Orson Scott Card articles

Orson Scott Card, for those who don't know him, is a very successful science fiction writer. I've read several of his books a few years ago, and I consider Speaker for the Dead the sequel to Ender's Game to be a literary masterpiece [1]

I have recently discovered OSC's weekly columns online, and I find his views fascinating and worthy of notice. [2] There are lots of columns in the archive, but I found his review of the Passion of the Christ and his column on homosexual marriage to be quite interesting to read. I found this thought from the second article to be a quite profound insight into the abandonment of common sense in modern society:

You can't add a runway to an airport in America without years of carefully researched environmental impact statements. But you can radically reorder the fundamental social unit of society without political process or serious research.

[1] Both books won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, which are the most prestigious awards for the SF genre.
[2] I was always disappointed that OSC was a Mormon, a religion which sounds quite "weird" to me, but I don't see any "overt" Mormon views in his writings that would put me off.

Pontius Pilate

The historical "experts" that seem to have emerged lately seem convinced that "historians agree that Pontius Pilate was a tyrant" in direct opposition both to his portrayal in the New Testament and the totality of the evidence, which gives a much more nuanced vision:

"Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judaea from 26 CE to 36 CE; in this capacity, he was responsible for the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. This was not the only incident during his tenure of office, however. In this article, all these incidents are discussed. An attempt is made to show that Pilate was sincerely interested in Jewish culture and did his best to prevent unnecessary violence."

Article on Pontius Pilate on livius.org

Interestingly, the "consensus" about the character of Pilate is based on the writings of two ancient Jewish historians, Philo and Josephus. I never quite got how Philo and Josephus are more reliable sources for the character of Pilate than the writers of the gospels. Remember that Roman-Jewish relationships were not exactly friendly in the 1st c. AD and there would be a great incentive to vilify the Roman administration of Palestine of the time. It is often claimed that the Christians made Pilate look good because they wanted to endear themselves to the Romans, a claim which is truly absurd once early Church history is considered, which is replete with Christians being killed by the Roman authorities.

Another example of anti-Pilate nonsense is the statement that seems to turn up in stories lately:

Given that Christians for the past couple of millennia have been reciting, in the Nicene creed, that “Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate,” it’s rather amazing what a stand-up fellow he turns out to be.

The Nicene creed says in the original Greek "epi Pontiou Pilatou", which means "during the time of Pontius Pilate" and has no bearing on the matter of whether or not Pilate was responsible.

Ratings of the Passion

Via imdb.com. At the time of this writing:

69.6% give a "10"
6.7% give a "9"

...

12.9% give a "1"

A very good example of a bimodal distribution...

Fertile women rate other women as uglier

Women judge the attractiveness other women more harshly when at their most fertile, suggests a new study. The phenomenon could be a strategy to devalue potential rivals, says the psychologist behind the work - being bitchy about others could help a woman win the attention of a desirable man.

Theories of sexual selection in most species usually concentrate on how males compete for females. But recent theories for humans suggest there is intrasexual competition among females as well, as males can vary markedly in their abilities as providers and protectors.

Maryanne Fisher, a psychologist at York University in Toronto, Canada, decided to try to find evidence for female competition by presenting heterosexual students with photos of faces. She found that when women were in the most fertile phase of their menstrual cycles, they rated the attractiveness of other women lower than when they were not.

New Scientist (Full Story)

Evaluations of Male Attractiveness

Personality and Individual Differences
Volume 36, Issue 5 , April 2004, Pages 1083-1092

Racial characteristics and individual differences in women's evaluations of men's facial attractiveness and personality

T. Joel Wade et al.

Prior research investigating the perception of men's faces has not considered the hybrid nature of black and white racial characteristics. Fifteen faces ranging from "pure" black or white to "hybrid" black and white were rated in the present research. Main effects for race of face were hypothesized. Predominantly black faces were expected to receive higher ratings for dominance and gender identity characteristics. Predominantly white faces were expected to receive the highest attractiveness rating and higher ratings for nurturant and expressive characteristics. The results supported the hypotheses and are discussed in terms of parental investment theory and existing research.

