Category: Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity

Sperm and egg donor registries.

An article in the Chicago Tribune discusses the need for setting up a registry of egg and sperm donors. The argument for such a need seems a bit odd. The danger it seems is that a donor may have a condition that manifests itself later in life, like colon cancer, and they should be able to inform those children who carry the donors genes of the condition.

I don’t see how that is any different from parents who have family histories of ailments going ahead with having children. It is fairly accepted I assume that few of us are without at least some serious deleterious mutations of this sort or that. A registry however would be a good way to track quality donors by lineage, keeping track of the quality of the offspring, and using certain family lines as regular donors.

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Are Jews White?

Are Jews White?

by

Robert E. Reis

The Southern Poverty Law Center has declared war on Professor Kevin MacDonald, but the SPLC has not declared war on Jared Taylor and American Renaissance.

The SPLC has good things to say about American Renaissance and about Jared Taylor.

The SPLC mentions that American Renaissance consistently deletes readers’ posts critical of the Jews. The SPLC describes American Renaissance as “100% clean” white nationalism.

Jared Taylor and American Renaissance cater to modern non-Orthodox Jews by claiming that Jews are white.

E. Michael Jones believes that the American Renaissance is “the white man’s version of the NAACP, which is to say, one more organization which manipulates the race issue in the interests of the revolutionary Jews. The main purpose of the American Renaissance is to convince deracinated Protestants that Jews are white, and, therefore, no threat to their interests.”

If non-Jewish white people see Jews as white people in the context of the relationship between whites and blacks in America or in the context of non-white immigration to white countries, then Jews disappear from the radar screens. Ordinary white people will not suspect Jews and Jewish groups of having hidden motives when they make policy recommendations.

Are Jews white? Or are they a genetic clustering that is “acting in a way that cannot please God and makes them the enemies of the whole human race” (I Thess 1:15).

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Eugenics in a most unlikely place.

It is common practice, now that eugenics in moving quickly within the science of reproductive genetics, to dismiss eugenics as pseudoscience. In fact, eugenics never ceased to play its part in demographics as it went from negative eugenics to Planned Parenthood, to preimplantation diagnosis, to sperm banks and attempts at cloning. Along with this goes the unfolding testing of individual’s genetic code revealing their personal genealogy or racial makeup.

In Darwin Day in America: how our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of science by John G. West, 2007, a very typical approach is used to delegitimize eugenics:

“For decades, eugenics was embraced as legitimate by America’s leading scientists and scientific organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critics of eugenics, meanwhile, were stigmatized as antiscience and religious zealots. Yet the critics turned out to be right.”

In most books that mention eugenics, this is the standard rebuttal—a factual sounding statement without substance. Eugenics is a very broad area of scientific inquiry and breeding practice—as simple as picking a healthy mate to assure healthy children to selecting a defective fetus to be aborted.

Then I came across a book that reveals just how progressive Israeli eugenics is in comparison to Germany, with most modern countries in-between. A Life (Un)Worthy of Living: Reproductive Genetics in Israel and Germany, by Yael Hashiloni-Dolev, 2007, shows that the Israeli attitudes are closer to the progressive era attitudes that prevailed 100 years ago. As a modern, progressive state that embraces science and eugenics, it is quite absurd to claim that there is anything but solid science driving the genetic revolution, and one cannot separate eugenics from this scientific advancement. In Israel, the purpose is to have only healthy children, have as many children as possible, while giving preference to the life of the mother over the fetus where the interest of each is in conflict.

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Witherspoon et al. Important Race Study

The following is an essay that was originally submitted to the journal American Renaissance for publication. They declined to run it; the reason given that it was too similar to other race-genetic essays published there in the past. Nevertheless, I believe the findings discussed here to be of extreme importance. Thus, I am reproducing the proposed essay here, with minor revisions to remove it from its previous “Amren” context.

JWH

Racial Genetic Similarity and Difference: A New Study

One scientific topic that I have previously discussed is the biological validity of the race concept. This, unfortunately, has become necessary, because some people, perhaps with political motivations, assert, contrary to the evidence, that “race does not exist” and that race is a “social construct” with “no biological foundation.” These views have been effectively refuted in various forums, and more objective researchers support the race concept as well, if for no other reason the important medical implications of racial differences.

