Monday, June 22, 2020

Intimate partner homicide among blacks is much higher than that of other groups

It's hard to find good stats on racial differences in intimate partner violence since this is the kind of information that makes blacks look bad. One way around this problem is to focus on the easily available homicide victim statistics. We can learn about race and perpetrating domestic violence with victim stats for two reasons: 1) at least 90% of homicides are intra-racial (within a race) so if the victim is black, the perp is too. (And when crimes are interracial, they are more likely to be black-on-white than the reverse); and 2) if a woman is killed, it's usually by a man with whom she had some kind of relationship: a boyfriend, husband, ex, or on the rare occasion, a John.

The CDC has a great website for analyzing mortality data. I generated female homicide rates for race and Hispanic status:

2018 homicide victimization rates (per 100k)

Black  6.3
American Indian  4.4
Hispanic  1.9
White 1.8
Asian  1.0

So the victim rate for black women is 6.3 times that of Asian women,  and 3.5 times that of whites. While these racial gaps are large, they are not as big as those for men (39.0 for blacks and 3.7 for whites). The male-male dynamic--killing for vengeance or saving face--seems to separate blacks and others more than the intimate partner dynamic: the man kills the woman out of jealousy, a desire to get his way, or to punish the victim.

UPDATE: Am I right in thinking that black men and women spend less time around each other in a relationship context than males and females in other groups?  If I'm right, the racial gap in domestic violence would be even larger if we adjusted for time spent together because more exposure to someone increases the risk of violence.

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

New admixture study finds more East Asian ancestry associated with low risk of diabetes among Pacific Islanders


This new study is based on a sample of people (n = 1,853) from Guam and Saipan.  Using ~49k SNPs the authors found genetic ancestry derived from 5 populations: Marianas Islanders, East Asians, Micronesians, Europeans, and Melanesians.

They tested the association of ancestry estimates with diabetes, fasting glucose and fasting insulin levels in study participants (n=1,853). They controlled for age, sex and end-stage kidney disease. 

All 3 traits were associated with genetic ancestry. East Asian ancestry was associated with the lowest diabetes risk and lowest mean levels of glucose and insulin, while diabetes risk and fasting glucose were highest in Marianas Islanders. The diabetes risk was 6.9 times higher for Marianas Islanders compared to East Asians. The mean differences in fasting glucose and insulin for the two groups were large. 


Saturday, June 06, 2020

Data: White officers like blacks as much as non-whites do

Do white police officers dislike blacks?

The General Social Survey asked people how warmly they feel toward blacks. Answers ranged from "very warm" (scored as a 1) to "very cool" (scored as a 9) so we're really measuring coolness. Participants were also asked about their current occupation (sample size = 2,729). Here are the means by race and occupation:

Mean "coolness toward blacks" score

White police officers   3.67
White civilians   3.67
Black civilians   2.12
Other non-white civilians  3.69

White police officers do not differ from other whites in having a mean score which indicates quite a bit of warmth for blacks. 

Now, you might point out the blacks have a warmer average, but all racial groups tend to feel warmer toward themselves than other groups do. Significantly, police officers feel just as much warmth for blacks as Hispanics/Asians/etc do. So, whites and non-whites who are screaming at the police for their racism, officers are the same as your group: They feel favorably toward blacks.



Thursday, June 04, 2020

New Study: "Frequency of variants associated with ADHD has steadily decreased since Paleolithic times"

New from Scientific Reports

Abstract

Attention-defcit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an impairing neurodevelopmental condition highly prevalent in current populations. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this paradox, mainly in the context of the Paleolithic versus Neolithic cultural shift but especially within the framework of the mismatch theory. This theory elaborates on how a particular trait once favoured in an ancient environment might become maladaptive upon environmental changes. However, given the lack of genomic data available for ADHD, these theories have not been empirically tested.

We took advantage of the largest GWAS meta-analysis available for this disorder consisting of over 20,000 individuals diagnosed with ADHD and 35,000 controls, to assess the evolution of ADHD-associated alleles in European populations using archaic, ancient and modern human samples. We also included Approximate Bayesian computation coupled with deep learning analyses and singleton density scores to detect human adaptation.

Our analyses indicate that ADHD-associated alleles are enriched in loss of function intolerant genes, supporting the role of selective pressures in this early-onset phenotype. Furthermore, we observed that the frequency of variants associated with ADHD has steadily decreased since Paleolithic times, particularly in Paleolithic European populations compared to samples from the Neolithic Fertile Crescent.

We demonstrate this trend cannot be explained by African admixture nor Neanderthal introgression, since introgressed Neanderthal alleles are enriched in ADHD risk variants. All analyses performed support the presence of long-standing selective pressures acting against ADHD associated alleles until recent times. Overall, our results are compatible with the mismatch theory for ADHD but suggest a much older time frame for the evolution of ADHD-associated alleles compared to previous hypotheses.


Wednesday, June 03, 2020

In a sample of 59 countries, America is the 12th most racially tolerant

Sociology textbooks regularly state as if it were God's Truth that the United States is a fundamentally racist country. Let's try something different and instead of maligning a whole country, let's actually look at data.

Between 2010 and 2014, the World Values Survey asked 88,042 people from 59 countries if they would object to having neighbors of a different race.  Here are the percent who answered yes by country:

Percent objecting to a neighbor of a different race

Azerbaijan  58.1
Libya  55.1
Palestine  44.0
Thailand  39.7
Lebanon  36.3
Turkey  35.8
Ecuador  34.5
S. Korea  34.1
Yemen  34.0
Georgia  32.1
Armenia  31.8
Malaysia  31.3
Kuwait  28.1
Kyrgyzstan  28.1
Iraq  27.7
Jordan  27.2
India  25.6  
Estonia  25.4
Cyprus  24.8
Romania  23.5
Belarus  23.1
Japan  22.3
Philippines  21.6
Nigeria  20.9
Ghana  19.9
Algeria  19.8
S, Africa  19.2
Hong Kong  18.8

All Countries  18.6

Russia  17.2
Tunisia  16.9
Ukraine  16.9
Pakistan  15.7
Germany  14.8
Uzbekistan  14.0  
Morocco  13.8
Singapore  12.6
Kazakhstan  11.2
Slovenia  10.9
China  10.5
Mexico  10.2
Peru  9.3
Zimbabwe  8.9
Qatar  8.8
Taiwan  8.4
Netherlands  8.2
Haiti  6.3
Chile  5.6
USA  5.6
Poland  5.5
Australia  5.0
Spain  4.8
Rwanda  3.5
Colombia  3.2
New Zealand  2.9
Sweden  2.8
Brazil  1.9
Uruguay  1.6
Trinidad and Tobago 1.5
Argentina  1.0

So, in a sample of 59 countries, the United States is the 12th most tolerant. The percent of Americans not wanting a neighbor of another race is less than one-third the world average. Liberals should be ashamed of themselves for indicting our country. 

Whites in general are accused of being notoriously racist, but you can see that Western societies tend to be the most tolerant.  The most intolerant regions are Muslim and Asian.

Are gun owners mentally ill?

  Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...