Drug pushers beware

Love this piece from the Onion.

“A lot of teens just don’t know how to say no when drugs are constantly pushed on them,” quoth their fictitious expert. “These kids see their friends and classmates using drugs in middle school, or even elementary school, and they start to think it’s normal. We have to break that cycle. These kids need to know that just because the person pressuring them to use drugs is older than they are and uses forceful language, that does not mean using drugs is a good idea.”

The catch: the drug pushers are mental health professionals. As the best satire does, this brilliantly skewers its topic–in this case by showing that, under a certain light, professional medicine can be condemned in the exact same language that we’d use for the illegal drug trade.

NB to the Gotcha Squad: This is neither to condone the culture of illegal drugs in this country nor to roundly condemn mental health medicine, so shut up already. But the piece, as good humor does, makes ya think a bit, no?

 

Poor Richard Dawkins’ Almanack

September:

Fine fall weather may tempt you to harvest your memories in a Booke, but beware an early frost. Avoid fatuous pontification before the Squash blooms wither. One who failed to heed this commonsense warning was “greeted with critical sneering so intense it was almost audible,” If only he’d followed Poor Richard’s advice!

On the 20th, don’t forget to turn your clock back. Into a clock. A Muslim boy may bring you a timepiece that seems like a bomb. We know this sounds like one of our Homely allegories, but seriously. It may indeed prove to be a time bomb—but only if you will it so. Question not the boy’s motives, for once you walk down that road you may not ever walk it back. Even your Guardian cannot protect you then, no matter how much you Huff and Puff. Remember: Tweet not, want not!

The autumnal equinox is on the 23rd, but for you, Fall may already have begun. Early to bed…and maybe just stay there for the winter.

Plant seeds of next book during the full moon: sowing animus and xenophobia can be back-breaking labor. Early to bed and early to rise brings wealth to all men telling fortunes and lies!

 

Vulvaluv! Wearable tech…for her

From our friends over at NursingClio we learn of a terrific piece of new health gadgetry, just for women. It tracks your period, finds the nearest drugstore, keeps track of whether you want to have a baby or not have a baby, share your experiences, and oh, so much more! Just insert, install, and go: Vulvaluv!

Feature requests for version 2.0: Instagram sonogram upload, a financial planner to help you save for college, and the ability to choose a parenting style: Tiger Mother, Free-range, or Yuppie Helicopter.

Follow on Twitter @NursingClio.

 

TH, PUA

Nobel scientist Tim Hunt: female scientists cause trouble for men in labs. English biochemist tells conference women in laboratories ‘fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry’” (The Guardian)

“I did mean the part about having trouble with girls…  I’m really, really sorry I caused any offence, that’s awful. I certainly didn’t mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually.” (Tim Hunt)

 

Stockholm, 1983. A certain English scientist whose surname rhymes with…let’s go with a small boat that you pole along the river Cam…is 40 years old. He has received an invitation to the Nobel festivities honoring the geneticist Barbara McClintock, “for her discovery of mobile genetic elements.” He fancies himself a pick-up artist and thinks this will be an excellent place to meet girls. He starts at the top.

Tim Hunt (Nobelprize.org)

BMC: And so, Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, in conclusion, I wish to thank you and the Swedish people for their many courtesies. I hope I have conveyed some of the joy of the marvelous maize plant and the startling phenomena of the genome that one can discover when one has the time and the solitude to watch and to think. Are there any questions?

TH (aside, to companion): Watch this. Observe the master.

(to McClintock):           Yes, thank you. Before I speak, I’d like to say something: that’s a smashing dress.

BMC:       I hate dresses. They said I had to wear one, so I wore one. My niece found it somewhere near here.

TH:           Ahem, yes, I see. Well, jolly good one on me then!

[You see? She’s falling for me. Works every time.]

What I wanted to say was, all of these elegant trappings notwithstanding, that I find your argument…unconvincing. You haven’t shown any data of any sort that a contemporary biologist would recognize.

BMC:       Are there any questions?

TH:           [Always compliment them, then insult them a little. Never fails. Watch.]

What I mean is, I don’t mean to be indelicate, but what gives you the right to make such claims?

BMC:       What gives me the right, or what basis do I have? Please be clear. Well I can address both. What gives me the right is fifty years of studying genetics and the fact that I’m standing at the Nobel podium. The basis for my claims is my data, which I just reviewed. Weren’t you paying attention? Are there any other questions? Yes, you in the back…

TH:           [Ouuuuch! <grins> God I love older women! They find me irresistible!]

