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In 2002 I read Stanislas Dehaene’s The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics. Though it’s not at the same level as Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct*, it’s not that far below it. There was a time when I read a fair amount of cognitive neuroscience. Not so much now. So I’m finally trying to get through Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read, again, by Stanislas Dehaene. This is partly an exercise of narcissism, since I want to do what I can to understand myself.
Speaking of which, Bryan Caplan, a big fan of Judith Rich Harris’ The Nurture Assumption, reports that reading is kind of a big deal in developing a child, and impacting their ultimate life outcomes. The effect is modest, but robust. Though also please read Will Ambrosini’s cautionary comments about interpretation of this result.
So what else is going on? I apologize to those whose comments I don’t respond to who are asking me a direct question. Time is finite and it often slips my mind, even though responding to questions is on a “TO-DO”. Also, the new book about Elon Musk, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, looks interesting. But I doubt the whole of the text is worth purchasing. I care a lot less about Musk’s family background and personal life than I do about his vision for the human race. But really the latter could be outlined on a napkin.
Finally, BAPG XII @Stanford in Palo Alto. May 30th, a Saturday. Looking forward in particular to Michael McLaren’s talk on fitness landscapes.
* The Blank Slate is probably more well known, and Pinker’s most successful book in terms of broad cultural impact. But I think The Language Instinct is his best science book aimed at a general audience.
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Razib,
In a comment to a Greg Cochran post, one of your regular readers recommended your reading list as a source for excellent nonfiction books. FWIW I enjoy your reviews and often add your ‘likes’ to my own Wish List.
While it may be staring me in the face, I don’t see an actual “recommended” or “new and interesting” book list, or a category or tag to that effect. If it exists, I’d be grateful for a link.
http://www.razib.com/books/
though my goodreads is probably where you should really go
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/18982209?shelf=read
i'm pretty sure it's biased to books that i sort of liked. the average star rating is way too high. i think i forgot really crappy books mostly....
I just watched this talk at Steve Hsu’s blog:
http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2015/05/genetic-architecture-and-predictive.html
The talk is excellent. I hadn’t been aware that most variation between people was due to additive genetic effects. This is a very strong constraint, which makes it much easier to discover the genes responsible for differences. The idea of a phase transition in our ability to detect the genes as the number of data points (individuals) goes up is also pretty exciting.
Hi Razib,
Some time back you posted an article comparing the BIMARU states to other states in India, outlining how they resemble African countries on a host of indicators.
Do you buy the idea that social trust, socioeconomic performance, and family structure are linked? Specifically, the hypothesis that endogamy and emphasis on extended family leads to decline of generalised social trust, and ultimately leads to socioeconomic underperformance? Francis Fukuyama, Emmanuel Todd and HBDChick have all made this connection, though the former two see the mechanism as mostly social, and HBDChick as mostly genetic.
This is interesting to me as South India is the area with endogamous MBD marriages, but North India is exogamous AFAIK. So one should expect the exact opposite pattern–for North India to outperform the South. However, it seems that North Indians are far less trusting, less able to sustain stable state capacity, have weaker regional identities, and are less open to women in the public sphere than South Indians are. Some of their social norms in the Khaps resemble those of middle eastern countries, which are of course very endogamous and display similar socioeconomic underperformance and state weakness.
What do you think?
In fact, some aspects of the greater middle eastern influence (women as property, castes or caste groupings as clan, limited interest in education and modernization of thought) in Northern India than in the south or North east. In a sense, BIMARU states resemble a poor version of Pakistani South Punjab than other parts of India. As a whole, BIMARU is an exception and not the general rule of India. Just the uncontrolled population growth has given the states an outsized influence.Replies: @Razib Khan
might have causality backward.