One popular and misinterpreted finding that has been eagerly grasped at by those who preach that “race is not real” is derived from the work of Richard Lewontin, which demonstrated that more genetic variation exits within rather than between groups. I have previously explained how Lewontin’s finding in no way discredits the race concept. However, there are “anti-racist” activists who still claim, based on their misinterpretations of population genetics, that individual Europeans (“whites”) can be more genetically similar to sub-Saharan Africans (“blacks”) than to other Europeans. Until now, there has been no formal proof that this assertion is incorrect. I am now pleased to say that a recent scientific paper has delved into this very topic and that the findings of this paper clearly demonstrate that the race deniers are wrong. First, let me give a brief introduction for the sake of clarity.

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Kinship and Fertility

by JW Holliday

Guessedworker has expressed interest in the paper An association between the kinship and fertility of human couples, Helgason et al., Science 319:813-816, 2008, from the deCODE Genetics research group.  Therefore, a few comments are appropriate.

This paper demonstrates that, in an analysis of Icelandic couples born between 1800 and 1965, there is a “significant positive association” between kinship and fertility; maximal reproductive success was observed for couples with kinship relatedness at the level of third or fourth cousins.

The authors conclude that these differences in reproductive success (i.e. fitness*) have a “biological basis” - that is, a genetic basis.

I’d first like to reproduce several comments from the paper (blockquote) with some of my own (plain text) comments included.  I will then briefly cite some reviews of this paper, and then, finally, will reintroduce the concept of outbreeding depression which was previously discussed at “Majority Rights” with respect to the pro-miscegenation propaganda of Alon Ziv.

First deCODE:

Although Icelanders have experienced a socioeconomic transformation from 1800 to the present (14, 15), accompanied by a reduction in family size and decreasing kinship between couples (Table 1), essentially the same relationship between kinship and fertility was observed at the beginning and end of this 200-year period (fig. S2). By estimating kinship between spouses at a genealogical depth of up to 10 generations, it was possible to examine the association with fertility and reproductive success at a very fine scale. Thus, for example, there is a statistically significant difference in the number of children produced by couples related at the level of sixth versus seventh cousins (P = 1.4 x 10–7). Relationships at this genealogical distance are rarely known to the couples or their families and acquaintances in their social environment and are unlikely to influence factors such as age at the commencement of reproduction or the practice of consanguineous unions to preserve family property (4, 16).

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Obama for president?

About a year ago I read Barack Obama’s book Dreams from my Father. To keep it short his Kenyan father while at a university in Hawaii met his to be Irish mother. The first part of the book is about that relationship or lack of one, and how his father left to go back to Kenya and his mother traveled in search of helping the world’s needy, though he spent very little time talking about his mother. He was raised almost entirely by his White grandparents, except for a short spell in Indonesia where he lived with his mother and her new Indonesian husband.

When he became a teenager he discovered his blackness, and with the help of other black friends he became the angry black man, rebellious, blaming whitey for his problems, and offended that he was not part of the Black culture. I have little doubt that if he becomes President, we will see initiatives to return to making equal outcomes for Blacks one of his primary agendas. His bringing the country together will fail miserably, in my opinion. The major damage he can do is to appoint judges who are in favor of entitlements for minorities, though the party regulars may be able to keep the more radical or unqualified from be appointed.

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Misology in America Part 1

Misology in America
By Robert E. Reis

Misology is the hatred of objective knowledge gained by the scrupulous use of the scientific method when it contradicts the political goals, ideology or religious faith of the misologists.

Misologists dominate the discussion of public policies in several areas in the modern world.

In the United States misologists predominate in the media, the universities, the schools, and among the elected politicians and the clergy.

Can I prove that misologists rule the United States?

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IQ Matters

IQ Matters
By
Robert E. Reis

The following is a summary of we know about the distribution of intelligence as measured by IQ tests among the genetic clusterings of humankind.

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No Diabetes Pride Parade

By
Robert E. Reis

The preferential homosexuality seen in human males is not common among the males of tens of thousands of other species living on our planet.

