Razib Khan - Genomics, Intelligence, and The Church of Science

1. 0:00 – 0:46

   Intro

   1. RKRazib Khan0:00

      So, the tweet was, the parishioner would be like the person involved in laboratory, their research institution and God is the truth. And if you're not there for the truth, uh, eventually the l- the institution's not going to make it. It's just gonna kind of dissolve because at the end of the day, if you don't have passion for research, if you don't have passion for the truth, uh, like what's the point? I don't know. England just seemed like the United States, but whiter.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel0:26

      Uh, but by the way, can you guess my jati?

   3. RKRazib Khan0:28

      Uh, well, I mean, I know you're Guju, right?

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel0:30

      Uh-huh.

   5. RKRazib Khan0:31

      Are you like half Patel, half Baniya? I'm just guessing.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel0:34

      Yeah, yeah.

   7. RKRazib Khan0:35

      Did I guess right?

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel0:36

      Yeah, yeah. Th- that's exactly right.

   9. RKRazib Khan0:39

      (laughs)

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel0:39

       (laughs)

   11. RKRazib Khan0:39

       How did I do that? I don't even know, man. (upbeat music)

2. 0:46 – 2:15

   Razib's Background

   1. RKRazib Khan0:46

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel0:47

      All right. Today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Razib Khan. He's one of the top science bloggers in the world. Um, he writes about genetics, history and evolution on his blog, Unsupervised Learnings, and he has a podcast of the same name. Um, and you can find it at razib.substack.com. So, uh, Razib, thanks for coming on the podcast.

   3. RKRazib Khan1:05

      Oh, it's my pleasure, man.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel1:07

      Yeah, yeah. So can you, can you give my audience a little bit of background about you, uh, how you got into all this stuff?

   5. RKRazib Khan1:12

      Yeah. Um, you know, I've always been interested in topics like history, uh, demographics, et cetera. And, um, I've also been interested in science. I have a scientific background, scientific training. And over the last 20 years, uh, genetics has become just a really big deal, uh, in terms of, you know, just as a tool to do various things, whether it's in the biomedical space or historical inference. And, um, you know, so obviously I'm interested in demographics, historical inference and, um, you know, uh, genetics is a tool I can use as a geneticist. And so I do. Um, so, you know, like, uh, like, like as we're recording right now, I, um, decide to do a bunch of pairwise genetic distances between populations and stuff just because I could for a post, you know? So, uh, you know, I- I- I do a lot of the things by myself where I replicate what's been done. Um, yeah, so I mean, that- that's a lot of what I do. Yeah.

3. 2:15 – 5:04

   Dysgenics of Intelligence

   1. RKRazib Khan2:15

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel2:15

      Okay. Interesting. Um, all right, so I'd, I'd just like to jump into it. So, uh, my first question is, assuming there's no gene editing, uh, in the near future, what is the long-term equilibrium for intelligence look like? So there's like multiple visions, right? Like one, one view is like, you know, Charles Murray in Coming Apart. You have, uh, ha- you know, you have fat tails because there's assortative mating. Another is there's like a slight dysgenic effect because there's lower fertility among, uh, higher intelligence people. Um, so what does the equil- equilibrium look like if there's no gene editing?

   3. RKRazib Khan2:43

      Hmm. More like the second? Uh, in terms of not in equilibrium yet, uh, we're not gonna have an equilibrium until, you know, the reproductive differentials equilibrate. They will at some point, you know, but it could be centuries. Um, so like at this point, um, people with genes for educational attainment tend to delay childbearing to the point where a lot of them do not have children, you know? Uh, because they invest in educational attainment in the short term. So, you know, they don't have as many children and their generation times are longer. Like the math is difficult there, right? Um, so, uh, right now there's strong negative selection. Not strong. There's, there's negative selection on genes for educational attainment. I mean, everyone who's looked at it says that, at least in the developed world.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel3:32

      Right.

   5. RKRazib Khan3:32

      Yeah.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel3:33

      I- is this something we can expect in the long term? Because like naively I would expect like, eh, people who are more intelligent l- a- as long as there's, you know, some sort of selection pressure in the long term, um, you know, like there should be selection for, um, I guess, educated smart, uh, people because it- they, they will just have the cognitive tools to, uh, you know, actually, uh, reproduce or, you know, survive and thrive, right? E- e- as long as like some smart people want to survive and thrive.