This is interesting to me as South India is the area with endogamous MBD marriages, but North India is exogamous AFAIK. So one should expect the exact opposite pattern–for North India to outperform the South. However, it seems that North Indians are far less trusting, less able to sustain stable state capacity, have weaker regional identities, and are less open to women in the public sphere than South Indians are. Some of their social norms in the Khaps resemble those of middle eastern countries, which are of course very endogamous and display similar socioeconomic underperformance and state weakness.
it's complicated. gujarat has many of the traits of BIMARU, but is economically advanced. punjab also has village exogamy and is very patriarchal, but is economically advanced. additionally, despite village exogamy (gotra level, right?) because of jati endogamy even north indian hindus have enrichment for runs of homozygosity. IOW, they might suffer some inbreeding depression despite bans on incestuous marriage simply because their marriage networks have been delimited for so long.
Collaborating with the TEDS cohort of several thousand identical twins studied in multiple waves from age 3 to age 16, the study tested if one of the twins got better on a test of reading, would they score higher on IQ in later years? The Design includes the initial (moderately strong) association of these two traits, and nests all analyses within families to avoid those confounds).
The answer was yes: If one of two genetically identical twins acquires better reading skills, these are realised not only as enduring gains in reading, but in changed (increased) IQ in later waves.
These were not explained by reading of books: Rather learning to read seems to enable the mind to work better at a categorical level.
A napkin? Maybe.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html
“In college, he thought about what he wanted to do with his life, using as his starting point the question, “What will most affect the future of humanity?” The answer he came up with was a list of five things: “the internet; sustainable energy; space exploration, in particular the permanent extension of life beyond Earth; artificial intelligence; and reprogramming the human genetic code.””
“This guy has a lot on his mind across a lot of topics. In this one lunch alone, we covered electric cars, climate change, artificial intelligence, the Fermi Paradox, consciousness, reusable rockets, colonizing Mars, creating an atmosphere on Mars, voting on Mars, genetic programming, his kids, population decline, physics vs. engineering, Edison vs. Tesla, solar power, a carbon tax, the definition of a company, warping spacetime and how this isn’t actually something you can do, nanobots in your bloodstream and how this isn’t actually something you can do, Galileo, Shakespeare, the American forefathers, Henry Ford, Isaac Newton, satellites, and ice ages.”
And also:
“— I talked to him for a while about genetic reprogramming. He doesn’t buy the efficacy of typical anti-aging technology efforts, because he believes humans have general expiration dates, and no one fix can help that. He explained: “The whole system is collapsing. You don’t see someone who’s 90 years old and it’s like, they can run super fast but their eyesight is bad. The whole system is shutting down. In order to change that in a serious way, you need to reprogram the genetics or replace every cell in the body.” Now with anyone else—literally anyone else—I would shrug and agree, since he made a good point. But this was Elon Musk, and Elon Musk fixes shit for humanity. So what did I do?
Me: Well…but isn’t this important enough to try? Is this something you’d ever turn your attention to?
Elon: The thing is that all the geneticists have agreed not to reprogram human DNA. So you have to fight not a technical battle but a moral battle.
Me: You’re fighting a lot of battles. You could set up your own thing. The geneticists who are interested—you bring them here. You create a laboratory, and you could change everything.
Elon: You know, I call it the Hitler Problem. Hitler was all about creating the Übermensch and genetic purity, and it’s like—how do you avoid the Hitler Problem? I don’t know.
Me: I think there’s a way. You’ve said before about Henry Ford that he always just found a way around any obstacle, and you do the same thing, you always find a way. And I just think that that’s as important and ambitious a mission as your other things, and I think it’s worth fighting for a way, somehow, around moral issues, around other things.
Elon: I mean I do think there’s…in order to fundamentally solve a lot of these issues, we are going to have to reprogram our DNA. That’s the only way to do it.
Me: And deep down, DNA is just a physical material.
Elon: [Nods, then pauses as he looks over my shoulder in a daze] It’s software.”
A couple of quick questions that I wanted your take on.