As animals we are engaged in a continuous struggle against competing species for survival, space, and evolutionary success. Victory is measured by passing one’s genes into the future.

A preference for sterile sexual activities does not make evolutionary sense.

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Staying Alive

Staying Alive
By
Robert E. Reis

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.” - Mohandas Gandhi

In 1972 the medical establishment had decided that infectious diseases were being eradicated in the developed world. It decided the future of medicine was finding solutions for the problems causes by non-infectious diseases.

The consensus was wrong on two counts. It did not foresee AIDS, Legionnaire’s disease, Ebola, Marburg, antibiotic-resistant TB, “flesh-eating staph, hepatitis C, and Rift Valley fever. Stomach ulcers and some forms of cancer and some forms of heart disease, definitely; all cancers and all heart diseases and diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia are possibly caused by infections.

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Race in humans: A reply to the “Statement on Race” by the American Anthropological Association (AAA)

This is a discussion section for the race FAQ at the wiki, which presently doesn't discuss all the things that it should, but it will be periodically updated. Suggestions for improvement and criticism will be appreciated. If you offer criticism, stick to scientific issues, and you better have the requistive scientific background.

Pauline Hanson and the abuse of DNAPrint testing for multicultural ends

Back in February this article by journalist Edmund Burke appeared in the Brisbane tabloid, Courier-Mail.  It was not very subtle in the way it set about its business:-

FORMER One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, the proudly outspoken proponent of polarising immigration policies, has discovered she is of Middle Eastern heritage.

When told of the results, the former fish and chip shop owner appeared flustered, making references to “rape and pillage” in ancient times, adding:
“All I can think of is that probably down the track it eventuated from some war.

“But I’m not going to knock it. It has made me who I am.”

Ms Hanson is not the only prominent Queenslander with a mixed racial background, with the same international testing process revealing that Premier Peter Beattie has even greater links to the Middle East.

Middle Eastern is defined for the test as modern-day Saudi Arabia, Iraq, parts of Iran, Syria and Jordan and the Arab countries of North Africa.

Greece and Turkey are defined as southeastern European while northern European is defined by countries such as England, Ireland and Scotland.

The tests use 176 genetic markers to trace racial ancestry back thousands of years and were carried out by Florida-based company DNAPrint Genomics.

When taking the test at her rural property outside Ipswich before Christmas, Ms Hanson, who recently attacked Muslims for “eradicating Australian traditions”, said she was confident her ancestry came from England and Ireland.

In December the right-wing firebrand, who once warned that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians, launched a fresh attack on black South Africans and Muslims.

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David Sloan Wilson, group selection, culture

The following is a brief but interesting commentary from JW on a David Sloan Wilson paper (pdf) that, not surprisingly, was criticized by Razib on Gene Expression.

A few excerpts from the paper:-

Group selection provides the fitness differences that were lacking within groups. In the case of a no-cost public good, any variation among groups is sufficient for the A-type to evolve to fixation in the total population, because positive among-group selection is unopposed by within-group selection.  If providing a public good requires a private cost, then positive selection at the group level is opposed by negative selection at the individual level and the outcome depends upon the relative strength of the two processes.  More generally, groups can evolve into adaptive units that are designed to maximize their contribution to the total gene pool to the extent that selection among groups prevails against selection within groups. This is also part of the consensus that emerged in the middle of the 20th century; it remains theoretically valid today …

That sound thinking can be compared to Richard Dawkins’ absurd strawman argument against group selection, as quoted in OGI by Salter, in which he asks why lions don’t refrain from eating antelope, “for the good of the mammals” (or something to that idiotic effect).  I mean, hello, where is the selective pressure to result in such behavior?  Is “the good of the mammals” a selective pressure to out-compete the strong selective pressure on lions to be efficient predators on antelope (never mind that lions, as a group, can cooperate in hunting, but that’s another story)?

Robert Boyd, who has championed cultural group selection for as long as I have championed group selection in general, has stated that the received wisdom about genetic group selection is correct and that culture is required to make group selection a significant evolutionary force…

Here is where the biopolitical Salterians can find some common ground with the culturalist Yockeyians because Western High Culture may assist in forming the cultural input needed for making white group selection a “significant evolutionary force”.