 

Later, at the Banquet…

TH: (suavely)      Ah! Dr. McClintock!

BMC:       Yes.

TH:           I just wanted to apologize for my remarks at your lecture.

BMC:       Yes.

TH:           I ought not to have been so candid in such a public forum.

BMC:       No.

TH:           I mean, I don’t honestly see what all the fuss is about your work. but I ought not to have said so in front of all of those reporters and, you know, the King and all. I hope I didn’t upset you. I just wanted to be honest.

BMC:       You’re the one who looks foolish. Did I upset you?

TH:           You…me…? I…

BMC:       Your pronouns seem to be functioning normally. But haven’t you any verbs? I would have thought Cambridge would teach you better English.

TH:           Now look here. There’s no call to be insulting.

BMC:       Oh, don’t take me too seriously. Turn sideways. [casts her eyes downward] I’ll give you this: you have a nice tush. [pats it][1]

TH:           WHAT?!? I never!

BMC:       Never? Too bad. Me neither…much. Never had the time. I was just too interested in chromosomes—and the Y is so short and stubby and dull. I do enjoy looking at a good tush, though.

TH:           You never fell in love? Say, with a charming professor, aloof yet alluring, with beguiling nostril hair?

BMC:       [snorts] Good one. Maybe you’re all right, Tom.

TH:           Tim. Timothy.

BMC:       Suit yourself. If I may be frank, I could never feel attracted to someone I thought wasn’t as smart as I am. And, well,…

TH:           [stiffens] Really! Now listen, what I need to tell you is this: Your experiments are just so baroque. You practice this old-fashioned style of genetics, your writing’s impenetrable, and your experiments! They’re so complicated—one has to learn half your maize strains and strange chromosome constructions just to grasp your hypothesis! I can’t honestly imagine how the Nobel committee even followed your work, let alone evaluated it. Why don’t you do some molecular experiments? Things become so much simpler!

BMC:       Yes. As I was saying…

TH:           Are you implying that I’m not…???

BMC:       Must I spell it out for you? If you’re not clever enough to grasp what I’m doing, why are you even here? God I hate these stuffed-shirt evenings!

TH:           Now look here, madam!

BMC:       No. You look here, squirt. And be quiet. I don’t mean you any harm—you’re no dumber than most of the other men I’ve spent my career around. But you’re no smarter either. I’ve been listening to you for ten minutes now, and you haven’t said a single intelligent thing. Don’t you ever grow up? There are more interesting punchbowls in this room. And I’ve had plenty of your Australopithecine views. That’s A-U-S…

[At this, TH’s eyes start to well] T-R-A-L-O-P-I-T-H-E-C-I-N-E. There!

BMC:           Gold star. [rolls eyes] Tom, I’m sure what you do is perfectly interesting to someone. And maybe—although of this I’m less certain—what you say, someone finds charming. But with me, neither happens to be the case. Now, about that punch… [walks off]

[Tears stream down TH’s cheeks. He falls to his knees, one arm extended melodramatically in her direction] Barbara! Dr. McClintock! Don’t go! I—I love you!

BMC: [To another, female, guest] My trouble boys is that all they want to talk about is romance and their own feelings. Always falling in love with you and weeping. How do they ever get any science done?

 

[1] McClintock was known to compliment people—men and women—on their tushes. In the words of a long-time friend, “She just liked tushes.”

“Fascist Park” Recreates Thrills of Tyranny’s Golden Age

Imagine going “on safari” across Europe in 1939. Out of a nearby bunker steps none other than Adolf Hitler. He goose-steps in your direction, glowering. His little mustache twitches. Now you must choose: Siegheil! Or run!

In the latest of a new breed of extreme entertainment such as “Tough Mudder,” the biotech company Tyro-Scene has announced that it plans to recreate the twentieth century’s most vile tyrants and let them compete for resources in a naturalistic setting, while paying customers experience an afternoon of terror, repression, and the threat of genocide. Riffing on the iconic dinosaur-cloning movie series, they are calling it “Fascist Park.”