1. I’m not sure whether this is the case for all ancient European DNA, but I know that Ötzi is estimated to have had higher Neanderthal DNA than most modern Europeans. Has Neanderthal or archaic DNA decreased in modern Eurasians over time? If so, why?
2. Could you explain sexual selection/preference among black Americans during slavery? If 1/3 of their y-DNA comes from Europe, but they are on average 20% European, what are the inferences you would make on mating patterns both during slavery and in current times?
3. This question may be better suited to your recent Brazilians post, but oh well. What do you think are the long term implications of human gene editing on phenotypic diversity in terms of physical appearance and behavior/intelligence?
could be "basal eurasian" inflow (though otzi had that). east eurasians, including 'ancestral south indians', have more neandertal than europeans. could be due to basal eurasian inflow over last 10,000 years in waves.
2. Could you explain sexual selection/preference among black Americans during slavery? If 1/3 of their y-DNA comes from Europe, but they are on average 20% European, what are the inferences you would make on mating patterns both during slavery and in current times?
white men had sexual access to black women. black men did not have sexual access to white women. or at least far less. this is going to result in 'sex mediated gene flow.' that is, european ancestry came through males. so you see more african ancestry on the X chromosome.
3. This question may be better suited to your recent Brazilians post, but oh well. What do you think are the long term implications of human gene editing on phenotypic diversity in terms of physical appearance and behavior/intelligence?
i think it will be mostly done for old people with diseases. they can take the risk, since death is the only other option anyway.
If “endogamy and emphasis on extended family leads to decline of generalised social trust, and ultimately leads to socioeconomic underperformance” then there is not a big difference between BIMARU states and southern states or Pakistan Punjab. All these regions have endogamy and less emphasis on the nation as a whole, but have varied performance.
In fact, some aspects of the greater middle eastern influence (women as property, castes or caste groupings as clan, limited interest in education and modernization of thought) in Northern India than in the south or North east. In a sense, BIMARU states resemble a poor version of Pakistani South Punjab than other parts of India. As a whole, BIMARU is an exception and not the general rule of India. Just the uncontrolled population growth has given the states an outsized influence.
first, the reich lab work suggests that the history of endogamy in south asia is thousands of years old. it's obviously not just recent middle eastern influence. in fact, it might pre-date the aryans. second, saying BIMARU is the 'exception' except for its population is positively weird. not only is it very populous, but BIMARU is basically the core of the old post-vedic aryvarta.
In a comment to a Greg Cochran post, one of your regular readers recommended your reading list as a source for excellent nonfiction books. FWIW I enjoy your reviews and often add your 'likes' to my own Wish List.
While it may be staring me in the face, I don't see an actual "recommended" or "new and interesting" book list, or a category or tag to that effect. If it exists, I'd be grateful for a link.Replies: @Razib Khan
i don’t have a tag for that. though i did have a ‘books’ blog that i haven’t had time/energy to maintain
http://www.razib.com/books/
though my goodreads is probably where you should really go
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/18982209?shelf=read
i’m pretty sure it’s biased to books that i sort of liked. the average star rating is way too high. i think i forgot really crappy books mostly….
Specifically, the hypothesis that endogamy and emphasis on extended family leads to decline of generalised social trust, and ultimately leads to socioeconomic underperformance? Francis Fukuyama, Emmanuel Todd and HBDChick have all made this connection, though the former two see the mechanism as mostly social, and HBDChick as mostly genetic.
might have causality backward.
This is interesting to me as South India is the area with endogamous MBD marriages, but North India is exogamous AFAIK. So one should expect the exact opposite pattern–for North India to outperform the South. However, it seems that North Indians are far less trusting, less able to sustain stable state capacity, have weaker regional identities, and are less open to women in the public sphere than South Indians are. Some of their social norms in the Khaps resemble those of middle eastern countries, which are of course very endogamous and display similar socioeconomic underperformance and state weakness.
it’s complicated. gujarat has many of the traits of BIMARU, but is economically advanced. punjab also has village exogamy and is very patriarchal, but is economically advanced. additionally, despite village exogamy (gotra level, right?) because of jati endogamy even north indian hindus have enrichment for runs of homozygosity. IOW, they might suffer some inbreeding depression despite bans on incestuous marriage simply because their marriage networks have been delimited for so long.
