Foreign Dispatches

What Became of all those "IQ" Genes?

Once upon a time, I used to get into online arguments about genetics with certain self-proclaimed "race realist" types, according to whom the scientific "reality" of racial differences in intelligence, which was supposedly being denied by "politically correct" types, would soon be established incontrovertibly. It is now coming on 9 years since I explained on here at length why I regarded all such claims as pseudo-scientific rubbish, borne of a simple-minded understanding of how genes work, and disregarding entirely wrinkles such as pleiotropy and epistasis. I was ever so sagely informed at the time by a certain commenter that these phenomena were unimportant, and the day of reckoning was upon hand for I and others of my ilk who were too timid to grasp the harsh realities that only the "hbd" [sic] advocates were bold enough to embrace wie es eigentlich gewesen war, so to speak. How, then, have matters transpired over this near-decade? Have the "hbd realists" been proven right, and the "PC police" been put in their place?

Man the Runner, turned Couch Potato

A few months ago, I had the chance to view the BBC documentary series "Human Planet". As stunning as the cinematography for the series was, what made the most lasting impression on me was the sheer amount of physical exertion required to eke out a living by people residing in pre-agricultural societies: hunter-gatherers routinely engage in sustained bouts of walking and running that would put the most fervent joggers in the Western world to shame, and it isn't as if they consider themselves to be doing anything out of the ordinary in the process.

We are Star Stuff

In the course of the last week, I have learnt of the deaths of two men whose work I greatly admired, first Apple founder Steve Jobs, and today, C and Unix creator Dennis Ritchie. The death of Steve Jobs had a particularly strong effect on me, and in truth I'd spent much of the last week struggling to put together the necessary words to articulate precisely why I should have been so aggrieved by the death of a man who I had never even met, particularly as I have never been a blind admirer of all things Apple, and fully recognize that Jobs was as flawed a human being as any other, and not a particularly likable one at that, at least until his initial ouster in 1985.

I still intend to say a few words about what exactly Steve Jobs meant to me, but in the meantime I'd like to share something by another person who died before his time, and who I considered a personal hero growing up, the man who introduced me to the beauty of science, and the sheer strangeness and magnificence of this universe in which we reside. I am speaking, of course, of Carl Sagan.

 

I find that Sagan's words here help lend perspective to the deaths of any individuals, however much I might have looked up to them or admired their contributions: the fact of the matter is that any individual life is but an instant in the grand scheme of things, and as much as the passing of particular persons may affect us, this little rock we inhabit will keep on turning for hundreds of millions of years yet, just as it has for the 4.5 billion years it did before we came along. This perhaps may seem like cold comfort to some, but I find it oddly reassuring: from dust we came, and to dust we shall return ...

PS: As an aside, I'd like to mention that I did eventually get to meet Carl Sagan shortly before his untimely death in 1996: he'd happened to come to Dartmouth to give a talk back, and afterwards I went up to ask for his autograph, which he provided on the back of a copy of a paper on the history of group representations which I'd brought with me. I remember Sagan saying making a joking comment about the paper, but what exactly the comment was or why I found it funny I can no longer recall; what struck me most at the time was being surprised at just how tall Carl Sagan was, and how lucky I was to actually be meeting in the flesh the very man whose "Cosmos" ignited my fascination with science as a child. In as far as there are no doubt very many people out there upon whom Carl Sagan had an effect, it simply isn't true that "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones" - at least not in this case.

Why I Don't Drink (Often)

As anyone who knows me personally will attest, I've never been much of a drinker, not for religious or cultural reasons, but simply because I don't enjoy it. My problem with alcohol isn't the all-too-common ones of belligerence or loss of impulse control under the influence, but simply that drinking makes me extremely drowsy: now here comes scientific research indicating that this is indeed often the case for people of my genetic ancestry.

Genetic differences in alcohol-metabolizing enzymes can significantly alter an individual's risk for developing alcohol dependence (AD). One variant of the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme, ADH1B*3, is observed almost exclusively in populations with African ancestry and has also been associated with reduced rates of AD.

Given the huge drawbacks associated with excessive alcohol consumption, I suppose it's just as well that I'm almost certainly a carrier of this particular allele. I don't need alcohol to socialize, and to be absolutely honest, I've always regarded people who need to drink to relax in the company of others - as opposed to simply enjoying a drink for its own sake - as pathetic.

A Feminist Discovers the Pleasures of Motherhood

Don't get me wrong, I'm no troglodyte who looks back with nostalgia on some mythical "good ol days" when women "knew their place" (i.e. in the home with the kids); in fact I think it's a wonderful thing that women are now able to pursue careers as ends in themselves rather than simply as a way to tread water until "landing" a suitable husband. In short, I think feminism has had a substantial net positive effect on Western societies, and is undeserving of most of the scorn heaped upon it by conservatives.

Surprise: Bullies Enjoy Bullying

I have no patience for the Sarah Palins of the world who ridicule science they don't understand, but there's just no disputing that some of the research papers out there make one wonder how the authors could ever have justified their funding. Take, for instance, this report.

The brains of bullies—kids who start fights, tell lies, and break stuff with glee—may be wired to feel pleasure when watching others suffer pain, according to a new brain scanning study.

Sarah Palin is an Ignoramus

If you needed any more confirmation that the woman knows next to nothing, read up on her dismissal of fruit fly research.

Not All in the Genes

It was only last week that I wrote about why it was necessary to remain sceptical about any research announcements supposedly identifying a genetic basis for homosexuality, so the timing of this report in Science could hardly be more exquisite.

Why are some people gay? Most researchers who study sexual orientation think that both genetic and environmental factors play a role, but the relative contributions of each remain unclear. A new study of Swedish twins reinforces earlier findings that environmental influences--including the environment in the womb--may play a greater role than genes.

A Plausible Genetic Explanation for Homosexuality

For various reasons, I've long been amongst the doubters that genes "for" homosexuality will ever be found, and this is a position that isn't about to change, but what has changed is that for the first time I've run into a reasonable genetic hypothesis which would explain the universal existence of homosexuality across societies and periods - assuming said hypothesis were true, of course.

The Genetics of Height

Physical height is one of those human traits which nearly everyone seems to care about, with most people either wishing they had a little more of it or wishing they could find a partner who did. In addition, height - unlike a nebulous concept like "intelligence" - is one particular trait which is quite easy to objectively measure, and it is beyond dispute that how tall one will become is heavily determined by one's genetic inheritance. As such, one would think there'd already be a huge body of work out there which nails down the genetic variations which primarily contribute to this trait, but the surprising thing is that very little was actually known about its genetic determinants until very recently (subs reqd).