In which I talk about the lack of evidence for a genetic explanation for variation in human intelligence. In public.

Nothing about the field of IQ studies is free of political influence. It’s naive to believe that any kind of research on a purported measure of individual merit could be politics-free in a self-proclaimed meritocracy with wide inequalities. Binet’s original work was meant to determine which children should have access to additional educational resources. IQ scores are used occasionally to sort out “inappropriate” candidates for various jobs, including those whose IQs are too high for a role. IQ as a proxy for merit is used to argue that a group does or does not face discrimination in educational or career opportunities. This is all terribly political.

The question isn’t whether there are politics surrounding this issue or where. They’re everywhere. The question is where does the politics get in the way of the science? Again, the answers don’t favor Pinker’s view of a fatwa against genetic explanations of individual differences.

For those of you visiting from the Scientific American Guest Blog, welcome to Almost Diamonds. Kick back. Relax. Drinks are in the fridge. If you’re looking for more on politically sensitive science, may I interest you in the following posts?

What Is Race Good For?

The Argument for Race
There were four main arguments made for the biological validity of race:

1. Genetic testing allows for grouping by country of ancestor origin.
2. Race may not predict the things it’s been used to predict in the past, but it’s an important proxy for genetics in medicine.
3. Yes, assignment of humans to racial categories is an arbitrary procedure, but we use arbitrary names for parts of other continua. Why not race?
4. You’re just being PC, Marxist wankers.

I think we can ignore #4, but the rest were addressed in the discussion.

Sex, Science, and Social Policy

There’s just one little problem: The studies themselves. In 2001, Paul, Linz, and Shafer took a look at what kind of evidence was being used by those who wanted to marginalize sex-related businesses. What they found was impressive…but not in the way one would hope.

The researchers started with a list of four requirements that would need to be met for a study on the topic to be considered scientific. In situations like this, where laws and regulations may be challenged in court, scientific evidence isn’t just a good idea. It’s the legal standard, so meeting these scientific criteria is important.

Rape Myth #1: She’s Probably Lying
The Rate of False Report

The standard figure passed around by victim advocates suggests a rate of false reports of 8% based on FBI crime statistics from 1997. This is comparable to rates for other crimes. However, citations can be found for rates as low as 1.5% and as high as 90%. In other words, huh? How do we deal with a range that big?

Luckily for those who want to sort out the truth of the matter, two papers came out in 2010 that shed considerable light by examining how false rape report rates are generated. David Lisak, Lori Gardinier, Sarah C. Nicksa, and Ashley M. Cote collected those prior studies that had the best (and most transparent) processes for sorting between false and merely unproven allegations. They also used a similar process for determining the rate of false reports of rape at a U.S. college.

Skepticism and Rape Adaptations

Now, the problem is not that Dr. Shackelford is an evo psych researcher. There are people doing good work in evo psych. The problem is that Dr. Shackelford isn’t doing good work on this topic. In particular, the work he is presenting, relating female infidelity to rape of female partners by male partners, doesn’t tell us anything that the already robust scientific literature on rape hasn’t already told us.

Enjoy.

Almost Diamonds

Discover the new trend in wedding jewelry – men moissanitewedding rings. Men are increasingly savy about their choice of wedding jewelry. Many grooms want to look uniqueyet affordable, exploring different stones and moissanite rings metals.Men marriage is a marriage band.Moissanite diamond is attractive and traditional economicalalternative increasingly popular choice for wedding rings for men. Much less expensive than diamond, moissanite diamond is sosimilar in appearance and properties of the event pipe with a trained eye can have difficulty distinguishing them.

Manufacturers claim that moissanite is the most sparkling diamond Thana, and is almost as bad. Moissanite has been identified as a natural substance inmeteorites rare. At the end of 1800, Dr. Henri Moissan, discoveredthe as being associated with a meteorite Arizona.However, it is only recently that moissanite was available forpurchase. Today, synthetic moissanite gems producedfor jewelry. Moissanite durability and heat resistance will lead to easy to work for jewelers. Many people are attracted to the original thestone "foreign" origin, and likeappearance diamond.

Men opt for a wedding ring Moissanite ofdiamonds the look without the exorbitant price. In fact, the cansplurge married on large stones and a more dramatic choosingthe less expensive equipment. Although less expensive, quality moissanite stone set in ISA preciousmetals.Charles usually gold or other COVARD and is the only manufacturer of moissanite. JCPenney sells the line, called "one of the jewels chosen for fastestgrowing today." Moissanite Rings with alifetime guaranteed and last year marriage ainsique a diamond.