Inspired by current research into the recreation of extinct species such as the Woolly Mammoth, a company spokesman says Tyro-Scene will create scenarios that will enable customers to truly live the worst horrors of the twentieth century, including Nazism, Stalinism, apartheid, and Maoist communism. No one under 18 is permitted, and the experience is not advised for adults with heart conditions or psychological “triggers.”

idi aminFor those up to the challenge, the park promises to get your pulse racing. At any moment, Benito Mussolini, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, or even Hitler himself may pop out from behind a tree and attempt to oppress or even exterminate you.

Fascist Park will be located on nearly 10,000 desolate acres in southeastern Utah. Efforts are underway to terraform the landscape into regions resembling various tyrannical eco-systems, including central Europe, North Korea, Uganda, Libya, and Siberia. Customers will ride through the region in armored light patrol vehicles equipped with an add-on landmine protection kit and driven by a former Navy SEAL. Further protection will include issuing all customers an AK-47 rifle and requiring them to watch a fifteen-minute safety video before setting out.

The courageous will have opportunities to leave the vehicle and get “up close and personal” with some of history’s most vile human beings. Guests may be interrogated, waterboarded, or shot at. And because they may drive over land mines, pass through mists of chemical or biological weapons, or give chase, they are urged to wear loose, washable clothing and sturdy shoes.

Reanimating the twentieth century’s most fearsome tyrants may seem like mindless entertainment, but it has both scientific and historical value, the company insists.

“By recreating these dictators in a controlled but naturalistic environment, we can study the biological basis of an array of important human traits, from systematic violence to megalomania to a taste for large, dark sunglasses,” the spokesman said. “Understanding how these genes are shaped by the environment is a crucial step toward preventing genocide going forward.”

Indeed, the park will also be available to research teams who wish to study the dictators in their natural habitat. The Canadian anthropologist Woot Derbyshire, often referred to as “the Jane Goodall of messianic assholes,” plans to be first in line. “So far, I’ve had to rely on computer simulations for my work,” he said. “There’s still so much we don’t know about these sons of bitches, from their mating rituals to their grooming habits.”

Behind the scenes, Fascist Park will be an industrial research park. More than one hundred scientists will labor to maintain stocks of fresh dictators; in the wild, they inevitably impinge on one another’s plans for world domination. This leads to thrilling battles, coups, and sabotage—but it also requires regular replacements.

The park plans to open in November, 2018, with a gala opening featuring a simulated Kristallnacht. Tyro-Scene is already thinking about expanding the franchise. Action figures and plush toys are in the works, as well as customized genealogical DNA kits that will allow customers to find out which dictator they are related to. Also planned is a movie tentatively starring Ellen DeGenerate and George Cloney.

Human Theome Project

This is one of the most serious pieces ever posted on Genotopia. As the shooting at the French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo shows, satire can be dangerous business. It is also one of the most important forms of speech—both provocative and healing. We are reposting this feature, originally posted in 2011 and lightly edited, to lock arms with the staff and writers at Charlie Hebdo and with satirists everywhere. We hope it offends someone and are glad that our home address is not public.

Joe and Mary Juke are models of piety. They attend services twice a week, are active in faith-based charity organizations, and their house brims tastefully with Christian iconography and literature. They describe themselves as “fundamentalists,” although Joe is quick to emphasize, “We’re moderate fundamentalists—we don’t bomb clinics or anything.” They are planning to have a family, and they are making sure to create a pious environment for their children. They know that the setting in which a child is raised helps determine the kind of adult he or she becomes.

But for the Jukes, books, icons, and saying “Grace” are not enough. In what is being cited as a milestone in personal genomics, Joe and Mary have taken steps to ensure their baby is religious—by selecting its genes.

 photo gods-dna-church.gif

From Poor Old Spike’s photobucket

 

Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a combination of genetic screening and in vitro fertilization (IVF), Joe and Mary are loading the genetic dice for their progeny, selecting embryos that carry the traits they want in little Joe Jr. (or mini-Mary). Modern techniques allow them to select for a wide range of qualities, from avoiding hereditary diseases, to selecting eye, hair, and skin color, to shaping aspects of personality. For example, choosing a combination of half a dozen genes allows them to add a cumulative 40 points to their unborn child’s IQ. Many of these tests have been available for years, although they have only recently begun to be available to consumers. But the most striking decision in their family-planning process was to expressly select for embryos that will grow up to be religious, because they carry the allele known colloquially as the “god gene.”

“It kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Chosen One,” Mary says.

