Cultureplaces

Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer pointed out in his famous Albion's Seed that racial differences had an enormous impact on the history of America. He notes that the cold climate of colonial Massachusetts "proved to be exceptionally dangerous to immigrants from tropical Africa, who suffered severely from pulmonary infections in New England winters. Black death rates in colonial Massachusetts were twice as high as whites' - a pattern very different from Virginia where mortality rates for the two races were not so far apart, and still more different from South Carolina where white death rates were higher than those of blacks. So high was mortality among African immigrants in New England that race slavery was not viable on a large scale, despite many attempts to introduce it. Slavery was not impossible in this region, but the human and material costs were higher than many wished to pay. A labor system which was fundamentally hostile to the Puritan ethos of New Engla...

Physical Strength in Men Correlates with Attractiveness Am J Hum Biol. 2006 Dec 7;19(1):82-87 Male facial appearance signals physical strength to women. Fink B, Neave N, Seydel H.Previous studies showed that male faces with extreme features that are likely to be associated with testosterone (T) are perceived as dominant and masculine. Women were reported to prefer masculinized male faces, as they may consider T markers to be an "honest" indication of good health. [ and a holdover from the days when physical strength equated with status and leadership TOM] However, it is also likely that female preferences for certain male faces arise from the fact that dominant-and masculine-looking males are signaling characteristics which maybe beneficial in intrasexual conflict, and thereby also indicate potential achievers of high status, an important factor in female mate selection. Although numerous studies were built on this assumption, nothing is known about the relationship b...

by Joan Arehart-Treichel When maltreatment is combined with having the short MAOA gene variant, it may put children on track for antisocial behavior later on. Genetic screening, however, may not be a strategy for preventing such behavior. For four years, the case has been building that a short variant of the monoamine oxidase a (MAOA) gene, when combined with harsh discipline, physical abuse, or other forms of maltreatment, puts youngsters at risk for antisocial behavior. In 2002, as noted in an earlier post, Avshalom Caspi, Ph.D., of the Institute of Psychiatry in London and his coworkers were the first to report such a connection in a sample of more than 400 young men who had been followed since childhood. In 2004, Debra Foley, Ph.D., an assistant professor of human genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University, and colleagues reported that they had made the same association in youth aged 8 to 17 (Psychiatric News, September 3, 2004). And now Julia Kim-Cohen, Ph.D., an assistant profe...

Pressured by predators, lizards see rapid shift in natural selection November 17, 2006 - CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Countering the widespread view of evolution as a process played out over the course of eons, evolutionary biologists have shown that natural selection can turn on a dime - within months- as a population's needs change. In a study of island lizards exposed to a new predator, the scientists found that natural selection dramatically changed direction over a very short time, within a single generation, favoring first longer and then shorter hind legs. The findings, by Jonathan B. Losos of Harvard University and colleagues, are detailed this week in the journal Science .Losos did much of the work before joining Harvard earlier this year from WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis. "Because of its epochal scope, evolutionary biology is often caricatured as incompatible with controlled experimentation," says Losos, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology in Harvard...

Psychiatric News November 3, 2006Volume 41, Number 21, page 12© 2006 American Psychiatric Association Jury Still Out on Impact Of Genes on Trial Verdicts Mark Moran Americans should not be surprised to hear that claim made by criminal defendants as the genetics of behavior, especially antisocial behavior, are explored by science and popularized. Paul Appelbaum, M.D., chair of APA's Council on Psychiatry and Law, told psychiatrists at APA's 58th Institute on Psychiatric Services last month that the findings of behavioral genetics—even such preliminary findings as have been made to date— are making their way into the American legal system. He predicted, however, that genetic arguments are not likely to be successful in freeing defendants from guilt for their crimes, but may more likely be advanced in criminal cases as mitigating factors that should be taken into account in sentencing. Yet even there it remains to be seen how a genetic propensity will be viewed by juries and judge...

AGGRESSIVE TENDENCIES MAY BE REVEALED BY ASYMMETRY IN BODY PARTS, STUDY FINDS COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers may get some indication of how aggressively an angry person will react by measuring the size relationship between a person’s ears and other body parts, according to a new study. Research showed that the farther certain paired body parts were from symmetry – if one ear, index finger or foot was bigger than another, for example – the more likely it is was that a person would show signs of aggression when provoked. The symmetry effects were different in men and women, however. While the findings may seem strange, there is a plausible explanation, said Zeynep Benderlioglu , co-author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at Ohio State University. Deviations from symmetry are thought to reflect stressors during pregnancy – such as poor health, alcohol and tobacco use – that may affect development of the fetus in a variety of ways. "Paired body parts are presumably controlled...

Whistling Past the Graveyard by John Derbyshire (Nov. 2006) Reviewing Mark Steyn's new book, America Alone . . . . Ah, culture. Of course it’s not about race! Nothing is about race, because there is no such thing as race. (Repeat 100 times.) It’s about culture—the aether, the phlogiston, of current social-anthropological speculation, whose actual nature is mysterious, but whose explanatory power is infinite. You know, culture: those habits, folkways, beliefs, ways of thinking and behaving and connecting that arise from... pure chance! Or geography (see below). Or something... but definitely nothing to do with biology. Please don’t get me wrong. I am sure Mark Steyn is sincere here. I am sure he believes this stuff about “culture.” Most educated people do. Most will continue to do so for a few more years, while the neuroscientists, geneticists, genomicists, anthropologists, paleontologists, and statistical sociologists sap away beneath them—until the ground gives way. (A professiona...