   7. RKRazib Khan4:02

      Yeah, I mean, yeah, survive and thrive is one thing, but have a repro- have repro- have offspring is a different thing. (laughs) Uh-

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel4:10

      Yeah.

   9. RKRazib Khan4:10

      ... you know, the incentives in our society, um, are such that a lot of people believe that thriving is being childfree or, you know, what usually happens I think is people want to establish themselves in their 20s and they don't want to put too many, too much thought... I mean, at least, you know, professional, managerial, you know, college-educated people. And then in their 30s they start thinking about it and sometimes people wait too long. Uh, there's ferti- fertility issues or just, they just wait too long, they can't find someone else, you know. So, um, yeah, in the, in the long term obviously there's a limit, there's a limiting principle. But you don't need to be that bright to, you know, survive and have a lot of children. And on the contrary, um, there's clear evidence that, uh, not being bright is good for your reproductive output. So, you know?

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel4:54

       Yeah. Um-

   11. RKRazib Khan4:55

       There's a movie about that in 2006, so...

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel4:59

       Uh, uh, what- the movie, the movie is called 2006?

   13. RKRazib Khan5:02

       No, in 2006, Idiocracy,

4. 5:04 – 9:39

   Endogamy and Genetic traits in India

   1. RKRazib Khan5:04

      so...

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel5:04

      Oh, I see. (laughs) Um, what explains the level of endogamy you see in, um, between Indian jatis, uh, like Indian subcastes?

   3. RKRazib Khan5:13

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel5:13

      Because you have a very excellent, uh, blog post about this and-

   5. RKRazib Khan5:16

      Yeah.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel5:16

      So the... A- apparently as we say there's genetic evidence that for thousands of years that these, these jatis-

   7. RKRazib Khan5:22

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel5:22

      ... like living in the same village, you know, they're not intermarrying, they're not having-

   9. RKRazib Khan5:25

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel5:25

       ... kids together. Um, you know, even within the context of like, you know, slaves in America, this is not a thing that happens, right?

   11. RKRazib Khan5:31

       Yeah, yeah.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel5:32

       Like you have Sally Hemings, uh, w- you know, uh, Thomas Jefferson's, um, mistress.

   13. RKRazib Khan5:37

       Yeah.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel5:37

       So, I, like I- I don't... How- how is it possible for thousands of year... What kind of social structure could lead to this?

   15. RKRazib Khan5:42

       Yeah, nobody really knows, uh, is the short answer. So the, the math is like, you know, there's like, there's evidence from, uh, from Andhra Pradesh, south India. David Reich looked at it and it's like if you run the math it's like, oh, like their endogamy rate is like, you know, point f- you know, it's like 99.5% per generation. Like, you know, super high. So I mean, you know, when, when I was younger, um...... you know, the endogamy rate for like Black Americans was like 95%, which is high.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel6:15

       Mm-hmm.

   17. RKRazib Khan6:15

       And today it's like 85%, you know? But, you know, 5% is like ten times bigger than what I'm talking about, you know?

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel6:24

       Yeah.

   19. RKRazib Khan6:24

       So yeah, like you said, uh, average Black American is 20% European in ancestry, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, it's just like there's really high barriers in the Indian subcontinent. In terms of like how it can be maintained, one thing that I- I wonder about is, um, infanticide?

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel6:38

       Hmm.

   21. RKRazib Khan6:39

       Um, perhaps. I mean, maybe just like social taboos, uh, reproductive fitness is really low, I don't know. I- I- It doesn't, uh, you know, for humans it doesn't make sense, but the- the data is what it is. Um, Indians just are really good at endogamy for some reason. Um, you know, whereas in other populations, the general pattern is, um, you know, I mean, you see someone you're like, "Uh, they're fine." You know?

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel7:11

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. RKRazib Khan7:11

       One thing leads to an- you know, it's just like- that's- you know, this isn't, uh ... it's not rocket science, it's universal human nature, right?

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel7:19

       Mm-hmm.