Sequencing the human theome

The gene, which was identified statistically in twins in a study published in 2005, was recently cloned and sequenced, as reported in the online journal Nature Theology. Dubbed yhwh1, the gene correlates strongly with feelings of religious fervor. Studies show that the gene encodes a protein that is expressed in a part of the brain called Chardin’s area 86, long associated with religious activity and, strangely, anterograde amnesia. One famous patient was Guineas Phage, a virologist who suffered an injury with a pipetteman that resulted in a plastic tube being driven precisely into area 86; he spent the last two decades of his life on a constant pilgrimage along US Route 66 between Kingman and Barstow, accompanied by his wife, Winona, whom he continually left behind at gas stations.

Particular expression of religiosity in a given individual varies according to environment; what is inherited is the capacity for intense religious experience and evangelism. First described in the Amish in a classic study of the 1960s, the trait was described as an autosomal recessive with high penetrance, and was linked to a rare inherited form of dwarfism. Recent analyses have also found the trait occurring at high frequency among charismatic ministers, shamans, and suicide bombers.

The yhwh1 allele is one of the latest findings in the burgeoning field of “theomics,” which aims to identify all genes associated with the practice of preaching, as well as general feelings of spirituality. The Human Theome Project overran its projected completion date of December 21, 2012—the date, according to ABC News, the world as we know it might have come to an end. All things considered, then, researchers are content with their progress.

Here are some of the most exciting new findings of the HTP:

▪   Scientists estimate that at least 400 genes are involved with religious feelings or activity. Thus far, more than 100,000 variants have been described. Easing the task of studying these genes is the fact that they cluster into “ecclesiotypes” — groups of religion genes that tend to segregate together. A research team at Mystic University in Connecticut is coordinating an effort, called the “EccMap project,” to characterize them.

▪   The EccMap project consists of 400 trios  (deity, parent, and child) representing each of the five dominant world religions—christianism, judaishness, islamian, confusianity, and pastafar-I. Researchers say these explain 80% of genetic variation for religious belief.

▪   Polytheism is more common than had been thought. Ninety-five percent of all trios in the EccMap project have genes for at least two religions. Since phenotype is almost always monotheist, this suggests that the environment may play some role in fine-tuning religious beliefs.

▪   A related project seeks to uncover the epigenetics of evangelism, which is thought to be caused by methylation of regions of the X chromosome, a reversible process that can profoundly affect gene expression. Researchers hope this may provide therapeutic targets for drugs or gene therapy to “de-program” those who become convinced, against thousands of years of recorded history, that theirs is the only path up the spiritual mountain.

▪   A newly discovered kinase, called Bub666, is strongly correlated with atheism. It seems to be responsible for the breakdown of yhwh1, suggesting that biochemists are approaching a mechanistic explanation of religious experience.

▪   Rocker Ozzy Osborne has had his genome sequenced. Preliminary results show 85% homology with a Presbyterian minister from Des Moines.

“It’s tremendously exciting research,” said Mary Magdalene-Gohdtsdottir, a senior researcher in the University of Utah’s Department of Omics. “Just think of it: the genes for God! Isn’t that cool?” Indeed, the federal government thinks so. NIH Director Francois Colon, a molecular biologist and born-again Christian, has recently created a National Institute of the Molecular Biology of Yahweh (NIMBY), with an annual research budget of $400/year, as part of the government’s effort to support faith-based initiatives in biomedicine.

 

But is it science?

Some critics have called the Jukes’ actions a step toward eugenics, described in the 1920s as the “self-direction of human evolution.” They see religiosity as a gift, not something that can be ordered from a catalog. “This is an outrage,” said the Reverend Reginald S. Inkblot, of Southboro Baptist Church in Onan, Kansas. “Religion can’t be in your genes. Science can’t explain it. It’s just a part of who…you…um, are. It’s just in your…uh, yea…” He brightened and added, “If God had wanted us to be religious, he would have….oh, wait. Damn!—I mean, darn!”

Others are appalled that religion would receive scientific consideration from scientific foundations at all. Dick Dorkins, President of the atheistic Society for the Prevention of Intelligent design, Theology, Or Other Nonsense (SPITOON), calls the entire effort a “travesty.” “If I must check my brain at the church-house door,” he said in a Skype interview, “then you must check your soul at the laboratory door. Come on—be fair.

