Category: Open Thread

My piece Stark Truth About the Aryans is doing well. Pretty good feedback. Part 2 will be out in the next day or so.

Genetic ancestry changes in Stone to Bronze Age transition in the East European plain.

Update: part 2 is out.

What’s going on?

I have a 6000-word piece on Indian genetics coming out on my Substak in the next few days (waiting on some maps that were commissioned).

Update: The pieces (had to break into two) are ready to go. Part 1 today and part 2 tomorrow. I commissioned some simple maps and created an infographic. Since these will be “paid” (you have to subscribe), I’ll post the infographic for people here:

Continue reading Open Thread – 1/16/2021 – Brown Pundits

A lot went down this week. A lot.

I’ll be going on Abhinav Prakash’s podcast to talk genetics next week.

Here is hoping for a better 2021!

Massive migrations from Steppes to Bronze Age India was indeed a myth. We have gathered Ancient DNA evidence now. The findings will be out next year. Thanks to the great efforts of scientists from India, USA, UK and others. Warm Greetings for upcoming 2021!

— Niraj Rai (@NirajRai3) December 30, 2020

Lots of questions about this tweet. I like Niraj Rai and Gyaneshwer Chaubey personally. But, I’m pretty skeptical of how people are interpreting this. My own views are pretty straightforward, and outlined in my post the “Aryan Integration Theory”.

I believe that about 14% of the total ancestry in South Asia derives from the Central Asian steppe ~3,500 years ago. These people derive from a “reflux” migration from Central Europe of a Corded Ware related people (“Battle Axe Culture”).* The fraction is higher in Pakistan, 20-30%. Much lower in southern India, ~5% or so (excepting Brahmins). Whenever this is a “massive migration” is up to you to interpret.

I do think they brought R1a and lots of aspects of Indian culture, such as Indo-European language. On the other hand, most of the ancestry and a lot of the culture was “indigenous.” The Indic culture we see in the Iron Age is clearly a synthesis, which was present even in the Vedic corpus.

Also, in the annals of self-promotion, I had some free posts on my Substack before Christmas:

The Age of Genetic Engineering Begins

The Original Chinese Man

Applying IQ to IQ

Your Roots are Showing

In Gods We Trusted

* Something I point out to people is that this assumes that the steppe people arrived from Khorasan unmixed. If the Indo-Aryans who arrived in the Punjabs already mixed with Iranian peoples in their sojourn then the fraction is an underestimate, though I doubt it is 2-fold.

We’re going to have Glenn Loury on on this Sunday’s Browncast. It was a fun conversation. Already up for patrons, and I also cross-posted to my Substack, because I think it’s such an interesting conversation.

Loury is one of the most important public intellectuals alive today. He speaks for many, many, people. Many people in science who are not on the far Left follow his work closely because he knocks down the shibboleths of preference falsification. If you can, I recommend anyone to be a patron of the Glenn Show.

I have a bunch of samples of people who say their four grandparents were born in India from DTC companies. I plotted them on 1000 Genomes with a focus on India. No Southern Dalits in the same for sure.

Two BP Podcasts, one after another. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

You can also support the podcast as a patron. The primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else. This website isn’t about shaking the cup, but I have noticed that the number of patrons plateaued a long time ago.

First, I talk to Karol Karpinski. Karol lived in Dhaka for two years in the mid-2010s. Most of our conversation was around economics since he is an economist, but he also mentions his brush with the tragic events of the Dhaka Isis attack.

Second, to Abhinav Prakash on the farmer protests. Mukunda joins in. Abhinav’s view is that this is basically a rentier class strike.

Going to interview Tim Mackintosh-Smith today for the Brown Pundits podcast. He’s the excellent author of Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes, and Empires.

I’ve posted a podcast with Karol Karpinski for patrons. Karol was stationed in Dhaka with the World Bank, and we talk about his experiences (which includes unfortunate proximity to the outbreak of ISIS-related violence in Bangladesh).

Remember the Brown Pundits reddit channel. It’s starting to finally take off. The link is always at the top-right.

I’m on the road now, so this is prescheduled. Hope Americans had a good Thanksgiving.

For those who are asking, I’m keeping the Patreon because I allocate it to Brown Pundits related costs (hosting podcasts, recording software, etc.). I will be cross-posting some, but not all, podcasts from my paid Substack.

So I did an AMA on IndiaSpeaks. Someone is now trying to set me up with one on the “India” subreddit.

My substack is up.

My kids learned about Diwali this week and did some chalk-art from motifs they found. Kind of funny since I didn’t know what “Diwali” was until I was in my 20s.