Link

Investigation of Greek ancestry in populations of Pakistan

Human Genetics

Investigation of the Greek ancestry of populations from northern Pakistan

Atika Mansoor et al.

Three populations from northern Pakistan, the Burusho, Kalash, and Pathan, claim descent from soldiers left behind by Alexander the Great after his invasion of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. In order to investigate their genetic relationships, we analyzed nine Alu insertion polymorphisms and 113 autosomal microsatellites in the extant Pakistani and Greek populations. Principal component, phylogenetic, and structure analyses show that the Kalash are genetically distinct, and that the Burusho and Pathan populations are genetically close to each other and the Greek population. Admixture estimates suggest a small Greek contribution to the genetic pool of the Burusho and Pathan and demonstrate that these two northern Pakistani populations share a common Indo-European gene pool that probably predates Alexanderrsquos invasion. The genetically isolated Kalash population may represent the genetic pool of ancestral Eurasian populations of Central Asia or early Indo-European nomadic pastoral tribes that became sequestered in the valleys of the Hindu Kush Mountains.

Link

mtDNA of Central Asia

European Journal of Human Genetics
doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201160

Admixture, migrations, and dispersals in Central Asia: evidence from maternal DNA lineages

David Comas et al.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages of 232 individuals from 12 Central Asian populations were sequenced for both control region hypervariable segments, and additional informative sites in the coding region were also determined. Most of the mtDNA lineages belong to branches of the haplogroups with an eastern Eurasian (A, B, C, D, F, G, Y, and M haplogroups) or a western Eurasian (HV, JT, UK, I, W, and N haplogroups) origin, with a small fraction of Indian M lineages. This suggests that the extant genetic variation found in Central Asia is the result of admixture of already differentiated populations from eastern and western Eurasia. Nonetheless, two groups of lineages, D4c and G2a, seem to have expanded from Central Asia and might have their Y-chromosome counterpart in lineages belonging to haplotype P(xR1a). The present results suggest that the mtDNA found out of Africa might be the result of a maturation phase, presumably in the Middle East or eastern Africa, that led to haplogroups M and N, and subsequently expanded into Eurasia, yielding a geographically structured group of external branches of these two haplogroups in western and eastern Eurasia, Central Asia being a contact zone between two differentiated groups of peoples.

Link

What did Jesus Look Like

A NY Times piece and a portrait based on facial reconstruction by Richard Neave. This had actually appeared before, but was apparently not very pleasing:

The facial overlay that the BBC then put on Mr. Neave's work didn't please him or many others, however. He wasn't upset that some thought that the face made Jesus look like a New York taxi driver. Rather, he didn't like the eyes and the mouth, and what the historian Robin M. Jensen, writing recently in Christian Century, called "a particular dumbfounded — one might say stupid — expression."

Image

The portrait [right] has of course no validity, since it's based on a random 1st c. AD Jewish skull, and Jews of the time were anything but uniform. It would be roughly equivalent to someone using John Kerry's skull to make a rendering of George W. Bush.

John Damascene, a Church father described Jesus thus in the 7th c. AD [1]

"He was graceful, as his appearance is described by the ancient historians, with joined eyebrows, beautiful eyes, a long nose, curly hair, somewhat stooping, ..., having a black beard, wheat-colored like his mother: long-fingered ..."

[1] Johannes Damascenus. Epistula ad Theophilum imperatorem de sanctis et venerandis imaginibus. in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus (series Graeca) (MPG) 95, Paris: Migne, 1857-1866: 345-385.

AncestryByDNA 2.5 "Native American" admixture

From the website:

"Greeks, Italians, Middle Easterners and Jews reliably and systematically show low levels of Native American admixture (even without an American Indian great grandparent) for anthropological and genetic reasons that are not yet well understood. "

Obviously, Native Americans never migrated to the Middle East or to Italy, and these regions did not have any colonies in the New World whereby such ancestry could originate. Hence, it is clear that this result indicates a migration from the Near East to the Americas in the past and not vice versa.