Dorkins worries that should the procedure become widespread, it could lead to nonreligious persecution. If those chosen by PGD tend to express genes such as yhwh1, scientists predict, it could lead to changes in gene frequency across the population. Dorkins envisions a dystopian scenario in which an atheistic underclass washes the wineglasses and polishes the pews for their genetic spiritual superiors. “It will be GATTACA crossed with The Ten Commandments,” Dorkins said, an audible quiver in his voice.

Evolution in religious hands

Some theologians have condemned in vitro fertilization because it normally results in the destruction of unused embryos. However, new gene therapy techniques make it possible to link a “suicide gene” to alternative forms of the desired genes in Joe’s sperm samples; thus, only sperm that carry the traits they want survive to fertilize Mary’s eggs. No embryos are destroyed in the process. This makes in vitro fertilization acceptable to many pro-life Christians.

Joe and Mary dismiss critics who say they are taking evolution into their own hands. “That’s just your theory,” says Joe. They view their decision to choose the religiosity of their unborn child as a command from above. “WWJC?,” Mary asks. “Who would Jesus clone?”

Ironically, as Biblical literalists, the Jukes dismiss Darwinian evolution as “unproven.” To them, the earth is 4,000 years old, and all the types of animals in the world today were on Noah’s Ark. They see themselves as spearheading a Crusade of believers into biomedicine.

His eye acquiring that spark of evangelism that is a tell-tale sign of heavy methylation at Xq66, Joe’s voice deepened and he intoned, “The heresy of modern science will only be righted when human evolution is safely in the hands of people who do not believe in it.”
Read more at https://scienceblog.com/76171/human-theome-project/#07U8Wl33hcVj3mjI.99

Hail Britannia! (Dorkins Reviews Wade)

Editor’s note:
Regular readers of Genotopia will be familiar with Dick Dorkins, a genomicist, faculty member of Kashkow University, and founding President of the Society for the Prevention of Intelligent design, Theology, Or Other Nonsense (SPITOON). Given the forceful nature of some of Dorkins’s opinions, we hesitated when he offered to review this book. But we acceded to his wishes, because we do indeed love our daughter and would, in fact, hate for something to happen to her. One can find a two-part interview with Dorkins here and here

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History, by Nicholas Wade (New York: Penguin) 2014, 288 pp.

Dorkins profile picIt really is a bloody shame that India just had yet another free and fair election, because Nicholas Wade’s new book is so bally good it makes me want to dig out the old pith helmet and mustache wax and jolly well troop off and colonize her again. Since I can’t conquer India, I itch to conquer Mrs. Dorkins and spread my genes, via more little Dorkinses. Alas, Wendy says she has a headache (again!), so the next best thing is to dab my favorite plume into grandfather Dorkins’s inkpot and, in my best public-school hand, pen this little squib on behalf of Wade’s latest. Perhaps I can prompt the some of you lot to do your Darwinian duty and either have or not have more children, depending on your race.

Let me begin by stating that I haven’t read such a stirring work since the sixth form, when our English Master (jolly good word, “Master.” Woody.), Old Man Donglethwaite, cracked the whip and put us through our paces on Lord Acton’s History of Freedom and Herbert Spencer’s What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. For what Wade manages in this book is to resurrect bally old triumphalist English history and social Darwinism, girding them with modern-day genomics. One sincerely hopes that modern science can provide those gallant traditions with a foundation strong enough to last.

Wade, a journalist whose previous books include Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors and The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, has composed an argument so elegant, so accessible, so unassailable that it might have been written by Spencer himself—had Spencer known the genetics that supports his ideas. Wade’s fundamental question is not original but rather classic: Why is the West superior to the East—or, god help us, the global South? The truth of this axiom is undeniable: we have the best of everything. The most money, the most freedom, the best science, the neatest gadgets, the finest music and art (never mind Justin Bieber), the strongest militaries, and the most money. Granted, in sports we sometimes lose, and you have to include North America in Europe even though many of the Americans’ achievements are by ethnic Africans and Asians, so it gets a little messy if you examine it too closely. But those are fine points. In the War of the Continents, it’s Europe all the way—and mostly Great Britain—if you look at it right.

