john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Quote: John Lachs on blogging

Tue, 2010-11-16 00:06 -- John Hawks

From a piece in The Tennesseean, worthy of a place in the Onion except it's apparently serious: "Internet bloggers’ uncrafted output completely self-serving"

Some bloggers act like literary versions of Dr. Frankenstein: They use publication to breathe life into malformed ideas. Even if people never had better thoughts than they have today, only a few of them ought to be preserved. The proper fate of the rest is to remain the secret posses­sion of ordinary minds and to accompany their owners quietly to the grave. Of course, we are free not to read the blogs that addle the brain. But to know they do, we have to read them and as a result fill our heads with worth less chatter.

A true philosopher, that.

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Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.