Author: Razib Khan

The 100th Brownpundits Browncast


The 100th Browncast! Razib and Mukunda talk to Pushpita Prasad and Sudha Jagannathan of the Coalition of the Hindus of North America to talk about where we stand on the “caste question” in the US today. There are lots of different opinions here between the four guests, and platform of Dalits and Bahujan.

Also submitted for your approval, (1) Who is behind the caste legislations in North America? A peek into their track record – YouTube. The UCSD Ethnic Studies link about hiring only Dalits and Muslims: Commentaries (ucsd.edu)

Ertugrul is badass


I watched a few episodes of Ertugrul and it’s pretty good. I would prefer less of a Marvel-comics style character…Ertugrul and his alps basically are just killing machines who never get injured while taking down dozens of Christian knights. But it is good for what it intends to be, a dramatic rendering of the origins of the Ottoman mythology.

What’s the Indian equivalent? I assume a Shijavi TV series, but is there something with good production values?

Vivek Ramaswamy and Hinduism

Vivek Ramaswamy Leans Into His Hindu Faith to Court Christian Voters:

Swami Vivekananda, who represented Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893, took pains to depict his faith as monotheistic, in contrast to the stereotypes of its followers as “heathen” polytheists. Although the faith has many deities, they are generally subordinate to one ultimate “reality.” Many Hindus and scholars say its theology is too complex to be described as either wholly monotheistic or wholly polytheistic.

“The polytheism hurdle is the first thing that has to be addressed” for many American Christian audiences, Mr. Altman said. He sees Mr. Ramaswamy’s pitch against “wokeism” as a way to counter stereotypes associating Hinduism with hippies, yoga and vegetarianism.

People of lower castes have bad personalities

Making the Elite: Top Jobs, Disparities, and Solutions:

How do socioeconomically unequal screening practices impact access to elite firms and what policies might reduce inequality? Using personnel data from elite U.S. and European multinational corporations recruiting from an elite Indian college, I show that caste disparities in hiring do not arise in many job search stages, including: applications, application reading, written aptitude tests, large group debates that assess socio-emotional skills, and job choices. Rather, disparities arise in the final round, comprising non-technical personal interviews that screen on family background, neighborhood, and “cultural fit.” These characteristics are plausibly weakly correlated with productivity (at the interview round) but strongly correlated with caste. Employer willingness to pay for an advantaged caste is as large as that for a full standard deviation increase in college GPA. A hiring subsidy that eliminates the caste penalty would be more cost-effective in diversifying elite hiring than equalizing the caste distribution of pre-college test scores or enforcing hiring quotas.

No big surprise.

Population structure in South Asian – Genomes Asian 1K paper

The full version of this paper is out, South Asian medical cohorts reveal strong founder effects and high rates of homozygosity. It’s not the best for understanding population structure because they focus on within South Asia variation, but it does seem to confirm that among Bengalis there is a cline from west to east, irrespective of religion (see the discussion where they note that Muslims in the west cluster with westerners). I found a PCA in the supplements where I added some explanatory notes. It’s really hard to parse their figures because they really didn’t care, and the Genomes Asia Consortium doesn’t release their data… (their browser sucks)

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