tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post2561370031815706992..comments2024-03-29T05:14:33.223-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Living ForeverUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-4446797959192184472012-05-08T16:36:09.219-07:002012-05-08T16:36:09.219-07:00A new study of Sardinian men finds height is a fac...A new study of Sardinian men finds height is a factor in longevity. (Sardinia is one of six Blue Zones)<br /><br /><br />This new study supports over 12 previous studies that have found that shorter height promotes greater longevity. Sardinia is known as a blue zone, which means it has a remarkably high percentage of long-lived people. <br /><br />Sardinians are shorter than people in the rest of Europe and tend to live longer. Within Sardinia, there is a group of 14 municipalities that exhibit higher longevity compared to the rest of the island. In addition, as height declines among these municipalities, longevity increases with the shortest municipaliity, Villagrande Strisaili, having the greatest longevity. Professor Poulain, University of Louvain (Belgium) and Dr. Salaris, University of Cagliari (Italy), led a study to determine whether there was a relationship between height and longevity among almost 500 males born between 1866 and 1915. Salaris and Poulain found that shorter men lived about 2 years longer than taller men. The results of the study were published in the journal, Biodemography and Social Biology (4/26/12): Doi:10.1080/19485565.2012.666118<br /> <br />This Sardinian study is consistent with a study conducted in Spain by Dr. Holzenberger. This study tracked 1.3 million men through a 70-year period and found that longevity increased with reduced height. Similar results were found in an Ohio study by Professor Dennis Miller based on about 1700 men and women. Samaras, a longevity researcher, found similar results based on baseball players, California veterans, football players, basketball players and famous people. Professor Krakauer also found that shorter elderly Swedish men and women live longer. A recent review by Professor Bartke appeared in Gerontology which supports these findings as well: DOI: 10.1159/000335166<br /><br />The researchers of this study noted that women are shorter than men and live longer in virtually all populations. However, Professor Miller found that when he compared men and women of the same height, their longevity was about the same. Contrary to what was expected, Poulain and Salaris found that men live as long as women in Villagrande.<br /><br />A number of scientists have observed that within a species, the smaller individual tends to live longer than the bigger one. This is illustrated by smaller dogs who live longer than medium and large size dogs. Smaller mice, rats, ponies and monkeys generally live longer as well. The Asian elephant also lives longer than the larger African elephant.<br /><br />The study also provides a number of biological mechanisms that explain why smaller bodies tend to live longer. These include lower DNA damage, greater cell replacement potential, higher heart pumping efficiency, decreased C-reactive protein and higher sex hormone binding globulin.<br /><br />Salaris and Poulain reported that height is only one factor in how long anyone will live. It probably constitutes less than 10% of anyone’s longevity profile. Regardless of height, anyone can extend his or her longevity by healthful nutrition, low body weight, exercise, good medical care, a positive and happy spirit, and good social relations. Therefore, tall people have the potenial to reach 100 years under the right conditions. <br /><br />During the last 20 years, Reventropy Associates has been involved in evaluating the ramifications of body size and height on longevity and other factors in human society. The contributors to the Sardinia study have published over 40 peer reviewed papers and books on human body size and its relation to longevity, resource consumption, and long-term human survival.<br /><br />Contact: Thomas T. Samaras, Director, Reventropy Associates. email: Samarastt@aol.com, tel: 858 576 9283, 11487 Madera Rosa Way, San Diego, Ca. 92124; website: http://www.humanbodysize.comthomas t samarashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11494824884649436462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47666705038588739482012-02-12T19:33:37.713-08:002012-02-12T19:33:37.713-08:00I have studied longevity for over 3 decades and ha...I have studied longevity for over 3 decades and have found that shorter height is an advantage if you want to live a long time. Chan, Suzuki and Yamamoto studied the Okinawans and concluded that it is better to be short and lean if you want to reach 100 years of age. Okinawan centenarians averaged 4'10" in one study.