Human cognition is usually assumed to be an individual-level process, even if the outcome of the cognition is adaptive at the group level (eg, an individual deciding to provide a public good at private expense).  Another possibility is that the group becomes the cognitive unit, with social interactions comparable to neuronal interactions.  The concept of a group-mind might sound like science fiction but its likelihood follows directly from multilevel selection theory, has been well documented in social insects, and is fully plausible for human groups…

Does MacDonald’s work describe such a human group-mind?

In closing, let’s note that there is some irony in Razib’s complaint that Wilson uses an unrealistic “pipe-dream” model to explain group selection (actually, on a small part of the overall paper).  Tame white GNXP blogger David B based his “Salter Intermarriage Fallacy” upon the wildly unrealistic scenario of exactly equal migration and intermarriage between all peoples and all nations – something that has never happened and will never happen.  Not that that bothered Razib.  Then again, David B’s “work” supports South Asian Diaspora interests.  Wilson’s work, if it catches the attention of the “wrong” people, may be understood to oppose those interests.  By the way, group selection is not necessary for the pursuit of EGI, it is a “why”, not a “what”.  But nevertheless, a study of group selection can inform as to methods to be used to rationally pursue genetic interest objectives.

Actually, the reverse may be true; incorporating concepts of EGI may bolster the significance of Wilson’s ideas, and may better explain the actions of those who provide public goods for their group even at some degree of private cost.

Hybrid vigor/heterosis? Folks over at gnxp.com and Alon Ziv, please hold your horses

I was asked to address the following study (get pdf) before the usual suspects start putting it to misuse, but p-ter over at gnxp already has:

Harry Campbell, Andrew D. Carothers, Igor Rudan, Caroline Hayward, Zrinka Biloglav, Lovorka Barac, Marijana Pericic, Branka Janicijevic, Nina Smolej-Narancic, Ozren Polasek, Ivana Kolcic, James L. Weber, Nicholas D. Hastie, Pavao Rudan,  Alan F. Wright. Effects of genome-wide heterozygosity on a range of biomedically relevant human quantitative traits. Human Molecular Genetics 2007 16(2):233-241; doi:10.1093/hmg/ddl473

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Genetic expression speaks as loudly as gene type

The current Nature is carrying the following article about some very positive research at University of Pennsylvania into gene expression.  Where is denial now?  Mr Diamond?  Mr Lewontin?  To be brutally honest, we’ve just been told all this on another thread.  But anyhow ...

Some ethnic differences could be down to the same genes behaving differently.

From dark skin to fiery red hair, the world’s ethnic groups all have characteristic physical features. But how does our genome code for these differences? New research shows that it isn’t just because different groups carry different genes — some of the variation is down to the same genes being expressed differently.

The study is the latest contribution to the popular new field that uses modern genomic tools to unravel the genetic basis of variation between ethnic groups. Such analyses have only become possible recently, thanks to tools such as the International HapMap Project, published last year1, which charts the prevalence of single DNA-letter differences (called single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) between different ethnic groups.

Such work has spotted many genetic differences between groups — some of the genes that determine skin or eye colour, for example, have been unpicked. But scientists usually study one trait at a time, and only find a genetic explanation after years of painstaking work.

Richard Spielman, Vivian Cheung and their team at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, took a much faster approach, screening thousands of traits at once and working back to their genetic roots in mere months.

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One for red-heads

From a Times article reporting on research into red-hair in Britain for the Oxford-based People of the British Isles project:-

But why do we have such numbers in these parts of the British Isles today and not others? The answer, says Bodmer, is that red-hair genes were common among the first Britons and that populations in the archipelago’s fringes still carry their bloodline.

“Genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago,” agrees Rees.

These genes were then carried into the islands by the original settlers, men and women who “would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair”, says David Miles, of English Heritage.

