Agnostic atheist, ignostic apatheist, nontheist, secular humanist, methodological naturalist, irreligious Progressive, left-leaning centrist Biologist, educator
The Lordcity of Palanthas
Joined March 2016
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Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Good news, obviously. But wouldn't it be nice if, one of these days, we had an election in the developed world that *wasn't* a nailbiter between "normal, nice things" and "burn everything to the ground"? Crazy talk, I know.
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Men applying for teaching jobs in England are systematically rated lower than women with identical qualifications. Only 24% of teachers are men. 14% in primary schools. We're closing doors to male role models at the moment children need them most, argues @CPRMenBoys: menandboys.org.uk/men-teache…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
The idea that Democrats can dispense with persuading heterodox swing voters -- by moving left to mobilize its progressive base -- rests on nothing but bad intuitions, per @simon_bazelon's report vox.com/politics/466253/why-…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Charles Murray claims in a WSJ essay that reports of "terminal lucidity" (brain-dead patients briefly coming back to life for a final goodbye) proves the existence of a ghost in the machine. Oh, please. Jerry Coyne @evolutionistrue (quoting a lengthy response from me) shows why this "soul of the gaps" argument is bogus. whyevolutionistrue.com/. @michaelshermer will weigh in soon.
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Hamas isn’t fighting for a Palestinian state; it’s fighting for global Islamic rule.
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Michael Shermer @michaelshermer debunks the claims that near-death experiences and terminal lucidity are evidence for a soul, aka a ghost in the machine. skeptic.com/article/the-soul…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado:
“I say to the American people: Do not be seduced. Socialism is the sexiest path to losing your freedom. Guard your freedom jealously. Defend it fiercely. Because freedom is not just an American promise—it is the hope of the world.”
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Nature used to be the world’s most prestigious science journal. Now it’s one of many accused of favouring authors because of their identity group rather than the excellence and importance of their science.
hxstem.substack.com/p/why-i-…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Because the quality to be celebrated in a member of Congress is to “shut up and vote the way he’s told” by a separate branch of government.
If ever there were an apt use of the phrase “weak men create hard times,” it’s a congressman who kneels to the man he ought to be checking.
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
In 1066 AD, William the Conqueror's victory at the Battle of Hastings brought a new French-speaking ruling class to England. This created a curious linguistic divide that we can still see on our dinner plates today....
The Norman lords who were served the meals used French-derived words for the cooked meat on their tables. They ate 'boeuf' (beef), 'porc' (pork), and 'mouton' (mutton).
Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxon peasants who raised the animals continued to use their Old English terms for the live creatures. They tended to the 'cu' (cow), the 'picg' (pig), and the 'sceap' (sheep).
Over time, this class-based language seeped into modern English. The words of the wealthy nobles became the standard for the food, while the words of the farmers remained for the animals.
While this changed the language, studies suggest it didn't drastically alter the diet of the common person, though pork did grow in popularity after the conquest.
The separation of animal and meat names is a direct and lasting legacy of a single historical event.
#archaeohistories
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
New high quality Denisovan genome unearths evidence for 'super archaic' admixture into Denisovans and at least three distinct sources of Denisovan ancestry in modern humans.
A high-coverage genome from a 200,000-year-old Denisovan | bioRxiv
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Yes, Oceanians and EastAsians/Önge etc. share a recent common ancestor to the exclusion of West Eurasians: the East Eurasian Core (EEC) branch of the IUP wave. E.g. their primary ancestor used the same route to reach East Asia and Oceania. – f3 for Tianyuan_40k (basal EEC):
if an 'early southern dispersal' occurred, they might have been south Arabian cousins of the Skhul-Qafzeh Pop. But from my (admittedly provisional) assessment, I see no convincing need to have an ESD input in Australo-Papuans. They seem to be nested *within* Eurasian diversity, not beyond it. Curiosly, my graph opens the possibility of a dual south Asian + East Asian route for A-P. And NB- I am quering against a tangible *early* southern route, not against a southern route in general
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
The Australian government is systematically destroying ancient human fossils key to understanding the evolutionary heritage of us all, because activists of often mostly European ancestry have appropriated prehistoric cultures.
Read the new article by @MungoManic (link below):
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
I’ve done dozens of debates, but this passage from @sapinker new book, When Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows…, is why I much prefer “in conversation” as superior at finding truth, or at least common ground:
"At the most refined levels of intellectual colloquy, in debating forums named after venerable British universities and periodicals whose names are permutations of New York, London, Review, Literary, Books, and Times, the customary style of argumentation is gladiatorial combat. The goal is to vanquish one’s adversary, and the tactics are the projection of unshakable confidence, the withering caricature, the targeting of unguarded flanks, the self-defense against falsification, the advantage taken in having the last word. It’s an entertaining sport, but a dubious way to seek the truth."
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
You obviously did not have read the study nor understand the topic's complexity. Btw. it is not regarding the recent present-day human affilated OoA exit either.
xitter.gq/Tatsuya9JP/status/1971…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Pure bloodlines? Ancestral homelands? DNA science says fuggettaboutit -- we're all migrant mongrels. Stunning research by my colleague David Reich. news.harvard.edu/gazette/sto…
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
We don't yet know who shot Charlie Kirk, what their politics were, or why they shot him.
But let's be clear on this much:
Free speech is the most fundamental starting point of any viable and desirable attempt to create a better society. This is a moral and political disaster.
Red Dragon Inn retweeted
Murder is always bad and evil but political violence is especially repulsive since it’s just so destructive to society and what are supposed to be our shared pluralistic values.
