Content uploaded by Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Emil O. W. Kirkegaard on Nov 21, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Race Differences: A Very Brief Review
Abstract and Figures
The nature of race differences, and even the mere “existence” of human races, continues to be a major source of controversy and confusion. This brief review summarizes the empirical evidence about race differences and the conceptual issues related to taxonomy, as well as practical implications for medicine and the social sciences. The review shows that human races are distinctive phenotypically and genotypically, the latter with regard to the frequencies of a very large number (millions) of alleles. Distributions of these traits are clinal rather than discrete, and human races are subject to continuous change across evolutionary time.
Figures - uploaded by Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Up to now, even world sporting disciplines have embraced the movements and in all disciplines of sport, before the commencement, players, spectators, and official go down on one knee as a form of protest racially motivated identities of difference. Kirkegaard (2019) claims that the differences between human racial groups is the most controversial topic in all social sciences with every conceivable fact being contested by two or more opposing factors. The question of who is and who belongs is frequently addressed in the texts being studied. ...
This study analyses contested identities, race, and culture in The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe by Douglas Rogers, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah and Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson through the lens of the postcolonial theory. One of the main focuses of the postcolonial theory is identity, and it is identity crises which give rise to multiple and fluid identities. Through the postcolonial theory the themes of race, culture, hybridity, and double consciousness are addressed. The study is a desktop qualitative research, and it uses content analysis to interpret and analyse the chosen autobiographies. The purpose of the study was to explore, the construction and contention of identity, race, and culture, as presented in the three selected text, through the lens of the postcolonial theory.
The study found that all the three texts that were analysed are testament to how identities were constructed during apartheid, slavery, or colonisation and how identities were contested in postcolonial societies. The aftermath of all forms of colonisation led to the rise in identity problems being faced by individuals in contemporary societies. The study also found that, colonisation impacted identities of both the colonised and the colonisers to a great extent.
The study recommends that more studies analysing identities in autobiographies using the post- colonial lens are conducted especially in African countries not covered in this study and that the black man’s identity be analysed in other genres of literature such as poetry and drama using the postcolonial theory. Lastly, the study also recommends that more studies are conducted, analysing Namibian autobiographies to scrutinise the Namibian identity.
... After all, the best predictor of future success is past success. All this points to stable causes of social success that are related to the origin, and thus genetic ancestry of people around the world (Easterly & Levine, 2012;Fulford et al., 2016;Kirkegaard, 2019c;Kodila-Tedika & Asongu, 2015;Putterman & Weil, 2010). One team of economists put it this way: ...
Immigrants to Western countries typically have worse social outcomes than natives, but country of origin immigrant groups differ widely. We studied school performance in Denmark for 116 immigrant groups measured by the grade point average (GPA) of the 9th grade exam at the end of compulsory schooling. General intelligence is a strong causal factor of school outcomes and life outcomes in general for individuals. We accordingly predicted that country of origin average intelligence (national IQ) will predict immigrant group outcomes. We furthermore included as covariates immigrant generation (first vs. second) as well as the Muslim percentage of country of origin. Results show that GPA in Denmark can be predicted by national IQ r = .47 (n = 81), Muslim percentage r = -.40 (n = 81), and educational selectivity of immigrants entering Denmark r = .35 (n = 71). Regression modeling indicated that each predictor is informative when combined. The final model explained 46.3% of the variance with first generation (binary) β = -0.65, βIQ = 0.29, βMuslim = -0.21, and β education selectivity index = 0.27 (all predictors p < .001, n = 97). Our results are in line with existing research on cognitive stratification and immigration.
... In the second assignment, both male and female managed to follow essay organisation rules but with minor errors. This thus suggests that it is important for teachers to consider using blended learning methods in teaching since the methods are essential for students, particularly male students, who benefit most from the blended learning methods in developing their writing skills (Kirkegaard, 2019). The students' writing assignment scores were divided into three categories, and the first category is the evaluation of improvement in Scores. ...
