to Israel
If you people love Israel send your money not our public tax dollars. US tax dollars for USA.