   25. RKRazib Khan7:19

       (laughs) But, uh, somehow Indians were able to escape that. No one know really- no one really knows why. I mean, I've had multiple, um, geneticists come up to me and be like, "What's up with this?" And I'm just like, "I don't know." And it's like, "Why are you asking me?" And I ... you know, like, "Well, I mean," (laughs) you know, "you're brown, so maybe you know." It's like they're trying to figure out whether there's a secret sauce here because it's just not, it doesn't make any sense for a, uh, for a mammal where the males in particular are highly, um, polygynous.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel7:45

       Right.

   27. RKRazib Khan7:45

       You know? In ideal, so.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel7:48

       Uh, I mean, are there any hypotheses out there about trying to explain this?

   29. RKRazib Khan7:52

       Not really.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel7:53

       Uh, have you seen any?
5. 9:39 – 15:09

   Similar Examples of Endogamy

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel9:39

      Um, uh, speaking of Ashkenazi Jews, so I- I- I thought your, uh, I thought your post on that was very interesting. And, you know, you talk about how, um, you know, before, before Jews were, uh, kind of liberated in Europe in the 18th century, or sorry, was it 19th century? There just wasn't that much-

   2. RKRazib Khan9:53

      Yeah, early 19th.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel9:54

      ... Jewish a- yep. Um, uh, there, there, there wasn't, uh, that much Jewish achievement. And it kind of made me wonder, are there like, are there some other, uh, population groups in the world today that are, uh, that were bottlenecked by a similar process, um, uh, who are also very endogamous? That, you know, once they get to a point of prosperity and, uh, and liberation that Jews went through in 19th century, you know, in the future, we'll just be talking about how they're outputting, uh, a greater portion of the world's cultural heritage. Um, like, uh, i- i- you know, like c- parts of the world that are just going through industrialization now, and might have like small populations like Ashkenazi Jews, right?

   4. RKRazib Khan10:31

      Yeah.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel10:32

      Um, is there potential for like a new Ashkenazi Jew in the next century or two is like I guess what I'm asking?

   6. RKRazib Khan10:36

      So what you need ... So Ashkenazi Jews are highly endogamous, were.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel10:40

      Yeah.

   8. RKRazib Khan10:41

      And, um, you know, they, they emerged in the context of Central East Europe as a middleman minority. Um, you know, what, what the whole thing is like, you know, uh, Hareidi Jews dress like Polish nobles, you know, 'cause they worked for these Polish nobles as factors and tax collectors and administrators and whatnot. Um, so I guess you have to look for something like that. Um, one, you know, this isn't totally equivalent because, uh, endogamy is not a big issue here, but like the Fujianese, you know? Uh, Chinese from Fujian have traditionally-

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel11:14

      Uh-huh.

   10. RKRazib Khan11:14

       ... done better on examinations going back 1,000 years, going back to the Song dynasty. Uh, so there were like, um, affirmative action quotas on people from Fujian.

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel11:23

       Yeah. (laughs)

   12. RKRazib Khan11:23

       So if you look at, like, who ... So Fujiang people basically, a lot of the rich Chinese, not all obviously, um, but, you know, traditionally like, uh, in Hong Kong, uh, the elite families are, um, you know, Shanghainese, some Fujianese. And so like these coastal, southeast coastal people, uh, in China have traditionally been extremely enterprising. And central government in China has often clamped down on them. Obviously this government is not. Um, the modern economy cannot. And so I think these, these populations might come into their own, you know?

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel11:59

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RKRazib Khan11:59

       Yeah.

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel11:59

       Al- although, hey, didn't you write somewhere else that there, uh, the Chinese government for a long time ... Like not just, you know, the CCP, but like, I guess China d- uh, you know, in Chinese history there's been, uh, many instances of the government trying to, um, get rid of like genetically distinct groups by, I guess, breeding them into the larger stock. So potentially that reduces the odds of some, uh, you know, outlier endogamous group.

   16. RKRazib Khan12:25

       Yeah. So in China, the only equivalent, eh, like, like, that you would see in Ashkenazi Jews are the Hakka in South China.

