Links for 2021-11-20
“The hypothesis of Cochrane-Harpending in "The 10,000 Year Explosion" is corroborated. Human trait evolution has been very high during recent ky.” — Leveraging genome-wide summary statistics for 870 polygenic traits, a new study "found that 88% of these traits underwent polygenic change in the past 2,000–3,000 years." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01231-4
This is a collection of Lee Kuan Yew's quotes on race (the founding father of modern Singapore): “[The World Bank report] makes the hopeful assumption that all men are equal, that people all over the world are the same. They are not. Groups of people develop different characteristics when they have evolved for thousands of years separately. Genetics and history interact …” https://lkyonrace.wordpress.com/
Acquisition of Chess Knowledge in AlphaZero: "What is being learned by superhuman neural network agents such as AlphaZero? In this work we provide evidence that human knowledge is acquired by the AlphaZero neural network as it trains on the game of chess." https://en.chessbase.com/post/acquisition-of-chess-knowledge-in-alphazero
Ngo and Yudkowsky on AI capability gains https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hwxj4gieR7FWNwYfa/ngo-and-yudkowsky-on-ai-capability-gains-1
Explaining Lindley's paradox based on simulations of p-values in an online Shiny app. https://shiny.ieis.tue.nl/MOOC/assignment_1/
“About half of all patents have to do with software. They are filed from a few major tech centres, unlike other patents which have more varied origins.” https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29456/w29456.pdf
"Inside the machine that saved Moore’s Law" — On the Dutch corporation ASML, maker of lithography machines used in the semiconductor industry. Describes their quest to develop extreme ultraviolet lithography. [MIT Technology Review] https://archive.md/TchSb
Meta-analysis of 37 studies involving a total of 12,291 children: "The intelligence damage of children exposed to severe iodine deficiency was profound, demonstrated by 12.45 IQ points loss and they recovered 8.7 IQ points with iodine supplementation." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15734706/
The Moon’s top layer alone has enough oxygen to sustain 8 billion people for 100,000 years https://theconversation.com/the-moons-top-layer-alone-has-enough-oxygen-to-sustain-8-billion-people-for-100-000-years-170013
This evolutionary biology paper on the evolution of two sexes, by Lehtonen & Parker, is the gold standard for explaining why there’s only two sexes in anisogamous species. https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
Multiplying Matrices Without Multiplying https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.10860
Prevalence-induced concept change: When a stimulus becomes rare, people expand their definition of it http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/1465
German Insurance Companies Demand Perilous Playgrounds So That Kids Can Learn About Risk https://reason.com/2021/11/01/germany-playgrounds-risk-insurance-fall/
Ivory hunting caused the rapid evolution of tusklessness in elephants. Lactose tolerance evolved several times over a short period of time. Selective breeding has demonstrated that it is possible to quickly select for genes that lead to changes in behavior and neuroanatomy.
But of course, it is impossible that 150,000 years of culture, discrimination, slavery, war, genocide, 40,000 years of decreasing brain volume, the interbreeding between archaic and modern humans, and genetic isolation could have caused differences in behavior and intelligence between human populations. Absolutely impossible. It's racist. Trust the experts.