Redheads therefore represent the land’s most ancient lineages. So if you want an image of how those first people appeared, don’t think of a hairy savage with a mane of thick black hair. Contemplate instead a picture of a slim, ginger-haired individual: Prince Harry, perhaps, or the actress Nicole Kidman who has Scottish and Irish descent.

Distinctiveness among native groups is the true diversity.  It is simply not the one the British government desires us to celebrate.

It is a trifle ironic that the oldest bloodlines in these isles will, being scattered to the peripheries, likely survive the alien genetic inflows ... again.  But all native British distinctiveness is valuable and an ethnic genetic interest in its own right.  We are under no obligation to dissolve ouselves in the bottomless seas of the Third World, and the true racism belongs to those who deny us, red-haired or not, our natural right to self-preservation.

Population of Shangdong, China in 500 B.C. closer to European than Asian

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/17/9/1396

Genetic Structure of a 2,500-Year-Old Human Population in China and Its Spatiotemporal Changes

Li Wang*{dagger}, Hiroki Oota*, Naruya Saitou{ddagger}, Feng Jin§, Takayuki Matsushita|| and Shintaroh UedaGo,*

*Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan;
{dagger}Department of Medical and Animal Genetics, Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;
{ddagger}Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan;
§Laboratory of Human Genetics, Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; and
||Doigahama Site Anthropological Museum, Houhoku, Japan

Abstract

To examine temporal changes in population genetic structure, we compared the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences of three populations that lived in the same location, Linzi, China, in different periods: 2,500 years ago (the Spring–Autumn era), 2,000 years ago (the Han era), and the present day. Two indices were used to compare the genetic differences: the frequency distributions of the radiating haplotype groups and the genetic distances among the populations. The results indicate that the genetic backgrounds of the three populations are distinct from each other. Inconsistent with the geographical distribution, the 2,500-year-old Linzi population showed greater genetic similarity to present-day European populations than to present-day east Asian populations. The 2,000-year-old Linzi population had features that were intermediate between the present-day European/2,500-year-old Linzi populations and the present-day east Asian populations. These relationships suggest the occurrence of drastic spatiotemporal changes in the genetic structure of Chinese people during the past 2,500 years.

Hmmmmmm.  You know me, I’m thinking about political implications, not mtDNA, right now.

:D

Book review of “Breeding between the Lines” by Alon Ziv

This is a book review of “Breeding between the lines: Why interracial people are healthier and more attractive,” by Alon Ziv, 184 pp., Barricade Books, 2006, ISBN: 1569803064. My preliminary impression that the book most likely doesn’t have decent data in it is confirmed.

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Fitness vs. Relatedness

Karl Magnus made a good point in a previous thread about how an organism’s interest in fitness for its offspring can conflict with its interest in relatedness in its offspring.  Strictly speaking it isn’t in an organism’s interest to worry about fitness except insofar as it impacts propagation (i.e., an organism’s genes will propagate more widely given fitter offspring)*, but we’re flexible strategizers and social animals so I’d like to hear the arguments.  Also, I think transhumanism is our future and as it’ll allow vastly greater success for our interests, proximate and ultimate, Karl’s point about fitness struck home.

*As far as I can tell, I’m certainly not well-versed in genetics or evolutionary theory; the point here is to solicit opinion, not make statements.

More on John Dean, Bob Altemeyer, and Authoritarianism.

Somewhere I read that “Conservatives without Conscious” used Bob Altemeyer in discussing Authoritarianism. I was going to do a review of the book but that seems pointless now. But I made the connection because I read Altemeyer’s “The Authoritarian Specter” several years ago, and critiqued it here—the last few paragraphs. I also just finished Altemeyer’s recent book, “Atheists.” Since I am one, I thought it might be of interest—it wasn’t. We atheists are just great, upstanding people, according to Altemeyer. I felt that he was too biased—it just didn’t read right.

To cut to the chase, Kevin MacDonald has written an article on the authoritarian message of The Frankfurt School. It should be available on-line at The Occidental Quarterly shortly. White “authoritarianism” is just another way that we are pathologized—those evil White people.

Jensenism Versus Radical Environmentalism

Neven Sesardic published in 2000 an interesting article: “Philosophy of Science that Ignores Science: Race, IQ and Heritability,” published in the journal Philosophy of Science and available in PDF format on the Internet.

