NIH Plans $416-Million for Genomics Research

Humans are animals with culture so one might reasonably expect to find that both biological and cultural / social organizational factors.  Seen the DeKay study I haven’t, and I expect most of your readers won’t have either. So we don’t know how many societies and what kinds of societies were in the sample(s) of this and the other jorunals you mentioned.  Did DeKay’s study for instance include societies that have unilineal descent rather than bilateral descent like ours?  

 The most common, modal, preferential marriage pattern known among human sociocultural systems is cross cousin marriage. That is, it is preferred, sometimes strongly, that a person marry a MoBro Son / Daughter or a FaSi Son / Daughter.    Marriage with parallel cousins on the other hand is preferred only in a relatively few societies, and is often proscribed and treated as as reprehensible as marriage with siblings (which is also known in a few societies but only for a restricted set of people even in those.).   Yet biologically parallel (FaFaChi and MoSiChi) are equally biologically as close to a person as are the cross cousins (FaSiChi, MoBroChi.)   However in societies with unilineal descent and descent group exogamous marriage preference, the cross cousins will always be outside your descent group while at least one set and possibly both sets of parallel cousins will be IN your descent group. 

 Some societies with preferential cross cousin marriage don’t care which side, Fa or Mo’s, a person marries their cross cousin from.  However, quite a number do care and it turns out that male matrilateral cross cousin marriage –   man marries MoSiDa (and girl marries FaSiSo) is three or four times more common than male PATRIlateral cross cousin marriage — man marries FaSiDa and woman marries MoBroSo.    Yet biologically there is the same distance.  

So try an experiment.  Make a kinship chart in which  triangles represent males, circles females, an = sign represents a marriage and a vertical line connects parents and children and horizontal lines connect siblings.    I cant draw it in this Commentor program but try googling “kinship chart” and you’ll probably find examples.   

Now, draw a chart for about 4 generations for a society with preferential  man = MoBroDa (and woman = FaSiSo).   Then draw a like chart for societies with male patrilateral cross cousin marriage, i.e. man = FaSiDa (and therefore woman = MoBroSo).   Now look at both charts and see what consequences the two patterns of preferential cross cousin marriage (male matrilateral / female patrilateral  or male patrilateral / female matrilateral  have for social structure.

Newton didn’t know the mechanism of gravity when he proposed his inverse-square law, but that doesn’t mean that gravity wasn’t a useful theory.  Science works by people observing phenomena, coming up with logical, falsifable explanations for the observation, then running further tests to see if the predictions of the hypotheses are correct.  The example given by Barash above is an excellent example of the scientific method.

No, we do not yet know when gene is causing the effect, and the exact method by which the proteins coded by the gene are affecting the brain, and what happens in the brain to cause the observations, but people are certainly working on it.  Right now we are finding genes that contribute to behavior, and finding more and more about the human brain.  People that don’t like evolutionary psychology had better learn to get used to it, because it isn’t going away.

Interesting article, but not terribly persuasive.  There’s a fair amount of literature that advocates the literal truth of the bible as an historical document, and offers what is described as empirical evidence in support of that proposition.  This is not, and should not, stand evidence for the scientific truth attached to religions for whom the bible is central.

More importantly, the “MoMo …” report is offered as conclusive proof as to the seriousness of the scientific method behind studies of evolution, but no further information about source is offered other than the author.  (Both jffoster and I are troubled by this.)

Seems to me that a serious commentator to an academic audience would have offered a better citation.  (BTW, I got better source information today from a Wall Street Journal editorial.  I therefore have good reason to take WSJ editorial more seriously.)

Yes, not giving a clear citation/ source is unacceptable among academics ….

Do “precise predictions” have exceptions? Were there any FaFa’s who had less investment than MoMo’s, and if so how are they to be explained? Usually there are exceptions out on the tails of distributions that are routinely overlooked.

I’m curious about the rather off-hand exclusion of adoptive families in your summary.
Wouldn’t a study of adoptive relationships provide useful data that could support–or refute–the Mo Fa study described above?

Not factoring societal influence into the discussion is a clear bias in favor of nature over nurture.

The theories of evolutionary biology readily support the Jewish tradition of matrilineage.  But the recounting of the early history of the Jewish people in the Torah/Old Testament are clearly patrilinear.  Can evolutionary biology alone explain this difference?

And how does evolutionary biology account for primogeniture? It was the law in most Western cultures until a century ago and  is still a force in our culture.

I believe in the theory of evolution.  But theories need to stand up to a variety of different tests and be modified  allow for modifications in the light of ever increasing sources of data.

My MoMo spent a lot more time with me than my FaFa.  But while I didn’t see him that often, he gave me ten dollars every time I did.  I’m not sure how you would calculate their respective “investments.”