<br /><br />An Italian report based on 2500 centenarians also stated that being short and lean was an advantage in achieving 100 years of age.<br /><br />A recent study by Salaris and Poulain found that the shortest people in Sardinia had the longest longevity. They reported that as a municipality got shorter, people lived longer.<br /><br />Holzenberger studied the survival of 1.3 million men tracked over a 70 year period and found that shorter men lived longer.<br /><br />Professor Dennis Miller studied deceased people in Ohio and found the shorter people lived longer.<br /><br />I have studied veterans, various athletes, and famous people. The shorter one's in each of these groups lived longer.<br /><br />Women are shorter than men and live longer. Miller found that men and women of the same height had about the same longevity.<br /><br />Studies with dogs, mice, rats and monkeys support the above findings. <br /><br />Of course, height is only one factor that determines how long one will live. Genetics, economic status, childhood experiences, diet, and medical care play important roles. Therefore, your height does not guarantee that you will live a long or short time by itself.<br /><br />If you are interested in the various ramifications of increasing body size, see www.humanbodysize.comthomas t samarashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11494824884649436462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47599772258487077292011-12-20T19:11:21.578-08:002011-12-20T19:11:21.578-08:00Holzenberger conducted a study of 1.3 million men ...Holzenberger conducted a study of 1.3 million men tracked over a 70 year period. He and his associates found that shorter men lived longer.<br /><br />Another study found that the states of Andorra, Macau, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong have the highest life expectancy and are shorter than Northern Europeans.<br /><br />Sardinians and Okinawans are the longest lived people in the world. They are both short.<br /><br />Of course, small dogs, rats, nice, horses, and elephants (Indian vs African) live longer than larger members of their species.<br /><br />Studies show that short 90 year olds have longer telomeres than taller ones. Long telomeres are related to better health and greater longevity.<br /><br />In the US the lowest all-cause mortality is among Asians, who are shorter than other ethnic groups. The Latinos and Native Americans are taller and have a higher mortality. The Whites and Blacks are tallest and have the highest all-cause mortality from birth to over 85 years of age.<br /><br />For more information on the ramifications of body size on health and the environment, see: www.humanbodysize.comthomas t samarashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11494824884649436462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5060403397435140632011-11-16T15:14:57.422-08:002011-11-16T15:14:57.422-08:00"I'm very doubtful that anyone of europea...<i>"I'm very doubtful that anyone of european or middle eastern ancestry escapes having a slight jewish addition."</i> <br /><br /><br />And by the same token, I'm very doubtful of any European Jews not having a sizable chunk of European DNA, and of any Middle-Eastern Jews not having a lot of Middle-Eastern DNA in their make-up.<br /><br />European Jews intelligence is a <i>lot</i> closer to that of Europeans than it is to that of Middle-Eastern Jews. I know some people here think that this is some strange case of parallel development, but you're engaging in denial.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40045792240624185652011-11-15T12:43:57.514-08:002011-11-15T12:43:57.514-08:00Even if Jews are of the same genetic diversity as ...<i>Even if Jews are of the same genetic diversity as Swedes or Englishmen, it does not mean that it is as easy to find 100 old Swedes as 540 old Jews, in the NYC area.</i><br /><br />Which is why I suggested Irish or Italians and not Swedes as a logical substitute for yet-another-study-of-Jews. Koreans (there are large numbers of them in northern NJ just across the George Washington bridge) form another potential subject group if you're willing to look at non-Europeans.<br /><br />None of this is that hard, if you're willing to let go of the bias against doing genetic research on non-Jews. I'm not sure what the hang-up is - perhaps some people see studies which show that e.g. the Germans are genetically distinct as just morally wrong and smacking of Nazism.