Bleeding-hearts such as the anthropologist Jared Diamond have feebly explained the Rise of the West as accidents of geography and climate. Social “scientists” such as Ashley Montagu and the population geneticist Richard Lewontin (honorary social scientist, because he’s so political) have tried miserably to erase the very question of race, as if denying that the term has meaning could make it go away. Burlap-clad, politically-correct academics have even strapped on their Birkenstocks and paraded around the quads, protesting entire fields of inquiry that bear crucially on this question. Only an ideologue would deny the freedom of science to merely ask the question, for example, why white people are smarter than blacks. But Wade—whose peer-reviewed scientific articles have never been called into question—points out that such arguments are disqualified because those wuzzle-headed liberals have an ideology, something that of course has no place in modern science. No, Wade staunchly insists, true science must be blind to values and morals. It must deal exclusively with facts. Wade selects his facts brilliantly, using the latest and best of Western science to explain why Western science is the latest and best. The answer, he courageously concludes, is that we Westerners have better genes.

He argues irrefutably that behavior is shaped by genes, as demonstrated by an Everest of evidence in animals and in humans. Evolution did not stop when the first African hunter-gatherer stepped from his dugout onto the mighty shores of Europe to begin the painful process of civilization; nor did it cease when some enterprising Mesopotamian plucked a leathery handful of wild wheat seeds and poked them purposefully into the Fertile Crescent; nay, nor did it halt even at the coronation of James II in 1633, as he began his campaign to rein in Parliament in the name of liberty. Natural selection is still with us, ruthlessly but efficiently plucking society’s fittest, sweeping the best alleles across the land like so much seed corn. Though it pains one to say it, really it does, the result is that in the genetic lottery some are winners and others are losers. The winners, self-evidently, are those who have been globally dominant these last seven centuries or so: we Westerners, and most especially—here I lower my eyes, reflecting the humility that is my birthright—the British. And, alright, the Americans, who are, or at least were, mostly British. Okay and the Jews. Who, one notes, Britain and America welcomed with open arms after the war, ensconcing them in our finest universities as much as our quotas would allow.

History is not made by individuals, insists Wade. It is made by peoples. Peoples with the finest qualities. Qualities such as patience, thrift, innovation, openness, nonviolence, and civility. Demonstrating those very qualities himself, Wade acknowledges that there have been minor blips along the way, such as colonialism and the Third Reich. One might add slavery, the Columbian Exchange, and the Crusades. But these are mere trifles compared to the wise stewardship with which we have managed the planet over much of the preceding millennium. The practically invisible hand of the free market has brought untold riches to literally hundreds of people worldwide. It has rendered arable vast trackless wastelands of rainforest, making it possible to raise beef cattle for millions of our beloved Big Macs. For much of this period, our oceans and rivers teemed with plump and tasty fishes; likewise the skies with birds and the plains and tundra with wild game. And today, the climate is becoming ever more interesting and will, within a few short decades, bring the luxury and tranquility of coastal life to millions of people now toiling their lives away inland. All this and of course much more constitute the fruits of these peoples. Our peoples. Your peoples. But not their peoples.

The qualities that have made these developments possible, Wade shows, are probably genetic. At least partly. Wade, a journalist, has for decades covered the genetics beat for a little paper you might have heard of called The New York Times. He has extraordinarily broad secondhand knowledge of the arcane panoply of research coming out of Western laboratories published in English; which is to say, the most important, reliable, cutting-edge, and objective facts in the world. So when he says that the traits that underlie the rise of the West are probably at least partly genetic, you know he has read some papers in reliable major journals that seem to suggest this. In addition, Wade cites a wealth of objective, ideology-free facts by leading thinkers such as Charles Murray (co-author of The Bell Curve), Arthur Jensen—whose bold article of 1969 (pdf) demonstrated that compensatory education must fail, because objective, ideology-free science shows that blacks are simply not as intelligent as whites—and Richard Lynn, a British—note—distinguished psychologist and eugenicist who sits on the board of the objective, ideology-free Pioneer Fund, as well as that of the Pioneer-Funded journal Mankind Quarterly, which soldiers on as an objective, non-ideological stronghold of classical eugenics, social Darwinism, and white supremacy in an academic world that has moved leftward in lockstep, as if manipulated by a socialist puppeteer. Murray’s, Jensen’s, and Lynn’s writings, it must be observed, are controversial, an objective fact that may be partly explained by an occasional propensity toward language that can be taken the wrong way—as racist, social Darwinist, or eugenic. Wade, then, has become a cheerful cheerleader for a network of fearless scholars associated with what some have uncharitably branded “scientific racism,” but which I prefer to call “racial scientism.”