Those who are interested in purchasing a male moisture Sani Charles & discount COVARD can visit their website at www. Moissanite.comfor a list of shops that sell this unique product.

Black Titanium Wedding Ring Reviews

It’s not often that you can buy something at an 83% discount from the market price.  Yet that’s exactly the situation when it comes to buying certain gold stocks that are now selling at huge discounts to their intrinsic gold reserves value. In an interview with Barron’s, value investor David Steinberg of DLS Capital Management [...]
Gold and Silver Blog

This past season, the Lakers were one of the best offensive teams in the league. They may have finished the season ranked 6th in offensive efficiency (which is still excellent), but for most of the year they were in the top 5 and spent a good portion of the campaign in the top 2 or 3. If the Lakers had a weakness, it wasn’t on offense.

That said, when the Lakers flamed out of the playoffs they were clearly struggling to score the ball consistently. Of their 10 playoff games, the Lakers scored 100 points or more only 3 times and in the Dallas series they never topped 94 (with 2 of the 4 defeats producing 86 points or less).

There were many reasons the Lakers didn’t score the ball well – lack of outside shooting, the horrid slump of Pau Gasol, etc - but the fact remains that the Lakers became predicatble on offense and couldn’t execute well enough to overcome that fact. This led many to ask what the Lakers should be doing differently on offense with many saying that they should have mirrored what their opponents were doing by repeatedly going to the pick and roll to get those needed baskets.

I mean, if Chris Paul could run the P&R with the poor big men he had at his disposal and the Mavs could run the P&R with JJ Barrea killing the Lakers D by navigating screens and either getting his own shot or setting up a teammate, the Lakers should be able to do the same thing.  Logic says put ball in the hands of Kobe and then incorportate one of the Lakers’ supremely talented big men, and they’d be able to generate some needed points. After all, with the Lakers possessing a fantastic guard and a slew of excellent bigs, they must be a good pick and roll team, right? Right?

Wrong.

Based off the statistical and video scouting service My Synergy Sports, the Lakers were actually one of the lesser P&R teams in the league. Sure, they have the ingredients to run the action but the end result of that recipe wasn’t very tasty. Some numbers for your ingestion (all via Synergy):

*On the year, the Lakers ranked 30th out of 30 teams in points per possession when the ball handler shot in P&R situations. Dead last. If you want to look at shooting percentage rather than points generated, the story is just as ugly with Laker ball handlers only knocking down 37 of their field goals and 31.5% of their three pointers in P&R situations.

*On the year, the Lakers ranked 13th out of 30 teams in points per possession when the roll man took a shot in P&R situations. That puts them in the upper half of the league, but only barely. If looking at field goal percentage, the Lakers roll men hit a respectable yet not earth shattering 49.4% of their field goals in P&R situations.

Granted, there are other ways to generate points in the P&R besides having the ball handler or the roll man shoot. Unfortunately Synergy doesn’t track these numbers, but I’d bet that the Lakers are no better in generating points out of the other types of actions that develop from running the P&R. My reasons for this are simple:

*Besides the ball handler or the roll man shooting, the most frequent type of shot that would be generated out of a P&R situation are spot up jumpers. When teams run the P&R, one major goal is to collapse the defense and then kick the ball to open shooters that position themselves around the three point arc. On the year, the Lakers were the 12th best team in points per possession in spot up situations; a ranking that isn’t much better than what they produce when the roll man in the P&R shoots.

*The Lakers aren’t a good three point shooting team, only making 37% of their three point shots on spot up situations. Hence, they knocked down a relatively low percentage of the shots that would be made available in the scenario described above.

*Furthermore, the Lakers are one of the better post up teams in the league with multiple threats on the team. Simple logic would tell us that a lot of the Lakers success on spot up shots is also related kick out passes from post ups by Gasol, Kobe, Bynum, and Odom.

For these reasons, I find it difficult to conclude that the Lakers would produce significantly better results in spot up situations off the P&R than they do in normal spot up situtions that are generated through other ways these shots are created. Not to mention that they’re only slightly above average at generating points regardless of how those spot up shots are achieved.

My most interesting findings, though, are really related to the two players that the Lakers ran this action with the most. Neither Kobe nor Gasol were very good operating in the P&R this year. As a ball handler, Kobe shot less than 40% from the field and ranked only 83rd in points per possession. He was even worse on three pointers as he only shot 29% from distance in these situations. Meanwhile, Gasol ranked 105th in points per possession as a roll man in the P&R. When reviewing the tape, he mostly settled for jumpers as he preferred to “pop” into free space rather than dive hard to the rim to try and catch then finish in the paint. The results were a low 42.6% shooting mark as a roll man.