While tracing such a migration is up to archaeologists, genetics has already independently arrived at the same conclusion, by looking at a different genetic system, namely mitochondrial DNA. Haplogroup X2 is found at high frequency in Italy, Greece and the Near East, almost nowhere in any other intermediate lands and again in Native Americans:

"Overall, it appears that the populations of the Near East, the Caucasus, and Mediterranean Europe harbor subhaplogroup X2 at higher frequencies than those of northern and northeastern Europe (P < .05) and that X2 is rare in Eastern European as well as Central Asian, Siberian, and Indian populations and is virtually absent in the Finno-Ugric and Turkic-speaking people of the Volga-Ural region. "

"Second, it is apparent that the Native American haplogroup X mtDNAs derive from X2 by a unique combination of five mutations."

"Finally, phylogeography of the subclades of haplogroup X suggests that the Near East is the likely geographical source for the spread of subhaplogroup X2, and the associated population "

Link

March of the Midgets: a History of the Ladoganish Race

They keep on coming...

March of the Midgets: a History of the Ladoganish Race

The Meaning of His Suffering

With the impending release of Mel Gibson's movie about the Passion of Jesus Christ, here is an Orthodox view of the subject.

The Meaning of His Suffering, by Federica Mathewes-Green. Some excerpts:

It’s a mark of our age that we don’t believe something is realistic unless it is brutal. But there’s another factor to consider. When the four evangelists were writing their own accounts of the Passion, they didn’t take Gibson’s approach. None of them depict Jesus with a destroyed eye. In fact, the descriptions of Jesus’ beating and crucifixion are as minimal as the writers can make them.

"Having scourged Jesus, Pilate delivered him to be crucified," the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) agree. "When they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him."

...

But in the earliest Christian writings we see a different understanding of the meaning of the Cross, one which, shockingly, didn’t think it was important for us to identify with Jesus’ suffering. For contemporary Christians it’s hard to imagine such a thing. The extremity of Jesus’ sacrifice has been the wellspring of Christian art and devotion for centuries. It has produced great treasures, from late Renaissance paintings of the Crucifixion, to the meditations of Dame Julian of Norwich, to Bach’s glorious setting of "O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded." Mel Gibson’s "Passion" arrives as the newest entrant in a very old tradition.

...

What changed? In the 11th century, a theory emerged that shifted the common understanding of the Cross. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, proposed that our sins constituted a debt to God which could not be simply erased without unbalancing justice. The debt was too immense for any human to pay, and only Jesus’ death could be an adequate sacrifice. Protestant Reformers, coming a few centuries later, modified some implications of the theory, but retained the core intact.

...

Yet for the first millennium, and continuing in Eastern Christianity today, the Cross means "victory." In this idea of the atonement ("theory" would be too strong a word for a view expressed with a light, wondering touch, and without expectation of wholly satisfying human curiosity or logic) God in Christ effects a rescue mission. Humans are being held captive by Death, due to their voluntary involvement in sin, and are helpless to free themselves. In a majestic sweep of events Jesus takes on human life in order to die, invade hell, and set the captives free. The focus is much broader than the Crucifixion alone.

...

How then could Jesus be a ransom, sacrifice, or offering? Early Christians understood such terms to mean that it cost Jesus his life to rescue us. It was a sacrifice to the Father, as a soldier might offer a superlative act of courage to his beloved general. It was the price of entry into the realm of Death. It cost Jesus his life’s blood to enter Hades and save us, but it wasn’t a payment to anybody.

This helps us see why they did not linger over the details of his suffering. It would be as odd as welcoming home a wounded soldier, and instead of focusing on the victory he won, dwelling on the exact moment the bayonet pierced his stomach, how it felt and what it looked like. A human soldier might well feel annoyed with such attention to his weakness rather than his strength. He would feel that it better preserved his dignity for visitors to avert their eyes from such details, and recount that part of the story as scantly as possible to focus instead on the final achievement.