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel12:32

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RKRazib Khan12:32

       And the Hakka are descended from northern Chinese migrants, and so they speak like a dialect of Mandarin. Um, northern Chinese, you know, dialect in the south, like in Guangdong-

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel12:44

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RKRazib Khan12:44

       ... uh, where the Cantonese and Taishanese are. And, you know, they, they still kind of tend to intermar- I mean, they're, they're, they're spatially isolated. But, you know, again, like, um, the Hakka, uh, the Hakka are not like Ashkenazi Jews in, in having an ideological reason for their endogamy. Uh, you know, Chinese, uh, lineages, to some extent like Indian lineages, but, um, are paternal, you know. Um, so your identity and who you are, your clan is determined by who your father is. So, um, you know, that's... I mean, you might have a lower status if your mother is an ethnic minority, like Zhuang or Uyghur or something like that, but, you know-

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel13:23

       Mm-hmm.

   22. RKRazib Khan13:23

       ... informally, but still officially, you're part of the clan. And so, that's I think how assimilation has happened. Genetically, people of Guangdong, like the Cantonese, like, they have a minority of, um, you know, indigenous or south, south ethnic group, you know, uh, ancestry. Some of their practices are clearly not Han Chinese, especially like, um, certain marriage practices, certain things that women do. Um, and most of the gene flow's probably from females, from non, from non-Han that were assimilated in the area. So yeah, Han, the Han-

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel13:57

       Oh, interesting.

   24. RKRazib Khan13:57

       ... identity is very assimilative.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel13:59

       Um, uh-

   26. RKRazib Khan13:59

       North of, um, north of the Yangtze, pretty much every Han sample that I have has a little bit of West Eurasian ancestry. South of the Yangtze, none of them have it. And so I think most of that West Eurasia's probably assimilated Mongols and, and other things like that. 'Cause the Mongols are about 10%-

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel14:15

       In what? Uh-huh.

   28. RKRazib Khan14:15

       Assimilated Mongol, yeah.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel14:17

       Uh-huh.

   30. RKRazib Khan14:17

       I think that's what it is. 'Cause the Mongols are about 10% West Eurasian, uh, and the tell for me is, um, a l- you know, like, about 1% of northern Chinese Han men have, uh, R1A, maybe .5%. It's not super high, but, um, R1A is, you know, mostly found in Indo-Iranians and Slavs. And Mongols have it, they have the Indo-Iranian version, because they assimilated Scythians and Sarmatians and other Iranian steppe people. So I think that's probably where that comes into the Chinese, and, you know, you can go back to, um, the Toba Turks and, and other groups after the fall of the Han dynasty, you know, 1500, or actually 1700 years ago, 17, 18- 1800 years ago. Um, and I think that's when they started introducing that genetic element into northern China.
6. 15:09 – 20:36

   Why So Many Brahmin CEO's

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel15:09

      uh, by, by the way, so there's, uh, going back to India, there's been a lot of talk about how, uh, a lot of American CEOs of big tech companies are Indian, specifically, uh, from, you know, uh, from Brahmin jatis. Um, is there, is there some particular reason that, that, that seems to be happening?

   2. RKRazib Khan15:25

      Wait, what, what seems to happe- Can you repeat that again?

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel15:27

      Well, why are a lot of, uh, big tech CEOs Indians, and specifically, a lot of them from, uh, Brahmin c- uh, you know, uh, Brahmins?

   4. RKRazib Khan15:36

      Yeah. Well, the guy from TikTok's not. He's Bania.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel15:40

      Uh-huh.

   6. RKRazib Khan15:40

      Um, well, I mean, I think the, the, the In- the Indian explanation, which you probably know is, like, Brahmins are literate, they're symbolic manipulators. Um, and so obviously, you know, if you work at Microsoft or Google, um... And they tend to be particularly South Indian Brahmins, actually, uh, as opposed to North Indian Brahmins. There aren't that many of those. Um, and s- and this goes back to the colonial period, actually, um-

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel16:03

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RKRazib Khan16:03

      ... South Indian Brahmins would migrate to the cities in North India to work in the Indian civil service. You know, the reverse would not happen. So, um, you know, this is like a longstanding issue, or issue, a phenomenon, of South Indian English-speaking Brahmin elites in particular, uh, availing themselves of technology, higher education, um, you know, Tamil Brahmins, for example, are very well represented in engineering and software, and that's obviously the pipeline that Indian Americans are going in, into as CEOs, highly overrepresented. Um, you know, so I think, um, you know, the CEO of Microsoft and the CEO of Google are both South Indian Brahmins. I think they're both Telugu Brahmins. There's some, there's some, like, debates, I think, whether, um, whether the guy at Microsoft, uh, is a Brahmin online, 'cause I don't know. Uh, I can't tell these sorts of things. I mean, I can, but not like... I don't have like a good instinct, you know what I'm saying? But, um-

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel17:03

      Mm-hmm.

