Link to Chase's Index: Chase's Index.
November: Haplogroup Map
I recently came across a video which described the various haplogroups around the world. For context, a haplogroup is a grouping of similar haplotypes, which themselves are alleles on chromosomes that tend to be inherited together from a single parent despite being located at different regions on the chromosome. Because the genes are inherited via a single line of descent, the lineages of groups may be traced to a common ancestor based on similar mutations accumulated (SNPs). These haplogroups may then be used to trace human migrations and ancestry around the world. The author of the video I watched noted that the map supplied on wikipedia for the Y-DNA haplogroups had low resolution, so he created a new free map that better repesents the current state of research which I found to be quite interesting. HaploGroup Map
November/December: Darwinian Spaces After finishing a book titled "From Bacteria To Bach and Back" by philosopher Daniel Dennett, I became fascinated with the concept of Darwinian Spaces introduced by Godfrey Smith. Essentially, a darwinian space is usually represented as a three-dimensional array that categorizes certain phenomena as purely Darwinian, quasi-Darwinian, proto-Darwinian, and the like. These diagrams are helpful in determining the evolutionary categories of not only biological phenomena, but also cultural phenomena as Dennett proposes. As an example, take the axes of the array to range in value from 0 to 1 with the x-axis representing growth vs reproduction, the vertical y-axis representing cultural vs genetic contribution, and the z-axis representing the internal complexity of the system. In this model, a virus would be located at (1,0,0) since its mode of transmission is purely reproduction rather than growth and the other categories would both be zero as its reproduction is purely genetic and its complexity limited. Applying this to words would position them at (1,0,1) as they reproduce virus-like but are purely cultural and simple. Applying this to evangelistic religions would place them at (1,1,1) since they reproduce rather than grow, are purely cultural, and are highly complex. Using this concept is a valueable tool to help visualize and conceptualize the dynamics of phenomena with various parameters and I presume it may also apply to other fields or subjects. November/December: Universality of Language for Mother and Father While reading a book about linguistics, I found it interesting to note that across the world the words for mother and father are remarkably similar. In 1959 anthropologist George Murdock published a large survey of these terms for parents and found that over half (52%) of the terms for mother used an m or n sound and about 55% used one of the four syllables: pa, po,ta, or to, to refer to fathers. This remarkable similarity likely is not due to the founder effect of languages at the root of human tongues, nor is it likely due to sound symbolism. The linguist Roman Jackobson has provided the plausible hypothesis that since mothers for biological and cultural reasons tend to spend more time with infants, and given the linguistic constraints of a young baby, the combination of a consonant followed by a vowel is common in a child's babbling. As such, the sound ma or na is often said first by the child and the mother's expectation is that she is the referent, and thus the word is adopted to mean mother. This would analogously result in the pa sounds for father, but later. I find it intriging how this constraint has manifested itself in so many cultures as if its variables are few enough so as to have the same result repeatedly over language evolution. Maybe there could be other such inevitable words? November/December: Pew Research--On American's Beliefs about the End Times I came across an interesting Pew Research article that mentioned how about four in ten Americans believe we are living in the end times. What I found intriguing about this was particulary how it relates to religiosity and how it might impact the politics of Americans. How for instance, might you view certain policies aimed at aspects of the far future if you perhaps beleive that future may not arrive? November/December: Population Y I recently came across a video which detailed the current state of reseach regarding the ghost population termed "Y" for Ypykuera – an Amazonian word for ‘ancestor’. Several hypotheses abound regarding who these people were that contributed this unique DNA, but most fascinating to me was the proposal that population Y could refer to some form of archaic human that has as of yet, undiscovered physical remains.