Admixture in Hispanics from Colorado

Annals of Human Genetics
doi:10.1046/j.1529-8817.2003.00084.x

Admixture in the Hispanics of the San Luis Valley, Colorado, and its implications for complex trait gene mapping

C. Bonilla et al.

Summary

Hispanic populations are a valuable resource that can and should facilitate the identification of complex trait genes by means of admixture mapping (AM). In this paper we focus on a particular Hispanic population living in the San Luis Valley (SLV) in Southern Colorado.We used a set of 22 Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs) to describe the admixture process and dynamics in this population. AIMs are defined as genetic markers that exhibit allele frequency differences between parental populations >=30%, and are more informative for studying admixed populations than random markers. The ancestral proportions of the SLV Hispanic population are estimated as 62.7 ± 2.1% European, 34.1 ± 1.9% Native American and 3.2 ± 1.5% West African. We also estimated the ancestral proportions of individuals using these AIMs. Population structure was demonstrated by the excess association of unlinked markers, the correlation between estimates of admixture based on unlinked marker sets, and by a highly significant correlation between individual Native American ancestry and skin pigmentation (R2= 0.082, p < 0.001). We discuss the implications of these findings in disease gene mapping efforts.

Link

March of the Giants: History of the Medish Race

March of the Giants: History of the Medish Race seems to be a parody of March of the Titans: History of the White Race. I haven't read it yet, but it'll be hard pressed to beat the original for laughs.

Suggested postscript for Mel Gibson's Passion

The ten Boom Holocaust Center suggests that a postscript should be added to Mel Gibson's Passion:

During the Roman occupation, more than 250,000 Jews were crucified by the Romans, but only One rose from the dead.

Furthermore, the ten Boom Holocaust Center asks forgiveness:

We humbly ask forgiveness to the Jewish people for the Jewish blood that has been shed in the name of our Savior, and want to do all we can to ensure it doesn't happen again.

I try to avoid writing about Jews, both because so many people seem to be disproportionately interested in them, and also because the subject matter is sensitive and everyone seems to have a "short fuse" when approaching it. But, the Passion controversy started by the Anti-Defamation League is beyond ridiculous, so a few words are perhaps in order.

The ten Boom Holocaust Center essentially wants to push its own view of history because they believe that "the film in its present form will incite violence against Jews in the former U.S.S.R., in Muslim countries and in Europe. It could even result in Jews being killed. "

Protecting lives is of course admirable, and anything that can be done to achieve this purpose should be applauded. But, does anyone really believe that anyone who hates Jews will need to see the Passion to fuel his anger? These guys use much more virulent propaganda than anything that could possibly be in the Passion, and they already know all the relevant quotes from the New Testament. But, even if this is the case, does anyone really believe that the proposed postscript will save anyone? That anyone whose hatred is inspired by the movie will say: "oh, the Romans were responsible after all, so I shouldn't hate Jews any more."

The fact is that the postscript makes no sense in terms of "saving lives". It makes only sense as presenting a particular interpretation of history. And, frankly, attaching a postscript about the effects of Roman occupation on Judaea to a movie about the death of Jesus Christ is irrelevant, because the story of the Passion is not a story about history, but about an event which -for Christians- transcends history.

It is doubtlessly true that many Jews suffered during the Roman administration of Palestine. This should be definitely be taught wherever history is taught. It is hardly subject matter suitable for a movie postscript, because movie postscripts are not the place to teach history. And, if the crimes of the Romans against the Jews are to be commemorated, so are the crimes of the Jews against the Greeks and Romans in Cyrene, Egypt and Cyprus:

In 116 AD the Jews of Cyprus rose in revolt and massacred no fewer than 240,000 Gentiles. Source

Thankfully, the young, Greekless generations will not understand the following historical passage from Dio Cassius which has a far greater potential to incite hatred than anything that can appear in a movie:

"kai en toutôi hoi kata Kurênên Ioudaioi,
Andrean tina prostêsamenoi sphôn, tous te Rhômaious kai tous
Hellênas ephtheiron, kai tas te sarkas autôn esitounto kai ta en-
tera anedounto tôi te haimati êleiphonto kai ta apolemmata ene- (5)
(2.) duonto, pollous de kai mesous apo koruphês dieprion: thêriois
heterous edidosan, kai monomachein allous ênagkazon, hôste tas
pasas duo kai eikosi muriadas apolesthai. en te Aiguptôi
polla edrasan homoia kai en têi Kuprôi, hêgoumenou tinos sphisin
Artemiônos: kai apôlonto kai ekei muriades tessares kai ei- (5)
(3.) kosi. kai dia tout' oudeni Ioudaiôi epibênai autês exestin, alla
k'an anemôi tis biastheis es tên nêson ekpesêi thanatoutai. all'
Ioudaious men alloi te kai Lousios hupo Traïanou pemphtheis ka-
testrepsato." (Dio Cassius, 68)

Christians should of course be mindful of the crimes perpetrated against Jews by Christians at the past. Perhaps, they should ask for forgiveness for these crimes as the ten Boom Holocaust Center requests. But, are Christians of today really responsible for the crimes of Christians of the past? Isn't this what we are trying to avoid, to put blame on the people of today for what their genetic/spirtual ancestors did? If Christians are blamed for past crimes by Christians, then Jews should be blamed for past crimes by Jews, e.g., for the role of 1st century Jerusalem Jews in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

"ho de Pilatos elegen autois, Ti gar epoiêsen kakon? hoi de perissôs ekraxan, Staurôson auton."

"hote oun eidon auton hoi archiereis kai hoi hupêretai
ekraugasan legontes, Staurôson staurôson. "

"kai apokritheis pas ho laos eipen, To haima autou eph' hêmas kai epi
ta tekna hêmôn."

Men are responsible for their own actions, not for the actions of others. Christians of today should not be blamed for what Christians of the past did, and Jews of today should not be blamed for what Jews of the past did. And, simple politeness dictates that a movie about the Christian Savior should not be turned into a historico-political controversy, nor should be forced to become a vehicle for the transmission of historical propaganda.

African Diaspora and African mtDNA

Am. J. Hum. Genet., 74:000, 2004

The African Diaspora: Mitochondrial DNA and the Atlantic Slave Trade

Antonio Salas et al.

Between the 15th and 19th centuries AD, the Atlantic slave trade resulted in the forced movement of 13 million people from Africa, mainly to the Americas. Only 11 million survived the passage, and many more died in the early years of captivity. We have studied 481 mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) of recent African ancestry in the Americas and in Eurasia, in an attempt to trace them back to particular regions of Africa. Our results show that mtDNAs in America and Eurasia can, in many cases, be traced to broad geographical regions within Africa, largely in accordance with historical evidence, and raise the possibility that a greater resolution may be possible in the future. However, they also indicate that, at least for the moment, considerable caution is warranted when assessing claims to be able to trace the ancestry of particular lineages to a particular locality within modern-day Africa.

Link

Origin of Indians

Current Biology. Volume 14, Issue 3 , 3 February 2004, Pages 231-235

Independent Origins of Indian Caste and Tribal Paternal Lineages

Richard Cordaux et al.

Abstract

The origins of the nearly one billion people inhabiting the Indian subcontinent and following the customs of the Hindu caste system [1 and 2] are controversial: are they largely derived from Indian local populations (i.e. tribal groups) or from recent immigrants to India? Archaeological and linguistic evidence support the latter hypothesis [2, 3 and 4], whereas recent genetic data seem to favor the former hypothesis [5]. Here, we analyze the most extensive dataset of Indian caste and tribal Y chromosomes to date. We find that caste and tribal groups differ significantly in their haplogroup frequency distributions; caste groups are homogeneous for Y chromosome variation and more closely related to each other and to central Asian groups than to Indian tribal or any other Eurasian groups. We conclude that paternal lineages of Indian caste groups are primarily descended from Indo-European speakers who migrated from central Asia ~3,500 years ago. Conversely, paternal lineages of tribal groups are predominantly derived from the original Indian gene pool. We also provide evidence for bidirectional male gene flow between caste and tribal groups. In comparison, caste and tribal groups are homogeneous with respect to mitochondrial DNA variation [5 and 6], which may reflect the sociocultural characteristics of the Indian caste society.