   10. RKRazib Khan17:03

       ... anyway, yeah, so I think Brahmins are, you know, like Ashkenazi Jews, you know, they analogize themselves, particularly South Indian Brahmins. I think we do have to distinguish that, 'cause I, you know... You know, like, when have you heard about like a Gujju Brahmin or a UP Brahmin? You know, it's like, those people just stay where they are, you know, they're not, um... You know, they're, they're local landed elites, but they're not-

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel17:23

       Ah.

   12. RKRazib Khan17:24

       ... like, well known outside of the Indian subcontinent or, you know, to be honest, within the Indian subcontinent from what I can see.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel17:30

       Uh, w- what explains that? I mean, I... So I read, um, uh, I read a part of Satya- you know, he's the Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, and he, he talked about how his, like, uh, da- uh, parents were like these Marxist philosophers, uh, b- or, you know, f- Brahmin philosophers. Um, but anyway, so, so what explains, um, well, what explains why these North Indians were, I guess, uh, complacent and, uh, these, uh, South Indians were availing themselves of, uh, you know, the, the resources that Mm-hmm.

   14. RKRazib Khan17:54

       ... rich colonial government- Yeah, so I think in UP, UP and Bihar in particular, the elites, they tend to be l- they tend to like to be big fish in small ponds.

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel18:01

       Uh-huh.

   16. RKRazib Khan18:02

       So it's not like there's like Rajput Thakurs all over the world either from UP, right?

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel18:05

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RKRazib Khan18:06

       Uh, Punjab is different. Um, there's a lot of Punjabis all over the world of various groups. Uh, you know, a lot of Jats, uh, they're agricultural s- farmers in Central Valley, Khatris all over the place, you know. Um, in contrast in UP, Bihar, these North Indian states, um, there's just like, there's less dynamism, less cultural dynamism. The behavioral economic literature shows like a real strong preference for zero sum gains, um, wanting to be-

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel18:30

       Mm-hmm.

   20. RKRazib Khan18:30

       ... like at the, um, at the pinnacle of the local... This is not always true, you know, but, uh, uh, they prefer to be at the pinnacle of the local, uh, power structure rather than taking a risk going into somewhere else where they...... might not be at the peak. You know, they might be way well, more well off in the aggregate, but, you know, they wouldn't be at the peak. And so for example, someone like, um, like Chandrasekhar of Chandrasekhar Limit, he's a Tamil Brahmin by background. Obviously he settled in the United States eventually, but, um, you know, I think he was born in Lahore. His dad was working for the Indian Civil Service. And, you know, if you read his biography, there's ... They experienced like some kind of, like, discrimination, you know, prejudice being South Indians in the North. And then Chandrasekhar went to United States and this was during the time of segregation, you know, and they tried to, like, put him in the Blacks only area in St. Louis, like, for some, uh, sports game. And just, like, all sorts of things that happened, you know. And then he experienced prejudice at the hands of, I think, like, Arthur Eddington, in particular, was, was pretty pre- b- prejudiced against Indians and their ability to contribute to physics. So, um-

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel19:41

       Is that the guy who, uh, proved, uh, Einstein's, uh, or the-

   22. RKRazib Khan19:45

       Yeah.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel19:45

       ... proved relativity, right? Okay. Right.

   24. RKRazib Khan19:47

       Yeah, yeah. I think empirically. Yeah, yeah. So ...

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel19:49

       Yeah?