<br /><br />Whatever the reason, the obsessive focus on Jewish genetics feeds into the fiction that Jews are genetically distinct and that the rest of the worlds people are undifferentiated mongrels. In the minds of at least some Jews, that's the conclusion which is <i>supposed</i> to be drawn.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32063714628686195352011-11-15T12:27:39.808-08:002011-11-15T12:27:39.808-08:00The PCA clustering results (one of the Duke studie...<i>The PCA clustering results (one of the Duke studies) are not a "version of history". </i> <br /> <br /><br /><br />They most certainly are. You can show almost anything you care to via genetic studies, depending on the genetic material you chose to focus attention on. You can (and some people have) argued that there is no such thing as race by focusing on the 99%+ of DNA shared by all people. This obliterates all differences by looking at what is in common.<br /><br />At the other extreme you can <i>create</i> distinctions by focusing on genetic differences with no real-world manifestation - which is what is being discussed here.<br /><br />The genes in European Jews which control physical appearance are Northern European genes, which is why European Jews are indistinguishable to the eye from Britons, Germans, Poles, etc. If their genetic material on the whole was middle Eastern/Southern European then they would <i>look</i> Middle Eastern/Southern European.<br /><br />I'm Anglo-Irish and I live and work among a mostly Jewish population. I cannot distinguish them from non-Jews, and they cannot distinguish me from Jews. In fact Jews frequently assume I'm Jewish, purely on the basis of seeing me around other people whom they know to be Jews.<br /><br /><br />Nobody is performing the sort of exhaustive in-depth genetic research currently done on Jews on other groups. Given a sufficiently high degree of resolution the genetic differences between Germans and French, for instance, would come into focus. But highlighting the genetic distinctions between non-Jewish Europeans is <i>not</i> seen as desirable by Jewish researchers, while finding genetic distinctions between Jews and non-Jews is the Holy Grail.<br /><br /><br /><i>It would be possible to perform a similar study with Italians, Irish or blacks ...</i> <br /><br /><br />In fact I already suggested Irish and Italians as other groups in NYC which could have been used.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>... the population size, homogeneity and relatively concentrated access to large pools of elderly still favors Jew</i> <br /><br /><br />No, it does not. Stop saying things which are patently untrue. Jewish researchers conduct studies on Jews because that is where their personal interests lie. And that skews the entire genetics field in directions favoring still <i>more</i> studies of Jews - because studies tend to build on one another. <br /><br />In a cartography analogy, the field of group genetics is a vast unexplored continent on which the same couple of square miles is repeatedly mapped down to finer and finer levels of detail while vast areas remain completely uncharted.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8775551262522648122011-11-15T00:11:15.373-08:002011-11-15T00:11:15.373-08:00>"We do know that for at least the last se...>"We do know that for at least the last several hundred years (and likely much longer), Ashkenazi Jews were an extremely endogamous population."<br /><br />Q > "We don't actually "know" that. It is the version of history which certain Jewish scientists would like Jews to believe though."<br /><br />The PCA clustering results (one of the Duke studies) are not a "version of history". The experimental result was 100 percent, error-free, separation between American Jews and American non-Jews in a sample with hundreds of each, using only one principal component on data from a small number of loci. It is not possible to get such a strong separation if the Jewish gene pool is as genetically variable (and is intermixed with) the gene pool of the European gentiles in the USA.<br /><br />Even if Jews are of the same genetic diversity as Swedes or Englishmen, it does not mean that it is as easy to find 100 old Swedes as 540 old Jews, in the NYC area. There aren't Swedish neighborhoods, Swedish community centers, Swedish temples, Swedish old-age homes, etc in the numbers that exist for Jews. In Stockholm, yes, but not in New York. This is important not only for the absolute sample size that can be attained, but the cost of getting the sample.<br /><br />If you limit to people with four grandparents in a given country (Poland, Ukraine, etc), then Jews satisfying that criterion will be even more clustered genetically, and in the New York area, available in larger numbers than non-Jews, for the countries that had lots of Jews. It would be possible to perform a similar study with Italians, Irish or blacks but the population size, homogeneity and relatively concentrated access to large pools of elderly still favors Jews as an initial target for this type of study (if done in NYC), in addition to the other factors that Steve mentioned.Ivy League Bastardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64588306430553650302011-11-14T18:50:47.404-08:002011-11-14T18:50:47.404-08:00Q, you are a stupid little prick