This isn’t to say that the Lakers can’t be a good P&R team or didn’t have success with the play in certain situations. As I dug deeper into the numbers, some positive trends were discovered. First is that Andrew Bynum put up elite numbers as a finisher in the P&R. He put up 1.19 points per possession as the roll man which ranked him 19th in the entire league. As we saw all year, his length, soft hands, and ability to finish in the paint – even in traffic - is very good. Plus, Bynum’s big body is a great tool in the P&R as he’s wide enough to set good screens, setting up the action well.

Lamar Odom was excellent in the P&R as both a ball handler and a finisher. As a ball hander he ranked 17th in the league in tallying .93 points per possession. As a finisher he was even better, ranking 6th in the league with a points per possession mark of 1.31. In reality, as much as we love the rebounds and coast to coast finishes that Odom provided, it’s arguable that Odom’s versatility was most on display in the P&R as he could both initiate and finish with great efficiency. His ability to navigate screens off the dribble or set a good pick and free himself up for a good look takes a diverse skill set and Odom proved he had it. If anything, the Lakers should have been using LO more in the P&R, especially in big/big screen situations between him and Bynum.

With the Lakers set to hire a new coach at some point this summer, many have started to explore what type of offensive system the new head man will install (or keep if Brian Shaw is the chosen one). And while we still believe that defense will be just as important to the success of the next regime, we can’t ignore the fact that the system the team uses best put the ball in the basket is a topic of great interest. But, these results say that if the Lakers do move to a different system outside of the triangle, a P&R based system may not be the best choice. Sure, the Lakers have some ways to be effective in this action but the numbers say they’re better off using a system that utilizes more off ball movement where cuts and screens get players open on the move into open space rather than classic P&R sets. And unless Kobe’s ball handling issues improve or Gasol becomes less of a jumpshooter and more of a player that operates in the post and in attacking the basket, I don’t see why the Lakers’ sets should shift further in this direction.

Forum Blue And Gold

Tired of looking for a good gift for your wife's wedding ring? Well, pay attention to something eternal shine and sparkle to remember all that time. Yes, you need to gift her a diamond alliance. Why choose a diamond ring wedding ring on a regular basis? If you want to make the wedding very special and memorable, you should try by all means the more traditional special gift. In fact, most diamonds are greeted with gifts by women. Considerable efforts have diamonds.Tired seeing the same old ideas like a wedding ring?

You can try Carved Diamond Wedding Band that comes in a wonderfully diverse and unique design. It 's something that would not have seen to date. You really want to give a unique ring to your wife. This is certainly one of these rings. Nobody would dream of such a project. It 'beautiful. The diamonds are virtually engraved on the ring literally struggling to stop a gang doting it.Such good marriage is great. This eternity band is excellent with a shiny metal ring that some faint lines etched curve.

Between the curved line at regular intervals, there are diamonds on them. 'S so beautiful. It will be better for your wife

Black Titanium Wedding Ring Reviews

‘A side-by-side image of the now Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their wedding day and a shot of Prince Charming and Cinderella has become just as popular as images from the real-life April 29 ceremony. The images has clearly been doctored, as the original Prince Charming has dark hair and was wearing a light-colored jacket, but even without the touch-ups they bear a few similarities.’ CNN

ANNA WHITFORD WEDDING RING PILLOWS

wedding rings are a fairly controversial issue at best, that the problems of prices and styles to give rise to serious problems between the many engaged couples, but only if you decide to marry, have undermined see a real field? ! If two people have decided to marry, suppose the inevitable mixture of emotions that such a monumental decision, namely, fear and panic, nausea follow, at least by her husband to be! Seriously, can be a very difficult time for the couple, since they will be planning a wedding and the financial security of themselves for the next ten years and years of their lives, adding that the stress of the range of faiths and of all the experience can feel like a heart attack waiting to happen.

Therefore, it is essential that this pre-marital all the help they need, especially in terms of choosing their alliances and that is where this product is available and you can learn the tricks and tips posted in this article, and avoid all the traps that other couples may be attracted into.The best place to get your wedding rings on the Internet, if money is really a problem (and the face, leave if it is not a problem), as companies often generous discounts online to offer customers the brain to buy their goods on the Internet, unlike the luxury jewelry store.