1. I'm not sure whether this is the case for all ancient European DNA, but I know that Ötzi is estimated to have had higher Neanderthal DNA than most modern Europeans. Has Neanderthal or archaic DNA decreased in modern Eurasians over time? If so, why?
2. Could you explain sexual selection/preference among black Americans during slavery? If 1/3 of their y-DNA comes from Europe, but they are on average 20% European, what are the inferences you would make on mating patterns both during slavery and in current times?
3. This question may be better suited to your recent Brazilians post, but oh well. What do you think are the long term implications of human gene editing on phenotypic diversity in terms of physical appearance and behavior/intelligence?Replies: @Razib Khan
1. I’m not sure whether this is the case for all ancient European DNA, but I know that Ötzi is estimated to have had higher Neanderthal DNA than most modern Europeans. Has Neanderthal or archaic DNA decreased in modern Eurasians over time? If so, why?
could be “basal eurasian” inflow (though otzi had that). east eurasians, including ‘ancestral south indians’, have more neandertal than europeans. could be due to basal eurasian inflow over last 10,000 years in waves.
2. Could you explain sexual selection/preference among black Americans during slavery? If 1/3 of their y-DNA comes from Europe, but they are on average 20% European, what are the inferences you would make on mating patterns both during slavery and in current times?
white men had sexual access to black women. black men did not have sexual access to white women. or at least far less. this is going to result in ‘sex mediated gene flow.’ that is, european ancestry came through males. so you see more african ancestry on the X chromosome.
3. This question may be better suited to your recent Brazilians post, but oh well. What do you think are the long term implications of human gene editing on phenotypic diversity in terms of physical appearance and behavior/intelligence?
i think it will be mostly done for old people with diseases. they can take the risk, since death is the only other option anyway.
In fact, some aspects of the greater middle eastern influence (women as property, castes or caste groupings as clan, limited interest in education and modernization of thought) in Northern India than in the south or North east. In a sense, BIMARU states resemble a poor version of Pakistani South Punjab than other parts of India. As a whole, BIMARU is an exception and not the general rule of India. Just the uncontrolled population growth has given the states an outsized influence.Replies: @Razib Khan
In fact, some aspects of the greater middle eastern influence (women as property, castes or caste groupings as clan, limited interest in education and modernization of thought) in Northern India than in the south or North east. In a sense, BIMARU states resemble a poor version of Pakistani South Punjab than other parts of India. As a whole, BIMARU is an exception and not the general rule of India. Just the uncontrolled population growth has given the states an outsized influence.
first, the reich lab work suggests that the history of endogamy in south asia is thousands of years old. it’s obviously not just recent middle eastern influence. in fact, it might pre-date the aryans. second, saying BIMARU is the ‘exception’ except for its population is positively weird. not only is it very populous, but BIMARU is basically the core of the old post-vedic aryvarta.
Ohio House bill would ban abortions spurred by diagnosis of Down syndrome
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/05/24/ohio-house-bill-would-ban-abortions-spurred-by-diagnosis-of-down-syndrome.html
The level of human irrationality never ceases to amaze me.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/05/24/ohio-house-bill-would-ban-abortions-spurred-by-diagnosis-of-down-syndrome.htmlReplies: @Jim W
So, it is presumably okay to abort a fetus if you don’t know whether or not it has Down’s syndrome, or even if you know that it does not have it. Once it has been diagnosed with Down’s, however, then you have to keep it because abortion would be discrimination.
The level of human irrationality never ceases to amaze me.
Number Sense and Number Nonsense: Understanding the Challenges of Learning Math by Nancy Krasa Ph.D.