Spoken like a ...<i>Q, you are a stupid little prick</i> <br /><br /><br />Spoken like a true rocket scientist, Anonymous.<br /><br /><br /><i>Ashkenazim in the Diaspora are smarter than the ones who went to Israel</i> <br /><br /><br />Perhaps, but that just undermines the whole "Ashkenazim are really smart and long-lived!" line of argument. Now we're talking about a subset of a subset of all Jews. I'm sure that for <i>certain</i> values of the word "Jews", Jews live longer than average. But the same is true for virtually all other groups of people. <i>Somewhere</i> out there is a subgroup of Poles or Estonians or Germans who live to be 100. <br /><br /><br /><i>Ashkenazi Jews ARE very inbred.</i> <br /><br /><br />No, they are not. If Ashkenazi Jews were as inbred as you think they are than Israeli Ashkenazi Jews would not have significantly lower IQ's than American Ashkenazi Jews. That difference signifies important genetic differences between those two populations of Ashkenazi. But maybe what you meant to say was "Ashkenazi Jews in America" or "Ashkenazi Jews in NYC" or Ashkenazi Jews in the Upper West Side" are very inbred. Do you see the problem with that proposition, Einstein? Are you smart enough to see it?<br /><br /><br /><i>Go suck a lemon.</i> <br /><br /><br />Go read a book other than the "Aren't Jews just <i>wonderful!</i>" books which you've been reading up to now and which tell you fairy tales that you find comforting.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90668521347721822602011-11-14T17:51:57.318-08:002011-11-14T17:51:57.318-08:00Q, you are a stupid little prick.
* Israel's ...Q, you are a stupid little prick. <br />* Israel's Jewish population is majority Sephardic. <br />* The life expectancy stats include Jews and Arabs.<br />* If you look at the IQ stats you'll see that it's VERY unimpressive. <br />* Ashkenazim in the Diaspora are smarter than the ones who went to Israel.<br />* Ashkenazim in America DO have very high life expectancies. You may have heard that Hispanics have the highest life expectancy in the US, but's that because the higher Jewish life expectancy is averaged into the total white life expectancy. Some East Asian groups might be higher.<br />* Ashkenazi Jews ARE very inbred. Their gene pool, despite having several ethnic origins, is TINY. You don't understand the concept of a "genetic bottleneck".<br />In short, there is every reason in the world for Ashkenazi Jews to be the subject of a study like this. Go suck a lemon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81450305934347758362011-11-14T11:41:38.830-08:002011-11-14T11:41:38.830-08:00I suspect that since Ashkenazi Jews tend to have m...<i>I suspect that since Ashkenazi Jews tend to have much higher IQs, that they also probably tend to have much higher health and longevity.</i> <br /><br /><br />Have a look at the life expectancy figures for Jews vs those for countries with a mostly white population. <br /><br />Jewish male life expectancy in Israel is 78.5 years, compared to 79 in Switzerland, 78.7 in Sweden, and 77.8 in Norway. Jewish life expectancy is on the high end of the normal range among whites. But it certainly is not "much higher".Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-79324211322881951672011-11-14T11:26:07.950-08:002011-11-14T11:26:07.950-08:00during the past decade Ian Deary and colleagues ha...<i>during the past decade Ian Deary and colleagues have shown that IQ is the one of the very strongest factors for predicting health and longevity.</i> <br /><br /><br />They may have postulated that IQ predicts longevity, but they cannot have shown it. Because it does not do so. Look again at the list of places where people live longest.<br /><br />Okinawa, Japan: Sardinia, Italy: Loma Linda, California: Nicoya, Costa Rica: and Ikaria, Greece.<br /><br />They're not known for being intellectual hot-spots.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-48571325461899323062011-11-14T09:53:14.328-08:002011-11-14T09:53:14.328-08:00The contention that Icelanders are descended from ...The contention that Icelanders are descended from 5 Norsemen and 4 Irish women is absurd:<br />"Ingólfur was followed by many more Norse chieftains, their families and slaves who settled all the inhabitable areas of the island in the next decades."