209 Comments - Posted on

Open Thread – 01/29/2021 – Brown Pundits

“Razib Khan’s two part essay on Indian history is brilliant. While it’s long for a blog post, you’ll learn more about India than you would in many full length books.”

-Scott Sumner

From The Money Illusion. I think this is obviously hyperbolic, but I’m actually rather proud of these two pieces of writing, which come in about 10,000 words. The two essays:

– Stark Truth About Aryans: a story of India
– Stark Truth About Humans: a story of India

Also, for an “Indian face,” Ramesh Ponnuru on the pro-life movement in America.

I understand my Substack is spendy for Indians. I’m thinking of doing a “special offer” for Indian readers. And yet, as it is, I would estimate that 25% of the people who subscribed have South Asian names! (I will tell you I have more than 500 subscribers as of now)

What’s going on with the protests and the farm stuff? Too much stuff in the US for me to track India. Any articles you recommend?

Reading An Environmental History of India. I would recommend it, it’s pretty decent as an introduction to someone who has no background in this field or topic.

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133 Comments - Posted on

Open Thread – 1/16/2021 – Brown Pundits

What’s going on?

I have a 6000-word piece on Indian genetics coming out on my Substak in the next few days (waiting on some maps that were commissioned).

Update: The pieces (had to break into two) are ready to go. Part 1 today and part 2 tomorrow. I commissioned some simple maps and created an infographic. Since these will be “paid” (you have to subscribe), I’ll post the infographic for people here:

Continue reading “Open Thread – 1/16/2021 – Brown Pundits”

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256 Comments - Posted on

Open Thread – 01/02/2021 – Brown Pundits

Here is hoping for a better 2021!

Lots of questions about this tweet. I like Niraj Rai and Gyaneshwer Chaubey personally. But, I’m pretty skeptical of how people are interpreting this. My own views are pretty straightforward, and outlined in my post the “Aryan Integration Theory”.

I believe that about 14% of the total ancestry in South Asia derives from the Central Asian steppe ~3,500 years ago. These people derive from a “reflux” migration from Central Europe of a Corded Ware related people (“Battle Axe Culture”).* The fraction is higher in Pakistan, 20-30%. Much lower in southern India, ~5% or so (excepting Brahmins). Whenever this is a “massive migration” is up to you to interpret.

I do think they brought R1a and lots of aspects of Indian culture, such as Indo-European language. On the other hand, most of the ancestry and a lot of the culture was “indigenous.” The Indic culture we see in the Iron Age is clearly a synthesis, which was present even in the Vedic corpus.

Also, in the annals of self-promotion, I had some free posts on my Substack before Christmas:

The Age of Genetic Engineering Begins

The Original Chinese Man

Applying IQ to IQ

Your Roots are Showing

In Gods We Trusted

* Something I point out to people is that this assumes that the steppe people arrived from Khorasan unmixed. If the Indo-Aryans who arrived in the Punjabs already mixed with Iranian peoples in their sojourn then the fraction is an underestimate, though I doubt it is 2-fold.

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54 Comments - Posted on

Open Thread – 12/19/2020 – Brown Pundits

We’re going to have Glenn Loury on on this Sunday’s Browncast. It was a fun conversation. Already up for patrons, and I also cross-posted to my Substack, because I think it’s such an interesting conversation.

Loury is one of the most important public intellectuals alive today. He speaks for many, many, people. Many people in science who are not on the far Left follow his work closely because he knocks down the shibboleths of preference falsification. If you can, I recommend anyone to be a patron of the Glenn Show.

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