Technology has grown exponentially in this 21st-century society with the alignment of the Industrial Revolution 4.0, where communication technology devices and knowledge are made readily available at an individual’s disposal. In line with I.R 4.0 and TVET, handheld devices and computers have started to infiltrate the tertiary education level across the nation. It is hoped that the iPad Pro usage in teaching and learning could assist the students with learning disabilities in learning effectively. This study is also meant to assist them in learning in the most meaningful way and nurturing them to be autonomous learners. In reality, Apple Teacher and the application of iPad Pro is not common in the teaching and learning session particularly in Malaysia; due to the educators’ limited knowledge in utilising iPad Pro as an instrument of teaching and learning. The purposes of this study are to examine the educators’ discernment towards iPad Pro as an instructional tool and to investigate the Apple
Teachers’ capabilities in utilising iPad Pro in harmonising the teaching and learning session. Eighteen (18) participants who participated in the Apple Teacher course in developing teaching and learning materials using
iPad Pro were selected for this study. The data collection was conducted through an online survey and online interview sessions to investigate their discernment and capabilities in utilising iPad Pro in developing the teaching and learning sessions. The preliminary findings via the survey reveal that the educators’ capabilities of utilising iPad Pro do change their pedagogical methods in teaching and learning. In addition, the findings indicate that the usage of iPad Pro proves to have potentials and positive impacts on the teaching and learning engagement.
Keywords: iPad Pro; Instructional tools; Apple Teacher; Apple Teacher Discernment and Capabilities; Teaching
and Learning
... In the second assignment, both male and female managed to follow essay organisation rules but with minor errors. This thus suggests that it is important for teachers to consider using blended learning methods in teaching since the methods are essential for students, particularly male students, who benefit most from the blended learning methods in developing their writing skills (Kirkegaard, 2019). The students' writing assignment scores were divided into three categories, and the first category is the evaluation of improvement in Scores. ...
In recent years, social media have become an integral part of online news distribution and consumption. Many news organisations have established social media accounts on various social platforms. Competition for audience influence has never been higher. Few studies have researched engagement, influence and social media information diffusion. To fill this gap, this article attempts to examine previous studies that are concerned with news content and news sharing on Twitter in the period 2010-2020 through a review of scientific, peer-reviewed articles. Fiftysix articles were selected as relevant from the skimming of abstracts from two databases (Taylor & Francis and Sage) by searching the keywords "news content, sharing, Twitter." To discover the general trend and pattern, each
article was content analysed along four primary dimensions: authorship profile, manuscript characteristics, research design, and research methodology. Three central research areas—news sharing users, content, and networks—were identified and systematically reviewed. The review results find that studies' focus in recent years lies in four aspects: the content, the users, the media organisations, and the network. The review results provide critical analysis of current research and give future research suggestions in related areas in the central concluding section.
Keywords: News content; News sharing; Twitter; News diffusion
... In the second assignment, both male and female managed to follow essay organisation rules but with minor errors. This thus suggests that it is important for teachers to consider using blended learning methods in teaching since the methods are essential for students, particularly male students, who benefit most from the blended learning methods in developing their writing skills (Kirkegaard, 2019). The students' writing assignment scores were divided into three categories, and the first category is the evaluation of improvement in Scores. ...
Virtual identity is visually established through Avatars and their associated profiles. Realising that there are real people with real emotions on the other side of the screen, this research intends to uncover the virtual identity that users embrace in the virtual world. More specifically, we investigate how Avatars communicate their identity in Second Life beyond the visual representation. This research applied an ethnography approach in this study in which prolonged engagement in the online community, i.e. Second Life was undertaken to understand the culture of the virtual residents. Guided by Erving Goffman’s Theory, we conducted participant observation and open interviews to unveil the virtual identity. A total of 25.5 hours in-world time was spent in Second Life including interviews with six respondents. Data was collected through field notes and one-to-one interviews. Words, phrases and sentences were coded, and thematic analysis was employed to identify the dominant themes. The findings have shown that virtual identities are constructed through the words, phrases and sentences that the Avatars used
in the online interactions with other users or Avatars. Each Avatar is unique when they carry their own identification based on the interactions. To some extent, the virtual world has strongly impacted on several aspects of human life, with identity being one of them. This study hopes that the findings may assist professionals as well as practitioners desiring to gain more understanding of virtual identity.
Keywords: Virtual Identity; Second Life; Virtual World; Avatar
... In the second assignment, both male and female managed to follow essay organisation rules but with minor errors. This thus suggests that it is important for teachers to consider using blended learning methods in teaching since the methods are essential for students, particularly male students, who benefit most from the blended learning methods in developing their writing skills (Kirkegaard, 2019). The students' writing assignment scores were divided into three categories, and the first category is the evaluation of improvement in Scores. ...