Indigenous/Non-indigenous Contributions in Y chromosomes

In contrast with the Y chromosome evidence, the mtDNA evidence suggests a common origin of tribal and caste groups [5 and 6]. It is likely that most maternal lineages largely represent the original mtDNA gene pool of India, implying that caste maternal lineages mainly derive from local tribal ancestors [5, 6 and 7].

The current frequency of west Eurasian-typical mtDNAs in Indian caste populations of ~10% [5] and the practice of female infanticide over centuries, perhaps at rates as high as 30%–80% in some groups [22], suggest that (1) the replacement was not completely achieved, consistent with the recent origins of the caste system [2 and 17], and (2) the current frequency of west Eurasian-typical mtDNAs in the Indian caste gene pool may underestimate the ancestral frequency, consistent with the view that the Indo-European migrants were not necessarily mostly males.

Cannibalism in China

Key Ray Chong, Cannibalism in China, Longwood Academic: Wakefield, NH. (1990)

Some informative excerpts:

viii:

"We need to remind ourselves that the Chinese people are not particularly different from the other races of the world as far as the practice of survival cannibalism is concerned. When it comes to learned cannibalism, however, its practice is quite different. Worthy of note here is the fact that some types of learned cannibalism are found only in China. This study will attempt to examine this unique phenomenon."

"Particularly in ancient times, learned cannibalism was often practiced in China for culinary appreciation, and exotic dishes were prepared for jaded upper-class palates in times of health and/or sickness."

ix:

"As late as the 19th century, it was not unusual for Chinese executioners to eat the heart and brains of the criminals they disaptch. They also ate a portion of the human meat for health reasons, but when some extra meat was left, they sold it for profit."

"Li Shih-chen [DP: 1578] detailed the use of humans many times for medicinal purposes. He noted, for example, that human meat was a good cure for tuberculosis. For the same or similar purposes, he discussed in an equally detailed manner the use of human sweat, urine, sperm, breast milk, tears, dirt, nails and teeth. Even today, in the People's Republic of China, the use of human fingers, toes, nails, dried urine, feces and breast milk are strongly recommended by the government to cure certain diseases."

x:

"Apart from this, the Chinese often ate their enemies out of hatred or revenge during wartime."

"During World War II, hate-cannibalism is reported to have occurred in China. Later, as the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists went on for control of China, some Communist soldiers were executed routinely in a far-interior district; and their flesh and bones were eaten out of a spirit of revenge. One American priest told of seeing a Chinese Nationalist officer cut out and eat the heart of a Chinese Communist."

xi:

"In short, the Chinese are not necessarily different in any significant way from most other peoples in the world. And yet they are quite unique in the sense that there are so many examples of learned cannibalism throughout their history."

p.54:

"The many instances of cannibalism in China throughout antiquity serve as a prelude to the way that the practice of cannibalism later became an integral part of Chinese culture."

pp. 55-62: listings of Chinese surival cannibalism incidents Han to Ming (about one ever 1-2 lines)

"... there is little or no doubt about the practice of survival cannibalism in China."

p.79:

"Cannibalism was also often involved in the punishmen of criminals in Imperial China. After having been publicly executed, the bodies of the criminals were made available for public exhibition and consumption."

"In short the Chinese people used humans not only for food and medicine, but they also expressed their feelings of hatred or revenge by publicly eating the flesh and bones of their fellow men."

p. 88:

"In April 882, when the price of one tou (peck of rice went up to 30 min in Chang-an the rebels captured by government troops were sold as food."

p. 105:

"According to a more recent study, Chinese soldiers stationed in Taiwan before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 used to eat human flesh of the aborigines like pork; they could buy it at the marketplace. Human flesh was considered as a source of protein and a way to increase male sexual stamina."

p. 110: [great drought of 1876-1879]

"One Western observer said that the most shocking consequence of famine was the rapid spread of cannibalism... The Roman Catholic Bishop of Shansi, ... reported... "... now they kill the living to have them for food. Husbands eat their wives. Parents eat their sons and daughters, and children eat their parents." This was confirmed by a Chinese district magistrate, who made the following observations:

... a grandson chopped his grandomother to pieces, a niece boiled and ate her own aunt ..."

