Victor Davis Hanson has a very good "Letter to the Europeans" up which captures the feelings that many on the right have towards The Continent. As he says in the piece, we cons don't hate Europe, we are frustrated at their suicidal course. And this is not a racial thing, but a frustration over watching a great civilization turn away from what made it great in favor of what makes it feel good in the short term; much like watching an accomplished man abandon his greatness for the temporary thrill of the bottle.

A very good read.

$1,000 genome sequencing in 2008? Hmmm....

To my knowledge no one has tested Cochran et al.'s prediction that Tay Sachs carriers will be have higher cognitive aptitudes than those who are non-Tay Sachs carriers all things controlled (i.e., compare sibs for instance). Before I went to sleep last night I started thinking about this, and I wondered if there was a quick & dirty way we could try to get a grip on the possibility of Tay Sachs vs. non-Tay Sachs cognitive performance. And I had a thought: a Jewish student organization at a very elite university could do a survey for Tay Sachs status amongst its members. Presumably Tay Sachs heterozygotes would be overrepresented 1-2 standard deviations above the Jewish American cognitive median.

I recieved this email this morning re: thermodynamics:

I think this is an excellent idea, and I think GNXP can help make it happen. I would like to request a GNXP open thread specifically to explore the possibility of a group blog on this and related topics - information theory, probability and statistics, maybe even fluid dynamics... There is a whole universe of topics which could flow together in such a blog, it's just a matter of getting an initial combination of people and topics that will subsequently be self-sustaining.

If you do decide to make such a post, feel free to quote this email.

I actually think that basic physics and chemistry are pretty important, so if someone is willing to start up a weblog on this topic and it finds a niche that isn't already taken up in the 'blogosphere' I will certainly link immediately. But unlike something like evolutionary theory, cosmology or psychometrics I have had little long term success in keeping anyone's attention on these topics in personal conversation since they often have no strong opinions a priori and are happy to stay that way.

Update: OK, the discussion on topic should move to Phase Transitions.

Below are the top books that people clicked via this website, and the top books purchased in 2005....


Clicks:

1. Survival of the Prettiest - 1183
2. Why Sex Matters - 1114
   
3. The Journey of Man - 1075
4. The Seven Daughters of Eve - 870
5. The History and Geography of Genes - 840
6. Consilience - 746
7. The Real Eve - 736
8. The Red Queen - 717
9. Religion Explained - 616
10. The Nurture Assumption - 561

Top purchases (with number of clicks):

1. The Journey of Man - 6, 1075
2. A History of Byzantine State and Society - 4, 496
3. Guns, Germs and Steel - 4, 521
4. Race - 4, 4
5. Evolution - 3, 156
6. Handbook of Prayers - 3, 0
7. The Biology of Peace and War - 3, 30
8. The Essential Difference - 3, 547
9. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople - 3, 87
10. The Seven Daughters of Eve - 3, 870

John McWhorter has a new book out, Winning the Race, so he's making the media rounds. He was just on Talk of the Nation, News & Notes with Ed Gordon and On Point. Keep an eye (and ear) out for him.

A few passages from The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450 -

page 231: "Moreover, Albert did nothing to diminish or conceal the "naturalistic" tendencies of Aristotelian tradition. He acknowledged (with every other medieval thinker) that God is ultimately the cause of everything, but he argued that God customarily works through natural causes and that the natural philosopher's obligation was to take the latter to their limit. What is remarkable is Albert's willingness to adhere to this methodological prescription even in his discussion of a biblical miracle-Noah's flood. Noting that some people wish to confine the discussion of floods (including Noah's) to a statement of divine will, Albert pointed out that God employs natural causes to accomplish his purposes; and the philosopher's task is not to investigate the causes of God's will, but to inquire into the natural causes by which God's will produces its effect. To introduce divine causality into a philosophical discussion of Noah's flood would be a violation of the proper boundaries between philosophy and theology."

One page 235, there is a section on a radical faction of Aristotelians who went beyond St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, "Boethius thus yielded in the end to the articles of the faith, but in the meantime he displayed an intensely rationalistic orientation. He argued that there is no questional capable of rational investigation that the philosopher is not entitled to investigate and resolve. 'It belongs to the philosopher to determine every question which can be disputed by reason; for every question which can be disputed by rational argument falls within some part of being. But the philosopher investigates all being-natural, mathematical, and divine. Therefore it belongs to the philosopher to determine every question which can be disputed by rational arguments.' Boethius went on to argue that the natural philosopher cannont even consider the possibility of creation, because to do so would introduce supernatural principles that are out of places in the philosophical realm. Likewise the philosopher denies the resurrection of the dead, becauase according to natural causes (to which the natural philosopher limits himself) such a thing is impossible."