The commitments given by the users of Second Life virtual world game for an extended time has sparked an interest for the researchers to investigate how Second Life virtual world has fulfilled the needs of its residents. Previous research highlighted that Second Life has served support for learners’ socialisation and motivation in their daily lives. The researchers gather information on motivations of the Second Life users with the aim to
identify differences of the motivations based on two genders; males and females by employing virtual ethnographic study. The researchers collected the data on how Second Life virtual world has served the motivations of its residents using participant observation, informal interviews and one-to-one semi-structured interviews. Eight participants have taken part to provide relevant information. The data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis which resulted in the finding of four categories of motivations: experiential, social, escapism and functional. The results reveal that the two genders share similarities in their motivations but differ in their preferences of the motivations. The study has several implications as it enhances our understanding of the motivations of the two genders and their preferences which will be useful to understand the communication process among the users. This study also highlights the features offered by the Second Life virtual world serve different needs for its users. The findings of this study make several contributions to the current literature as it has revealed the differences of main motivations between males and females to be in virtual world games. This study also provides insights on experiential motivations of male avatars in Second Life which could lead to more future research on this topic.
Keywords: Virtual world game; Second Life; Motivations
... For people reporting on having an emotional mental disorder or not, there was seemingly no pattern except that "extreme liberal" reported having this higher than everybody else. As a robustness test, we ran models on whites only to avoid any potential confound with race and mental illness (Kirkegaard, 2019). However, the results were very similar and not shown here. ...
It has been claimed that left-wingers or liberals (US sense) tend to be more mentally ill than right-wingers or conservatives. This potential link was investigated using the General Social Survey. A search found 5 items measuring one's own mental illness in different ways (e.g."Do you have any emotional or mental disability?"). All of these items were associated with left-wing political ideology as measured by self-report. These results held up mostly in regressions that adjusted for age, sex, and race. For the variable with the most data, the difference in mental illness between "extremely liberal" and "extremely conservative" was 0.39 d. This finding is congruent with numerous findings based on related constructs.
In this paper, we investigate the compatibility between the cultural preservation of honor and the rule of law under a strictly constitutional government, considering the implications of the findings of sociobiology for human psychology and behavior. Here, realism is expressed by assuming a reality independent of human convention but accessible to human understanding. We conclude that strictly constitutional governments, unlike customary justice, cannot tolerate the legal implications of traditional conceptions of honor.
Geographic patterns in human genetic diversity carry footprints of population history and provide insights for genetic medicine and its application across human populations. Summarizing and visually representing these patterns of diversity has been a persistent goal for human geneticists, and has revealed that genetic differentiation is frequently correlated with geographic distance. However, most analytical methods to represent population structure do not incorporate geography directly, and it must be considered post hoc alongside a visual summary of the genetic structure. Here, we estimate "effective migration" surfaces to visualize how human genetic diversity is geographically structured. The results reveal local patterns of differentiation in detail and emphasize that while genetic similarity generally decays with geographic distance, the relationship is often subtly distorted. Overall, the visualizations provide a new perspective on genetics and geography in humans and insight to the geographic distribution of human genetic variation.
Human DNA polymorphisms vary across geographic regions, with the most commonly observed variation reflecting distant ancestry differences. Here we investigate the geographic clustering of common genetic variants that influence complex traits in a sample of ~450,000 individuals from Great Britain. Of 33 traits analysed, 21 showed significant geographic clustering at the genetic level after controlling for ancestry, probably reflecting migration driven by socioeconomic status (SES). Alleles associated with educational attainment (EA) showed the most clustering, with EA-decreasing alleles clustering in lower SES areas such as coal mining areas. Individuals who leave coal mining areas carry more EA-increasing alleles on average than those in the rest of Great Britain. The level of geographic clustering is correlated with genetic associations between complex traits and regional measures of SES, health and cultural outcomes. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that social stratification leaves visible marks in geographic arrangements of common allele frequencies and gene–environment correlations.
In recent decades the field of anthropology has been characterized as sharply divided between pro-science and anti-science factions. The aim of this study is to empirically evaluate that characterization. We survey anthropologists in graduate programs in the United States regarding their views of science and advocacy, moral and epistemic relativism, and the merits of evolutionary biological explanations. We examine anthropologists’ views in concert with their varying appraisals of major controversies in the discipline (Chagnon/Tierney, Mead/Freeman, and Menchú/Stoll). We find that disciplinary specialization and especially gender and political orientation are significant predictors of anthropologists’ views. We interpret our findings through the lens of an intuitionist social psychology that helps explain the dynamics of such controversies as well as ongoing ideological divisions in the field.