He looks at the extreme measures that radical or naïve environmentalists are undertaking to undermine Jensenism. That is, that the differences in average intelligence between racial groups is at least in part due to differences in the frequency of genes. This seems to be so unnerving to so many academics that they are willing to put forth any argument, even highly specious ones, to maintain there socially constructed worldviews. It seems that over the last few hundred years we went from god to pure logic to science and are now turning to pseudoscience when hard empirical data undergirds genetic science.

The whole article is well worth reading, but I had to spend some time deciphering Lewontin’s well-known objections of inferring between group heritability from the high heritability of within groups. It is generally accepted by the American Psychological Association that once a person reaches adulthood, the heritability of intelligence rises to about 60~80% and may even be as high as 90% as adults mature and take their place in the workplace. So radical environmentalists can no longer attack the genetics of intelligence and all of the various other distortions like “intelligence tests are biased,” etc.

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Oh for G-d’s sake: insane miscegenation propaganda

Interesting new book out this week

Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People are Healthier and More Attractive

by Alon Ziv

Book Description This book combines sex, race, health and genetics in a daring new theory. Written with accessible, direct prose, anecdotes, analogies, and examples from human and animal studies, it is sure to spark debate in a massive way.

Jay Phelan, Author of Mean Genes: Breeding Between the Lines is that rare book that is insightful and revolutionary, while remaining compulsively readable and downright fun.

Alon Ziv, Alon Ziv, why is that name pinging my Jewdar?

A member of the group least likely to miscegenate (with the world’s highest mean IQ as a direct result) persuades the rest of us to miscegenate in an insightful, revolutionary, readable and downright fun book.

Yay, more jewish psyops.

Addendum by J Richards

Svy, I simply have to add a few things to this entry, and I don’t think you would mind.

Here is the cover of the book by Alon Ziv.

Is the mixed race woman a match for white beauty?

Alon Ziv has to be insane if he believes that the broad-nosed and masculine mixed-race woman looks better.  Can people in their right mind believe that attractive white women can be improved upon if non-whites are absorbed into the white gene pool? 

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A new tool for behavior geneticists.

With the increase in the use of sperm donors, with egg donors also increasing, behavioral geneticists now have a new powerful tool for determining heritability for various human traits from intelligence to attractiveness. An article in The Washington Post by Lois Romano, 5/4/2006, reports that one donor, known as number 401, was especially selected by women for baby-making. Eighteen women have produced 25 children from donor 401, and an additional 17 vials of his sperm is being offered to the existing 18 families who have his children.

According to the article, the women have been in contact. They are almost an extended family with a common father. When adopted children try to find their biological families, they are trying to find out who they are. The children of donor 401 are satisfying their curiosity by meeting their half-siblings; they also have access to donor 401’s biological and historical profile, which has more information than most children know about their own fathers: the results of extensive genetic testing, along with in-depth histories of the donor’s lineage, including diseases and family accomplishments.

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The nature-nurture war has been all one-sided—inside academia.

The nature-nurture wars have been one-sided when it comes to research—genes matter a great deal and the shared or family environment means very little. Nevertheless, sociologists and psychologists continue to give opinions about how children develop; these are basically just-so stories based on opinion or incomplete research. The No Child Left Behind program is a good example.  Genetic differences between races in average intelligence are ignored, even though naïve environmentalists can no longer support the position that genes have zero influence. Mainstream academics commonly agree that the intelligence is 40~60% heritable. Behavioral geneticists place it more accurately at 40% in childhood and 80% at about the age of 25, when development of the prefrontal cortex is complete.

In 1998, Judith Rich Harris published “The Nurture Assumption.” It laid out the position that as children develop, genes plus the unexplained environment (formally known as the nonshared environment), ultimately determined how children differed. The family environment had virtually zero impact in how they turned out by the time they passed through adolescence. She proposed that “children are socialized by their peer groups.”

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Evolve-O-Rama

Darwin’s fishapod has made a successful transition from bumper sticker to fossil.

In related news, human evolution is faster and more important than previously thought, according to . . .

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