In short, if the West has won—and anyone who says otherwise is asking for a drone strike—it is because we are an intelligent, gentle, open, and creative people, and also because we have, as the Americans would say, a Big Gulp of Whoopass in the cup-holder of our figurative Escalade. Genetics suggests that genes underlie social traits such as intelligence, gentleness, creativity, and whoopass. Western populations must therefore have higher frequencies of the alleles for these traits. And so, little ones, we prevail not because might makes right, but because right makes might. We are on top because this is the natural order of things. As the Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner so aptly put it, “A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be.” One might add that an upper-class Briton running over that drunkard in a mint-condition 1970 Aston Martin is just where he ought to be.

One quibble, to reinforce my objectivity: the book’s only serious problem is the title. This inheritance isn’t troublesome at all. It’s marvelous—for someone with the good taste to be born upper-class, C. of E. (Church of England, sod it), and Oxbridge-bred, like Wade and me, anyway. And yes, you marmots, in fact I was born Oxbridge bred: if five generations of Dorkins Firsts doesn’t breed it into you then epigenetics is a joke. What could be troublesome about my inheritance? I closed the cover of this pioneering work of retrograde science writing with a wink and a plummy little smile, lit my pipe, and reflected on how good it is to be rich, brilliant, tall, and English. On top of the world, dominant in every way that matters, and here not by force but by right, dammit, Mother. Did you hear my fist—beknuckled with a light pelage, masculine but not atavistic—pound my oaken desk? The cats lit’rally jumped off the divan.

 

MMMOOOOCS!

 

 

Kashkow logo3lgKashkow University announced today the initiation of an innovative new program of online education that it says will create an “unprecedented revenue stream for non-profit institutions of higher learning,” while streamlining the university staff.

The Kashkow scheme is called Massive Money-Making Opportunity: Opting Out Of Courses! (MMMOOOOC!). Under MMMOOOOC! PROGRAM, Kashkow would eliminate all classes. Instead, it would offer college credits and diplomas through a subscription service similar to the online movie and television service Netflix. The caliber of the degree purchased would be tied to the subscription level. For $29.99 per month, for example, one can receive credit for a full load of coursework that is “equivalent to a Duke University or Washington University in St. Louis,” according to the university. Johns Hopkins or Wesleyan-level coursework costs $69.99 per month, while a Premium membership (Harvard, Princeton, or Yale) can be purchased for $99.99 monthly. There is a three-month minimum contract, which enables one to purchase a complete course; an automatic renewal system allows one to “drop out” of taking the spring semester. The university will also offer a “Basic” membership: for $9.99 a month, students can pursue coursework toward the equivalent of a philosophy degree from the Delaware College of Textiles and Mines.

The new MMMOOOOCs! would be packed with information and essentially content-free. Subscribers would receive a full set of lecture notes, digests of reading materials, complete term papers (with bibliographies), and exam keys—everything needed to pass a course with a grade of A+ or higher. All exams and essays will of course be open-book, and students are encouraged to cut and paste from lecture materials in order to save time. This greatly increases the efficiency of the learning process, university spokesmen say.

Think of education like filling a bucket, said the former Kashkow Dean of Students, Prof. Tweed Pantsuit. In conventional teaching, the faucet is an old fashioned pump handle and the bucket is full of holes. The massively online course movement is a firehose that the student can turn on and off at will, while holding the bucket herself. The result is much more water hitting the bucket in less time—and as we learned in quantum mechanics (wasn’t it?) time is money. Prof. Pantsuit said more about the bucket model, but frankly it wasn’t printable.

The streamlining of courses into “courseware” will have a big impact on the university’s bottom line, according to a Kashkow spokeman. It will enable the university to trim the faculty salary and benefits budget from $75 million to $342.50, according to official university documents we obtained. The bold new plan would reduce the current faculty of 225 full-time professors down to two part-time adjuncts: one for “arts” and one for “sciences.” The medical and engineering faculty would be spun off into for-profit companies, “Kashkow Medicine Dot Edu” and “Kashkow Engineering Dot Edu Dot Com,” respectively.

MMMOOOOCs! will “revolutionize higher education,” said to university president Dieter Geld. “By concentrating on what we do best,” said Geld, “We will be able to better serve our stakeholders.” Pressed on what it was that Kashkow did best, Geld said, “Serving our stakeholders!”

