Brain size, sex, and intelligence
unz.com/jthompson/wome…

1839 Tsar Nicholas I told Astolphe de Custine “despotism is suited to the genius of our nation”. Custine warns: We are much mistaken in our understanding of the part Russia will play in Europe ... she will propagate tyranny as a pretended palliative to anarchy. Putin’s line. The Russian empire is the country in the world where men are most unhappy, because they suffer simultaneously from the disadvantages of barbarism and from those of civilisation ... They are most unhappy and most endearing.

We move from the mechanics of basic information processing, which is content poor, universal, biological and genetic; to the pragmatics of acquired knowledge, which is content rich, culture dependent and experience based.
unz.com/jthompson/proc… The pragmatics (please call it wisdom) hold up with age, the mechanics fade after the age of maturity (25) and decay thereafter.

unz.com/jthompson/medi… Death toll in first wave of Covid hit over-weight people particularly hard. Racial differences in fatness, may have been an important cause, but we don't know for sure. In the latter phase of the pandemic, differential uptake of vaccinations will have been a new factor.

Lucky people are skilled at creating & noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, & adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good. Richard Wiseman unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends.

unz.com/jthompson/medi… One way is to study the stated political preferences of journalists, and to compare them with national political preferences as shown by election results. Will journalists be to the left, to the right, or bang in the middle of the national political dimension?

unz.com/jthompson/gene… Genetic lottery?
In an honest lottery every ticket holder has the same chance of winning as any other ticket holder. The chance of a win is winners/lottery tickets.

unz.com/jthompson/afgh… Say IQ 86 for Iran and Iraq, IQ 83 for Pakistan and IQ 86 for Turkey and we need not quibble about individual points, but the general range in the neighbourhood is clear.

unz.com/jthompson/game… Does the world need another IQ test? There are many well-validated tests, and also a number of short tests suitable for large scale surveys, many of which take less than 10 minutes, and several useful ones which take less than 5 minutes.

unz.com/jthompson/cry-… Murray dissects the two key problems of race, prescribes a reaffirmation of the American Creed of equality under the law, but is hoping against hope that those noble aims are achievable, & doubts his suggestions will be heeded. His short book briefly summarized: “It’s Over”.

unz.com/jthompson/cost… Many Western countries began immigration policies without feeling any need to monitor the long-term results. Many considered immigration was an expedient response to labour shortages, & labourers, like Turkish guest-workers in Germany, would return home at retirement.

Eratosthenes was nicknamed “Beta” by his contemporaries, because he was great at many things, but always second and never first. The sort of guy who might never have achieved tenure. He was the first to calculate the circumference of the earth, and did so by using his brain. There were others just as well educated and as well fed who didn’t work it out.

Jensen's "not unreasonable hypothesis", 1969. Individual and group differences

unz.com/jthompson/is-t… Criticisms assume every desirable occupation should be representative of the racial composition of the nation. Not so. Racial groups may differ in their interests, their cultural attitudes to particular occupations, and above all to the level and type of skills required.

Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men, the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that difference, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.
emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/… For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe.

unz.com/jthompson/vacc… The vaccinator gave an excellent, clear explanation of the procedure, the likely side effects, the pain killers which could be taken in the case of pain or headache.

unz.com/jthompson/is-b… To stand in the Grande Place is to savour the refinements of the late medieval age.

unz.com/jthompson/does… The hypothesis that there is a genetic component to all human differences does not stand or fall by a single observation, but to a pattern of results.

Explaining race and genetics: no need to despair unz.com/jthompson/expl… The Birney et al. paper is not so much an “explainer” as an attack on a position with which they do not agree. No problem with that, but these authors seek to clothe themselves in the robes of righteousness, rarely a good stance in scientific debate.

Boeing 737 Max: an artificial intelligence event? unz.com/jthompson/boei… Last night I predicted that the first withdrawals of the plane would happen within two days, and this morning China withdrew it. So far, so good. (Indonesia followed a few hours ago).

Going to the dogs: Man’s best friend unz.com/jthompson/goin… Dogs have very probably evolved with us, in a symbiotic relationship. They know how to flatter us, in return for food and companionship. Parasitism it may be, but it works for many people, and virtually all dogs. Dogs and their owners are reciprocally besotted.