Buy compare prices and styles of conflict and on the Internet at the click of a button you can immediately see the rings engagement are available and that is the budget, save hours and hours flipping through magazines, searching for the perfect ring.Also whether online, then your marriage will be delivered directly to your home, avoiding the hassle of crowded stores with all those pressing Rubber Necker look to see what is going for.So call, us, wedding rings can be a frightening when you took the plunge and decided to get married, but with the help and support, you may end up with ' perfect ring for you and your loved one to love forever, years and years.

Black Titanium Wedding Ring Reviews

Celtic wedding rings are also seen as a Claddagh ring was made more than three hundred years ago in a fishing village called Historia Claddagh.The young man had been kidnapped by pirates while on his way to the West Indies, where he began working to ensure enough money they deserve to go back and marry her true love. The king eventually negotiated his return, after learning the craft of goldsmith. His kidnappers asked him to stay, had become so enamored of his work over the past six years he was imprisoned.

They were treated well and offered him many treasures to be outdone, but his mind was made to return to his true love. The legend says that when he returned the king offered the hand of his daughter, and her exquisite talent, but many have refused a youth desperate to return to his true love. On his return he found his true love was all the years he was away on his return and married the young man gave her a Claddagh ring that took five years to perfect, and if the story rings Celtic goes.When expected are worn on his right hand toward the crown is symbolic that the heart has not been won, and when the ring is worn on the left hand with the heart and the crown in front of the body is the symbol of the heart beats and the person is taken .

StylesAll Celtic wedding rings have a similar style to what they consider as Claddagh rings. The materials used to fashion rings varies. There are rings Celtic rings encrusted with diamonds, gold and silver. There are simple rings and jewelry rings. Whatever the material or how to draw Celtic rings is the story behind them that makes them much more than beautiful.Why popular Celtic wedding rings? The symbolic nature of the rings makes them popular around the world. The story behind Celtic wedding rings, including a call history associated with their creation to make them very popular among the people not only with Irish roots, but people around the world.

Black Titanium Wedding Ring Reviews

On the most recent date on which virtuous humans are supposed to be lifted from their Earthly cares, I can’t think of any better story to share than this one by Sally Gwylan, in which the battle between religion and humanism is aided by an unusual agent. An exceprt:

The auditorium blazed with the new electric lights and was full to overflowing. There was never a chance I would find Josef in that seething mass by venturing into it, so I went round back & climbed the stairs up to the outside walk. A small crowd pressed up near the open windows to listen, but not all the sashes had been raised. I chose one of these closed windows for my vantage point.

As I searched the mass of people below me for Josef’s gipsy curls & defiant red scarf, the Reverend’s words deviled my ears despite the barrier of the window-glass. A small man whose gestures & intonation burned with fevered zeal, Owings exhorted his audience to Pray! Pray for the Holy Spirit to lead them into the ways of righteousness!

And as he shouted, the air inside the hall began to sparkle, golden motes drifting down. I doubted my eyes, but others were seeing it too, looking up, gaping, and it was then I spotted Josef’s set jaw & bold mustachios pushing through the crowd at the back, with Gretchen drawn but determined just ahead of him, the babe wrapped up tight in her arms. Rather than hurry down to find them I stayed watching the dustfall a moment longer.

Soon all faces were turned up to the glittering motes. Some shouted, a babble of Hallelujahs & Glorys. I believe I saw vents in the sculpted ceiling from which the dust issued, but the stuff spread out quickly, & surely the people below couldn’t tell the source.

Flash & humbug, I thought.

Sweet manna! Owings’s voice rang out. Rejoice for the Lord is with us tonight! & the people in the hall raised up their arms, their heads tipped back as though the golden fall were a shower of welcome rain. Every face filled with wonder.

Even — this is what haunts me, this is the impossible thing — my rebel Josef’s. Gretchen too, the both of them stopped in their tracks and gaping with childish awe as I have never seen either do before & certainly not at such a conjurer’s trick. Cold went through me like a gale off the lake — even now my hands shake with it.

Unable for a time to turn away, I watched & listened as fever took the crowd, some losing themselves so far as to fall to the floor in fits of jerking limbs. Josef & Gretchen did not do so, yet their open-mouthed gullibility was near as bad. Owings’s words pounded the glittering air, sin & pridefulness & render unto Caesar, on & on, a hammer forging his auditors into the shape he desired, til at last I could take no more and stumbled home.

Where I write and wait, hoping that Nathan will return before the others do.

Keep reading.

Almost Diamonds

This one is burlesque, boys and girls. Don’t play it if you don’t want to see skin.

It’s always impressive to see just how many ways there are to do something as simple as take your clothes off. And how much of that time can be spent doing nothing of the sort.

Almost Diamonds