You can read Aristotle's Children, a popular history of the Aristotelian Renaissance of the 13th century, to see how the arguments of the nominalist (as opposed to the Thomist) William of Ockham also gave rise to scientific reductionism (without intention). My only point here is to note that history does repeat itself, and so does intellectual history obviously. Methodological naturalism is a new word for a very old idea, which likely emerges inevitably from the interface of the rational human mind given leisure to explore the ordered world around us.

Please note though that the Roman Catholic Church adheres to Thomism, and this Aristotle flavored philosophy needs to be kept in mind when reading their opinions on matters such as Intelligent Design. For instance, in First Things Christoph Cardinal Schonborn notes:

In science, the discipline and methods are such that design-more precisely, formal and final causes in natural beings-is purposefully excluded from its reductionist conception of nature.

The reality is that in this world very few people are familiar with the Four Causes of Aristotle. Schonborn admits in the essay that he assumed his op-ed to The New York Times would be misunderstood, but it seems he wanted to throw out a challenge both to reductionist science of the sort he defines above and fideism, which is central to many Protestant theologies (including ones espoused by central figures in Intelligent Design). Though I am personally not optimistic that the Roman Catholic Church's broad understanding of philosophy will gain much traction in the forseeable future, I suppose it has to start somewhere (my own impression, perhaps misguided, is that the average educated American Catholic is less aware of the details of Thomism than they were 50 years ago).

A larger problem in the religion vs. science circus that crops up whenever a neo-Scopes surfaces in the public eye is that the texture and detail of the various positions in the debate get obscured. Within the "anti-evolution" camp the current intellectual stars like William Dembski and Michael Behe seem to espouse an extremely attenuated philosophy which accepts macroevolution, which is at radical variance with the position of the half of Americans who are their natural supporters. I am in fact confused as to what difference William Dembski (sympathetic to Eastern Orthodoxy) Michael Behe (Roman Catholic) would have with Kenneth Miller (Roman Catholic) in regards to evolution in the details, as opposed to points of emphasis and meta-scientific philosophy. There are surely deep philosophical nuances I'm missing, but their eruption into the public square inevitably results in the details being swept up in the vortex of greater social forces.

Addendum: I want to note something, Schonborn uses Will Provine as an case of someone who connects evolution to atheism. He points out that he could assemble many more quotations. That is the problem with arguing with people about whether evolutionary theory is an ideology with metaphysical baggage necessarily attached, if you present the argument in an essay format and you have 10 slots to support your thesis you will easily fill them. That is why I shrugged off the declaration by a GNXP reader that they could point to many instances of an ideological bias by those who claim that evolutionary theory invalidates theism, the absolute number is far less relevant than the proportion, and I am skeptical that most people who study and examine evolutionary theory in a scientific context really have a deep interest in the intersection between their science and philosophical or socio-ethical concerns. Some might contend that "evolutionists" should police their "own," but the whole point is that there isn't a Church of Evolution. Of course humans have a confirmatory bias, so you see what is sensational and what you want to see. Life is a big sample space. Select from it as you will.

The incidence of superfecundation and of double paternity in the general population:

It is estimated that at least one dizygotic (DZ) twin maternity in twelve is preceded by superfecundation (the fertilization of two ova by sperm from different coitions). Presumably this parameter varies from population to population eg. with coital rates and rates of double ovulation. Sometimes superfecundation occurs by two different men. The frequency with which this occurs must depend on rates of infidelity (promiscuity). It is suggested that among DZ twins born to married white women in the U.S., about one pair in 400 is bipaternal. The incidence may be substantially higher in small selected groups of dizygotic twin maternities, eg. those of women engaged in prostitution.

How frequent is heteropaternal superfecundation?:

A newly discovered case of heteropaternal superfecundation (HS) is reported. Three HS cases were found in a parentage test database of 39,000 records. The frequency of HS among dizygotic twins whose parents were involved in paternity suits is 2.4%. Although the study population appears similar to the general population with respect to twinning data, inferences about the frequency of HS in other populations should be drawn with caution.

Related: Sperm competition.

I will be in New York City between the 12th and 20th & Cambridge (Mass.) on the weekend of the 21st-22nd. I am planning on meeting up with some gnxp people already, but I am open getting together with other intelligent readers. If you are interested, email me at razibabroad - at - gmail.com....

Update: FYI, I plan on putting together a small cc: list and just setting up a 'meet up' style thing, probably somewhere in the lower half of Manhattan.

It's a while since I posted anything, as I've been busy with other stuff. I don't have anything substantial to offer at the moment, but here is a link to a website I just found which has online texts of nearly all the works of Charles Darwin.

Apologies if this has been linked before, but if so it can't do any harm to repeat it!

Now that a settlement in the Russia-Ukraine gas war has been achieved we'll never know if the Ukranians would have been as innovative as the Chinese at tapping into illicit natural gas supplies.

Photo Courtesy of National Geographic. The accompanying article is here.