Further aiding the bottom line is the fact that Mr. Aristotle Spinoza, MA, the Professor of Arts, will be on leave next year, serving steakholders at a local “Surf-n-Turf” dining establishment. Raising profits while cutting costs is a “win-win” for education, Geld says.

Such a massive transformation of the university structure will not happen overnight, Geld noted; nor will it happen on its own. “To facilitate the reallocation of resources,” he said, “we are pleased to announce the appointment of a crack team of administrators.” Kashkow will be hiring six new deans and associate deans. Horatio S. O. B. Functionary, former Provost of Gouger Administrators’ College in Shillings-upon-Quid, U.K., will be the new Dean of Profiteering and will oversee the university’s money laundering program. Reed M. N. Weap, a freelance card sharp with over 20 years’ experience in money management, will be the new Dean of Accumulation. And John “Bud” Balls, formerly the football coach at Bigten University, will serve as Associate Dean of Associate Deans and will manage the university’s burgeoning roster of high-level administrators. (Balls will also head up the new varsity intramural sexual predator squad, The Fighting Flashers.) The Office of Public Relations will be split into three, each with its own associate dean: the Office of Stakeholder Relations, the Office of Trustee Relations, and the Office of Dean Relations. The new administrators will make an average of $550,000 per year salary, plus an average of nearly $4,000,000 per year in benefits.

When asked about the wisdom of adding high-paid staff as a cost-cutting measure, Geld replied, “It takes a crack team to bring out real educational change. When it comes to sparing expense, we spare no expense!”

 

Release Mitt Romney’s Genome!

Sociologists say we live in an age of “biological citizenship,” in which our genetic ties are as important as our political ones, and in which communities bound by disease, disability, or allergy can be more close-knit than geographical neighborhoods. In this political season, then, we cannot afford to be ignorant about the biological status of our presidential candidates.

With this in mind, I issue a call for the Romney campaign to release their candidate’s genome sequence. Four years ago, conservatives sought the release of Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Widely perceived by the left as a scam to distract attention from the issues, the tactic nevertheless reflected the right’s alertness to biology as an important factor in fitness for office. They were fighting the wrong battle–the claim was not even 47% true–but genotopia takes the point about biology and politics. We need to know Mr. Romney’s genetic status if he is to be considered for the highest office in the land, that of Tax-Cutter-in-Chief.

As a Mormon, Mr. Romney’s genealogical relationships will surely be thoroughly documented in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. They will reveal many relevant facts about his biological status. For example, his inbreeding coefficient must, as stipulated by a little-known paragraph in the Republican platform, must be at least 0.75 (where 1.0 means you married your clone). Circumstantial evidence is not sufficient when the stakes are this high—we need to see the data.

Modern genome sequencing can also disclose many genetic conditions that could render one unfit for office:

  • In 2008, both embarrassment and campaign donations could have been spared had John McCain’s predisposition to dementia been identified.
  • A late-onset form of dementia known as Reagan’s disease has been shown to arise in the third year of the Presidential term, in afflicted individuals.
  • Ford’s ataxia, a loss of muscular control in the limbs and neck, leads to lack of coordination and often results in injury, often serious but always comical. Most often seen in former athletes who become politicians, it is inherited as a predisposition that is then made patent through lifestyle choices.
  • Genome-wide association studies have also shown high probabilization of destitution in the grammaticalness thingy of the brain—a condition known as Bushism—that could be devastating for the Decider.
  • Recently, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, or “snips”) have also been identified that show strong (well, okay, weak—but some, definitely some) correlation with proposed genes for politophobia (morbid fear of government) and aeronautaphasia, the inability to grasp aerodynamics.
  • Multiple Spousal Cadillac Syndrome—once thought relatively benign—has now been decisively linked to the tragic and devastating psychiatric condition hyperpecuniphilia, an obsessive-compulsive disorder that in late stages can lead to the afflicted sitting amid giant piles of cash, running coins through his fingers and crying out, “Mine, ha ha! All mine!”

The only way these and countless other politicogenetic disasters can be decisively avoided is by getting Mr. Romney to step up to the plate and spit into the cup. Indeed, the Romney campaign should be anxious to prove their candidate’s biological fitness. A quick-and-dirty genome profile can be had for a few hundred dollars, and a gold-plated whole genome analysis for a few thousand. We should demand that Mr. Romney produce his entire sequence for public scrutiny and haplotype analysis. Remember: should he win in November, Paul Ryan would be just a SNP away from the Oval Office.