<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IcelandDutch Boyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02687679491743923216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20169919203270737052011-11-14T06:45:14.482-08:002011-11-14T06:45:14.482-08:00"Whites" around NY have many centenarian..."Whites" around NY have many centenarians but are more diverse than Jews so a larger sample size is needed to get the same statistical power. Ashkenazic Jews are therefore a natural target for such a study. Black centenarians might be another. "<br /><br />I've noticed this practice of putting quotes around the world "white" when referring to whites; meanwhile, "black" is just Black. What goes?<br />Can't we just be White? At least at isteve will they just leave us alone to be White?Blancanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2515686606620423822011-11-14T06:42:03.410-08:002011-11-14T06:42:03.410-08:00"Most of the "science" against smok..."Most of the "science" against smoking is comprised of bad epidemiological studies:<br /><br />http://www.stahlheart.com/wispofsmoke/goodforyou.html"<br /><br />Some research strongly suggested that American cigarettes induce cancer because the tobacco is sugar cured. Cancer grows rapidly on sugar, something long known. Cigarette smoking was not associated with cancer in countries where tobacco was dry curred. Middle east for example. It was, however, associated with clogging the lungs and causing respirtory problems. Smoking may not bad for some people with strong systems who can filter out the toxins, but smoke is not confined just to the smoker. It makes the rounds and gets into to people who want nothing to do with it and might not be able to detoxify it.<br />I grew up in a house with a chain smoking mother. It plays havoc with the complexion--you can always tell a person who's smoked heavily for years. And the nicotine layer on the kitchen walls. Jeez.<br />Cancer inducing or not, I'm glad as blazes that by the time I grew up, despite all the other problems of the world today, I don't have to breathe everybody elese's cigarette smoke in small offices, or anywhere else. Been there done that.dcitenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50064932459173344692011-11-14T05:42:48.412-08:002011-11-14T05:42:48.412-08:00Your cousin took a desk job just when the whole or...Your cousin took a desk job just when the whole organic/locavore craze hit?Dahindanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69438180116677389382011-11-14T00:33:34.549-08:002011-11-14T00:33:34.549-08:00NOTA said:
Similarly, Jews who wanted to assimila...NOTA said:<br /><br /><i>Similarly, Jews who wanted to assimilate into the surrounding culture, get baptised in the local church, etc., disappear out of the list of Jewish descendants of the original population of Jews who went wandering through Europe.</i><br /><br /><br />For various reasons Jews have been expelled from different european countries at different times *: ( quite like the Jesuits, who, though, neither converted nor left any descendants ). Many would have chosen to convert. Since over long hundreds of years their bloodlines would have gradually intermixed with the general populace, I'm very doubtful that <i>anyone</i> of european or middle eastern ancestry escapes having a slight jewish addition.<br /><br />Even the barmier nazis...<br /><br /><br />( One of whom, the fiercely republican journo Goebbels, maintained in his diaries that the great Kaiser Wilhelm was jewish; when Willy was not very fond of some jews at all, despite refraining from murdering them <i>en masse</i>. )<br /><br /><br />* Random list, from a dodgy site, here:<br /><br />http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/expelled.htmClaverhousehttp://www.serene-falcon.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8819955354560732662011-11-13T21:19:30.397-08:002011-11-13T21:19:30.397-08:00One other thing that makes Jews a little different...One other thing that makes Jews a little different than other partly-inbred groups is the whole process of being able to, one way or another, fade out into the bigger population. In places and times where there wasn't much overt anti-Semitism, someone who wanted to marry a Gentile girl and settle down could presumably do so without too much trouble, but his descendants wouldn't be Jewish. Similarly, Jews who wanted to assimilate into the surrounding culture, get baptised in the local church, etc., disappear out of the list of Jewish descendants of the original population of Jews who went wandering