A historical tendency to use European ancestry samples hinders medical genetics research, including the use of polygenic scores, which are individual-level metrics of genetic risk. We analyze the first decade of polygenic scoring studies (2008-2017, inclusive), and find that 67% of studies included exclusively European ancestry participants and another 19% included only East Asian ancestry participants. Only 3.8% of studies were among cohorts of African, Hispanic, or Indigenous peoples. We find that predictive performance of European ancestry-derived polygenic scores is lower in non-European ancestry samples (e.g. African ancestry samples: t = -5.97, df = 24, p = 3.7 × 10-6), and we demonstrate the effects of methodological choices in polygenic score distributions for worldwide populations. These findings highlight the need for improved treatment of linkage disequilibrium and variant frequencies when applying polygenic scoring to cohorts of non-European ancestry, and bolster the rationale for large-scale GWAS in diverse human populations.
Admixture mapping is a powerful method of gene mapping for diseases or traits that show differential risk by ancestry. Admixture mapping has been applied most often to Americans who trace ancestry to various combinations of Native Americans, Europeans, and West Africans. Recent developments in admixture mapping include improvements in the methods and reference data needed to make inferences about ancestry as well as extensions of the mapping approach in the framework of linear mixed models. This overview outlines the key concepts of admixture mapping. It describes approaches for inferring local ancestry and provides strategies for performing admixture mapping depending on the study design. Finally, linkage analysis, association analysis, and admixture mapping are compared, with an emphasis on integrating admixture mapping and association testing. Published 2023. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.
Experts (Nmax = 102 answering) on intelligence completed a survey about IQ research, controversies, and the media. The survey was conducted in 2013 and 2014 using the Internet-based Expert Questionnaire on Cognitive Ability (EQCA). In the current study, we examined the background of the experts (e.g., nationality, gender, religion, and political orientation) and their positions on intelligence research, controversial issues, and the media. Most experts were male (83%) and from Western countries (90%). Political affiliations ranged from the left (liberal, 54%) to the right (conservative, 24%), with more extreme responses within the left-liberal spectrum. Experts rated the media and public debates as far below adequate. Experts with a left (liberal, progressive) political orientation were more likely to have positive views of the media (around r = |.30|). In contrast, compared to female and left (liberal) experts, male and right (conservative) experts were more likely to endorse the validity of IQ testing (correlations with gender, politics: r = .55, .41), the g factor theory of intelligence (r = .18, .34), and the impact of genes on US Black-White differences (r = .50, .48). The paper compares the results to those of prior expert surveys and discusses the role of experts' backgrounds, with a focus on political orientation and gender. An underrepresentation of viewpoints associated with experts' background characteristics (i.e., political views, gender) may distort research findings and should be addressed in higher education policy.
The field of intelligence research has seen more controversies than perhaps any other area of social science. Here we present a scientometric analysis of controversies involving intelligence researchers working in the democratic Western world since 1950. By consulting books and articles, conducting web searches, and contacting some of the individuals involved, we assembled a large database of controversies. Each entry in our database represents a controversy involving a particular individual in a particular year. We computed a measure of controversy by combining the number and severity of incidents, separately for each individual and each year. The individual-level distribution is highly skewed, with just a few individuals accounting for a disproportionate share of the controversy. When tracking the level of controversy over time, we find four relatively distinct ‘eras’, of which the most recent era—the ‘LCI era’—may be the most significant to date.
Polygenic scores (PSs) are becoming a useful tool to identify individuals with high genetic risk for complex diseases, and several projects are currently testing their utility for translational applications. It is also tempting to use PSs to assess whether genetic variation can explain a part of the geographic distribution of a phenotype. However, it is not well known how the population genetic properties of the training and target samples affect the geographic distribution of PSs. Here, we evaluate geographic differences, and related biases, of PSs in Finland in a geographically well-defined sample of 2,376 individuals from the National FINRISK study. First, we detect geographic differences in PSs for coronary artery disease (CAD), rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia, waist-hip ratio (WHR), body-mass index (BMI), and height, but not for Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis. Second, we use height as a model trait to thoroughly assess the possible population genetic biases in PSs and apply similar approaches to the other phenotypes. Most importantly, we detect suspiciously large accumulations of geographic differences for CAD, WHR, BMI, and height, suggesting bias arising from the population's genetic structure rather than from a direct genotype-phenotype association. This work demonstrates how sensitive the geographic patterns of current PSs are for small biases even within relatively homogeneous populations and provides simple tools to identify such biases. A thorough understanding of the effects of population genetic structure on PSs is essential for translational applications of PSs.