Methods of cooking (p. 157):

"The most popular methods for preparing human flesh were broiling, roasting, boiling and steaming. Next was pickling in salt, wine, sauce and the like.

p. 166:

"We have learned that there were far more instances of learned cannibalism than of survival cannibalism... Although we have reported more instances of learned cannibalism in this book, the actual number of victims caused by survival cannibalism could be far greater."

p. 170:

"The major conclusions drawn from this study are the following. Cannibalism can be classified in two categories: survival and learned cannibalism.

Learned cannibalism in China is different from cannibalism elsewhere. It is unique in the sense that it is an expression of love and hatred, and a peculiar extension of Confucian doctrine."

What do you think of Plato?

I'm reading Karl Popper's Open Society and Its Enemies, which contains one of the most negative characterizations of Plato ever written. Years ago, I had read ¨"Επίκουρος: Η Αληθινή Όψη του Αρχαίου Κόσμου", (Epicurus: the true aspect of the ancient world), by Charalampos Theodoridis, a great introduction to Epicureanism which had as one of its main themes the opposition of progressive Ionian science/Epicureanism with regressive Platonism/Christianity. And of course, having read quite a bit of the writings of the Objectivists I am well-aware that Plato, together with Kant, Marx and few others are considered to be the arch-villains of intellectual history. Of course anti-Platonism is nothing new: in the Renaissance it was critiqued as anti-Christian, i.e., the reversal of the Charalambidis critique who saw Plato as an ur-Christian.

Plato is of course one of the few Greek writers that students are likely to read, now that Homer has been killed, both by the "practical" concerns of the modern age, as well as by the irrelevance that is characteristic of modern scholarship. So, I'm very interested to see what people think of Plato in 2004.

If you don't know who Plato is, you can read some of his works here.

Current Results

Geography of Personality

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology Volume: 35 Number: 1 Page: 13 -- 28

Toward a Geography of Personality Traits: Patterns of Profiles across 36 Cultures

Jüri Allik et al.

Abstract: It has long been believed that personality traits vary by geographicallocation, but few studies have examined the worldwide distribution of personality profiles. Using the five-factor model of personality - a comprehensive and apparently universal trait structure - we conducted secondary analyses of data from 36 cultures. Distance from the equator and mean temperature were not meaningfully related to personality factors. However, cluster analysis showed that geographically proximatecultures often have similar profiles, and multidimensional scaling showed a clear contrast of European and American cultures with Asian and African cultures. The former were higher in extraversion and openness to experience and lower in agreeableness. A second dimension reflected differences in psychological adjustment. Observed differences between cultures may be the result of differences in gene pools or in features of culture; acculturation studies and the analyses of other natural experiments are needed to understand the origins of geographical differences in personality traits.

Origin of Aromuns (Vlachs)

Ann Human Genet

Alu insertion polymorphisms in the Balkans and the origins of the Aromuns

D. Comas et al.

We have analysed 11 human-specific Alu insertion polymorphisms in the Balkans to elucidate the origins of the Aromuns, a linguistic isolate inhabiting scattered areas in the Balkan Peninsula. Four Aromun samples (two from the Republic of Macedonia, one from Albania, and one from Romania) and five neighbouring populations (Macedonians, Albanians, Romanians, Greeks, and Turks) were analysed by means of genetic distances, principal components and analyses of the molecular variance (AMOVA). Three hypotheses were tested: Aromuns are Romanophonic Greeks; the result of a Romanian southward migration; or local descendants of the Thracians. The analyses show that the Aromuns do not constitute a homogeneous group separated from the rest of the Balkan populations. Grouping by language or geography does not explain the genetic differences observed in the region, suggesting a lack of genetic structure in the area. Aromuns do not seem to be particularly related to Greeks, Romanians, or to other Romance speakers. The Aromuns might have their origin to the south of the Danube river, with extensive gene flow with the neighbouring populations. The present results suggest a common ancestry of all Balkan populations, including Aromuns, with a lack of correlation between genetic differentiation and language or ethnicity, stressing that no major migration barriers have existed in the making of the complex Balkan human puzzle.