through Europe. <br /><br />I'm not sure how important that effect is, but it seems like it could have a big impact, both in terms of concentrating the relationships of the remaining people labeled Jewish, and in terms of potential selection effects for keeping the label. <br /><br />The extreme example in the other direction is American blacks, who tend to be labeled as black with a single dark black grandparent or even great-grandparent. There, the label sticks, often even despite the attempts of the person to escape from it.NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67563117874620233352011-11-13T19:59:18.057-08:002011-11-13T19:59:18.057-08:00"... Barzilai centered his studies on Ashkena..."... Barzilai centered his studies on Ashkenazim not because they live longer or produce more centenarians than other ethnic groups. They don’t."<br /><br />In my opinion it is highly likely that this statement is false.<br /><br />I suspect that Barzilai, or perhaps Jesse Green the New York Magazine journalist, has merely ASSUMED that the Ashkenazim do not tend to live longer than other Whites.<br /><br />You see, during the past decade Ian Deary and colleagues have shown that IQ is the one of the very strongest factors for predicting health and longevity. They have published several dozen papers in top journals on this correlation. Professor Ian Deary of University of Edinburgh is probably the worlds foremost expert on the science of IQ so his research findings are not to be ignored lightly.<br /><br />So I suspect that since Ashkenazi Jews tend to have much higher IQs, that they also probably tend to have much higher health and longevity.<br /><br />Although, admittedly I am not certain that Ashkenazim live longer because there is at least one example of an ethnic group that is an exception to the rule of IQs correlating with health and longevity. Hispanic Americans tend to have lower IQs than Whites but the health and longevity of Hispanic Americans tends to be about the same as that of White Americans.Galtonianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11542550046419854091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64636420123210458712011-11-13T18:49:44.929-08:002011-11-13T18:49:44.929-08:00Bear in mind that studies of Mitochondrial DNA are...Bear in mind that studies of Mitochondrial DNA are a lagging indicator. They can tell you what happened in the distant past but are less useful when it comes to more recent time frames. <br /><br />Mitochondrial DNA is a tiny subset of your cells overall DNA. As the name indicates, it controls the mitochondria. It does not control your skin color, eye color, hair color, height, temperament, intelligence, or other physical characteristics.<br /><br />If you see people whose mitochondrial DNA says Middle East/Southern Europe and whose skin/eye/hair pigmentation says Northern Europe, the correct conclusion is clear - you're looking at people who several hundreds or thousands of years ago commenced a northern migration. And who have been interbreeding with Northern Europeans for a shorter and more recent (in evolutionary terms) length of time. That still means hundreds of years though.<br /><br />When people talk about Ashkenazi Jews being genetically distinct, they're talking about a very small and in practice meaningless piece of DNA. They're not talking about the genes which control the sorts of things which we all notice in people. They're not talking about the genes for physical appearance or personality or intelligence. Ashkenazi Jews genes for those things come from the European populations they live in.<br /><br />This guy <a href="http://www.ashbrook.org/images/nordlinger.jpg" rel="nofollow">here</a> may possess in his mitochondrial DNA some echoes of the Jewish migration from the Middle East to America via Europe. The rest of his DNA, notably including that which governs his skin color, bone structure, thought processes etc, his ancestors picked up at some point in their thousand-plus years in Northern Europe.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37376073960868924802011-11-13T16:56:41.391-08:002011-11-13T16:56:41.391-08:00Earlier this year, I reread Wouk's 1954 play b...Earlier this year, I reread Wouk's 1954 play based on his novel, "The Caine Mutiny Courtmartial." It was excellent.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-87803818020436613902011-11-13T16:37:26.517-08:002011-11-13T16:37:26.517-08:00We USN-ophiles are quite fond of Herman Wouk, as h...We USN-ophiles are quite fond of Herman Wouk, as he is of the USN. When he was the only Jew aboard his ship, the men looked askance at him, 'specially when he strapped on the phylacteries and donned the prayer shawl. <br /><br />Later, they thought of him as a good luck charm. (sailors are famously superstitious)<br /><br />He wrote of an episode when he was doing his prayers and felt a touch on one of the t'fillin. He turned around and confronted a blushing young sailor, who said he had touched it for good luck.