One of the pieces to appear in the latest Science is Constance Holden’s synopsis of the core issues discussed at last week’s meeting of the National Human Genome Research Institute: defining geographic populations, handling interpretations of race (especially as as a sociopolitical term), and phrasing results of population genetic studies.
I paid cursory attention to the [...]
November 6, 2008
National Human Genome Research Institute Debates Race
November 6, 2008
A Weak Sun Possibly Brought Down The Tang Dynasty & Mayan Civilization
Tomorrow’s issue of Science hosts lots of interesting papers, one of which is titled, “A Test of Climate, Sun, and Culture Relationships from an 1810-Year Chinese Cave Record,” and reports on the analysis of a 1.2-meter-long stalagmite from Wanxiang Cave in northern China. The analysis tells us that the rock holds records of waning Asian [...]
November 6, 2008
CNTNAP2 Variant Linked To Language Impairment
Today’s issue of Nature has a brief essay on the role of language in cultural evolution. The authors touch up on a lot basics, such as anatomical localization of brain activity related to language and tool making, FOXP2, and how language has helped humans pass on cultural information more effectively than any other form of [...]
November 6, 2008
Molecular Clocks Are Time-Dependent
If you’re a regular reader of Dienekes blog, you’d know he’s consistently raised concerns that calibrations of molecular clocks don’t quite fit the bill. Yesterday, he posted an addendum and shared a new paper in which authors advocate that molecular clock can be calibrated upon an archaeological context (not phylogeny-based) and human mtDNA estimates of [...]
November 6, 2008
Archaeology’s Crucial Role: Providing The ‘Fossil Record’ For Cultural Evolution
Joyce Marcus has published a bold review in the Annual Review of Anthropology where she argues that anthropology must be willing to generalize — cultures must be compared and contrasted in order identify similarities in the ways cultures have responded to challenges. In other words, relativism has no place in trying to understand the evolutionary [...]