   26. RKRazib Khan19:49

       But I mean, I mean, at least that's Chandrasekhar's take. Like, you know, we don't know if it's, like, 100% true that Eddington was really, you know ... Who knows? 'Cause sometimes it turns out that there's personal beefs going on. I don't think Eddington ever told his side. He died a long time ago. Chandrasekhar lived un- until, like, I think was it, like, until 10 years ago? I think he died 10 years ago. Yeah. I think. Let's see. Oh, no, not 10 years ago. Like, 1995, so a while though.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel20:21

       Yeah.

   28. RKRazib Khan20:22

       Yeah. '95, so 25 years ago.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel20:24

       Mm-hmm.

   30. RKRazib Khan20:24

       But yeah, I mean, he was still, I mean, so he was still around when I was in high school. I remember someone did a report on him and, you know, it was hard to find information back then, but, you know, you could. He was still around giving quotes. So,

7. 20:36 – 25:45

   Razib the Globe Trotter, Geography Expert

   1. RKRazib Khan20:36

      yeah.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel20:37

      Um, does the work you do involve a lot of traveling? I mean, you're writing about all these different ar- areas of the world, uh, and, you know, their-

   3. RKRazib Khan20:44

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel20:45

      ... um, uh, anthropological and genetic history. Uh, but I wonder if that, uh, if that requires you or if it helps you to, like, just travel to all these places. Or are you able to do that just from, uh, just from here?

   5. RKRazib Khan20:56

      No, actually I do most of it in the United States. I mean, I have traveled a little bit, but not too much. I'm not a big traveler internationally. I'm not a, you know, I'm not ... Yeah, I don't, I don't do that. Um, some people do. You know, Spencer Wells, who I worked with, former boss, uh, he's, you know, traveled all over the world and, you know, with National Geographic and stuff. And that, that adds a lot of local color in terms of things you see, things you know. Whenever we talked about the Eurasian Steppe, he's been there a lot. So, um, you know, he can add a lot to that. Um, there's a few places. Um, if, if, if ... I mean, I don't know if you read the Finland series? I've been to Finland, you know.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel21:32

      Mm-hmm.

   7. RKRazib Khan21:32

      So there are certain things that I know about Finland. I've been to Finland. I've been to Italy. I don't know, England just seemed like the United States, but whiter. You know? So ...

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel21:43

      (laughs)

   9. RKRazib Khan21:43

      I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't like, "Ooh," like, "Whoa," like, "I really understand the British people now." Just like, "Okay, they're drinking a lot." Uh, I think I've, I think I am not surprised by that, just judging by ... You know, like all those British sitcoms and TV shows where they're, like, drinking in the morning? I get it now. You know? So ...

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel22:00

       Huh. Yeah. So tha- that's what, that's one thing I was wondering is, uh, knowing all that you know about, uh, the history of these different places, do you feel that y- uh, when you visit a place or when you learn more about a place, that you're like, "Oh, I, I, what they're doing today, that makes sense to me, like, why it, why it is the way it is, g- n- given what I know about, you know, the, the roots of-

   11. RKRazib Khan22:19

       Uh-

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel22:20

       ... wha- what happened in that place thousands of years ago?"

   13. RKRazib Khan22:21

       Sometimes. Sometimes.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel22:21

       Or does it feel that it just kind of random?

   15. RKRazib Khan22:24

       No, it's not random. Sometimes I do. I mean, th- there's sometimes where it's like, you know, someone does this or their family does this and I'm like, "Oh, it's 'cause of this." And they're like, "What? Oh." You know? Like, they don't ... 'Cause you don't know the antecedents of, you know, we don't know the antecedents of everything we do. And so a lot of times-

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel22:39

       Mm-hmm.

   17. RKRazib Khan22:39

       ... I do and, you know, I mean, the thing was, like, you know, for example, like, um, Americans are really ignorant in geography. So, uh, um, so 2019, I'm at a scientific con- conference in American Society of Human Genetics. You know, I'm meeting these people, you know, you're just networking, you're meeting ... Um, so I'm at this, uh, Chinese geneticist, uh, she's, I think she's in grad school in the United States and I was like, "Oh," like, "Where are you from?" She was just like, "Oh, I'm from a city between Beijing and Guangdong." Like, exactly in the middle. Okay. So here's my, my train of thought. Uh, so I immediately blurt out Wuhan. And she was like, "Whoa, how'd you guess that?" You know? Okay, so one, she was shocked that I knew what Wuhan, that I knew of Wuhan, right?