Some Census FactFinder Statistics

The American Fact Finder is a pretty nice tool. Here are some statistics on average household size which explain the differences in per capita and household income I've blogged about earlier.

Average Household Size

White Alone 2.48
Black Alone 2.78
Asian Alone 3.08
Hispanic/Latino 3.59

Interesting to readers of this post: Hmong Alone 6.14

Per Capita Income of some Ethnic Groups (1999)

Japanese 30,075
Asian Indian 27,514
Argentinian 26,121
White 23,918
Chinese 23,756
Spaniard 23,046
Cuban 20,451
Filipino 19,259
Korean 18,805
Venezuelan 17,997
Peruvian 17,366
Vietnamese 15,655
Bangladeshi 13,532
Laotian 11,454
Samoan 11,191
Hmong 6,600

Alcoholism and Mongoloid Ancestry

Mongol genes leave Russians susceptible to alcoholism

By Jeremy Page / The Times of London

Moscow - Scientists researching cures for alcoholism and hangovers say that they have found a genetic link between Russians' traditional weakness for drink and the marauding Mongol armies of Genghis Khan.

As many as 50 per cent of Muscovites are estimated to have inherited Mongol genes that make them absorb more alcohol into the bloodstream and break it down at a slower rate than most Europeans, they say.

That means they get more drunk, have worse hangovers and are more likely to become addicted to alcohol, given Russia's taste for vodka, its harsh climate and the social and economic chaos after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"The difference is huge - in reaction speed, memory, hand tremor and in how they recover," Vladimir Nuzhny of the health ministry's National Narcology Research Centre said. "On average, 50 per cent of people in Moscow have this Mongoloid gene. So this, we think, is part of the problem."

As part of the study, the scientists paid 12 volunteer students to drink 350 grams, about a third of a bottle, of vodka in an hour, and then monitored their behaviour.

"That's a lot by Western standards, but it's normal for Russia," Dr. Nuzhny told The Times. "At first they thought it was great because they were being paid to drink, but after a while they realized it was more like work."

The intoxicated students had to perform a series of tests, including answering questionnaires and playing rally-driving computer games, and were breathalysed at regular intervals. The scientists even measured their ability to stand up straight on a specially adapted machine.

After sleeping off the effects in a dormitory at the laboratory - which had a karaoke machine - the students were given a slap-up breakfast before doing more tests to measure their hangovers. The study showed that those with the Mongol genes absorbed 50 per cent more alcohol into the bloodstream at peak levels and metabolized it much more slowly than the other students.

"The way they get drunk is completely different. They are also more likely to feel aggressive or depressed," Dr. Nuzhny said. "They do not necessarily look Mongolian, but the gene that governs how they metabolize alcohol is Mongoloid."

The Mongols swept across Asia and Russia and into Europe in the 13th century and ruled Russia for two centuries. Intermarriage with the Slavs and other ethnic groups was common.

Scientists have long known that people of Mongol extraction, including Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, have an enzyme for metabolizing alcohol which is different from that of Caucasian Europeans.

Dr. Nuzhny claims that his study is the first to look at the effect of alcohol on Russians who have inherited Mongol genes. He says that the phenomenon can be explained partly by evolution. The nomadic Mongols, whose only indigenous form of alcohol was fermented mare's milk, evolved with a different enzyme from the settled Europeans with their long tradition of producing stronger grape and grain-based alcohol.

Dr. Nuzhny's research is partly funded by pharmaceutical companies trying to develop drugs to cure hangovers and alcoholism.

Russians drink about 15 litres of pure alcohol a head each year, one of the highest rates in the world, and by some estimates one in seven Russians are alcoholics. Alcohol is largely to blame for a fall in life expectancy to less than 59 since the fall of the Soviet Union.

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