<br /><br />Don't you people fuck with Herman Wouk. He is kewl&manly.Justthisguyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17277333206171756636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43161616773795913442011-11-13T14:44:25.645-08:002011-11-13T14:44:25.645-08:00Yes, the Andamanese of North Sentinel Island are e...<i>Yes, the Andamanese of North Sentinel Island are even more inbred than New York-area Ashkenazi Jews, but it's hard to get from the Einstein medical school in the Bronx to the Andaman Islands by subway.</i> <br /><br /><br />It's about as hard to find people with four grandparents from Ireland or Italy in New York as it is to find people with four grandparents from Poland/Western Russia. Not trivial, but not impossible either. So relax, no trip to the Andaman Islands is necessary.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38971969472259942152011-11-13T14:39:35.986-08:002011-11-13T14:39:35.986-08:00the highly endogamous ancestries of Jews born in t...<i>the highly endogamous ancestries of Jews born in the early 20th Century</i> <br /><br /><br />Only "Catholics" would show greater genetic variance than "Jews". Jews born in the early 20th century do not have a highly endogamous ancestry. Jews born in the early 20th century are as varied a group of people as you can find. <br /><br />What people mean, but for some reason rarely say, is that Jews born in certain specific countries, or all four of whose grandparents were born in certain specific countries - mostly within the borders of the original Poland - have highly endogamous ancestry. Stated thusly, which is not how anybody ever states it, it <i>is</i> true that "Jews" have highly endogamous ancestry.<br /><br />Of course, they're not any more highly endogamous than the ancestry of "Swedes", where "Swedes" is similarly narrowly defined. In fact, as shown by the various studies conducted by Jewish genetic researchers, narrowly defined "Jews" show a greater degree of genetic variance than do narrowly defined "Swedes". <br /><br />They don't highlight this aspect of their findings, and neither does the New York Times, You have to dig a little into the various studies and not accept their precis as being the final word.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5277305246467825242011-11-13T14:22:24.499-08:002011-11-13T14:22:24.499-08:00Yes, the Andamanese of North Sentinel Island are e...Yes, the Andamanese of North Sentinel Island are even more inbred than New York-area Ashkenazi Jews, but it's hard to get from the Einstein medical school in the Bronx to the Andaman Islands by subway.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38394154551038283212011-11-13T14:21:23.219-08:002011-11-13T14:21:23.219-08:00We do know that for at least the last several hund...<i>We do know that for at least the last several hundred years (and likely much longer), Ashkenazi Jews were an extremely endogamous population.</i> <br /> <br /><br />We don't actually "know" that. It is the version of history which certain Jewish scientists would like Jews to believe though.<br /><br /><i>Gil Atzmon, the lead author on one of the large autosomal DNA-based studies of Jewish population genetics published last year, is a collaborator of Barzilai's in this study</i> <br /> <br /><br />I <i>know</i> that he is. That's one of the reasons why I raised the question of why we keep reading articles about Jewish genetic studies written by the same small number (under a dozen people) of Jewish genetic researchers.<br /><br /><br /><i>Atzmon et al. and Behar et al. (and Bauchet et al. and David Goldstein's lab at Duke earlier on) have all found evidence of significant (likely Southern) European admixture in the Ashkenazim.</i> <br /><br /><br />If some black genetic researchers told you that African-Americans have not interbred with the white population, would you believe them? Probably not. It's hard not to notice that many American "blacks" have a significant white component, even without examining their genes.<br /><br />But there are a lot of people who embody pure credulity where the topic of Jews comes up. If some scientist argued that Jews are not human at all but the descendents of a space-faring race from another planet, plenty of people would respond with, "That seems plausible". And Jews would be prominent among them.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.com