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel23:20

       Uh-huh.

   19. RKRazib Khan23:20

       'Cause most Americans don't. Two, Shanghai's in the middle, but if she was from Shanghai, she would say Shanghai. So it had to be another city. I happened to know that there's a high speed li- rail line between, um, Beijing and Guangdong, uh, between Guangzhou and, uh, its, its middle point is Wuhan. So I knew Wuhan was exactly in the middle, right? And so I was like, you know, these are the sort of things ... I mean, it's like, ooh, like in America and it's, like, super amazing 'cause we don't know any geography. Like, her friend was like, you know, I was, like, looking at them, I was like, "Oh, you're, you're pretty tall." Like, you know, "Are you from North China?" And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm from the east." And I'm like-

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel23:57

       (laughs)

   21. RKRazib Khan23:57

       "... Shandong." And then he was just like, "Whoa, how'd you know that?" and I'm like, "Well, it's the easternmost province." (laughs) I mean-

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel24:02

       (laughs)

   23. RKRazib Khan24:02

       ... I mean, it's just an educated ... Do you know what I'm saying? If someone's like, if someone's like-

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel24:06

       Mm-hmm.

   25. RKRazib Khan24:06

       ... uh, has, like, um ... They're talking about chowder, you know, and drinking tonic-

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel24:12

       Uh-huh.

   27. RKRazib Khan24:12

       ... and it's, like, wicked smart and I'm just like, "Are you from Boston?" They're like, "Whoa."

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel24:17

       (laughs)

   29. RKRazib Khan24:17

       "That's wicked crazy. How'd you know that?" And I'm just like, "Uh ..." (laughs) You know what I'm saying? But it's because, because I know, like, everybody outside of America rightfully assumes that Americans do not know anything about where they're from. Like, nothing. You know?

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel24:32

       Yeah.
8. 25:45 – 30:45

   Male/Female Genetic Variance

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel25:45

      always wondered, like, w- why is that the case? Because you would... So is, is there some... There must be some mechanism that like just increases the variation. Um, like, you know, gives you a higher odds of being a genius, but at the cost of higher odds of also being an idiot. Um, that is like more activated in men, right? Like w- what, why... What is the trade-off that, um, involves, uh... I- if you activate this trade off, you might have a higher odds of becoming a genius, but also a higher odds of becoming an idiot.

   2. RKRazib Khan26:12

      Yeah. Um, so I mean, you gotta like BS a little bit about the molecular mechanism or like... I haven't looked at it in detail in a while, but one of the hypotheses is, for example, we have one X chromosome. So with X chromosomes, normally with women, um, there's, uh, inactivation of one X chromosome-

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel26:30

      Mm-hmm.

   4. RKRazib Khan26:30

      ... randomly in the cell, right? Or in the tissue or whatever, in the tissue region, Barr bodies, right? So every cell has an X chromosome and they tend to clump where it's like they're these like Barr bodies, like X chromosomes that are inactivated. They're not expressing, they're like, like euchromatic. Okay. People are gonna be like, "Oh my God, like he's getting euchromatic and heterochromatic mixed." I always get them mixed up. Okay. I'm not a molecular geneticist. But anyway, um, so like one of the X chromosomes has to inactivate, and that's random. Okay? So let's say, um, a woman has like a major mutation in the X chromosome, you know that like she has another copy, right? But, you know, it could be that in that cell there's a malfunction because the other copy is the one that's inactivated, the one that's functional. Now, if you're a man, there's no choice. It's only one X chromosome.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel27:18

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RKRazib Khan27:20

      Right? So obviously that's limiting the degrees of freedom, right? And so if that's good copy, if it's got some good stuff going on there, well that's good. But if it's got bad stuff going on there, well you're, you're screwed. So, I mean, the easiest explanation for why the... at the low end men have problems is probably, okay, well, we have a load of deleterious alleles on our X chromosomes-

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel27:45

      Ah.

   8. RKRazib Khan27:45

      ... that are not masked, 'cause we only have one of them, right? So that's one thing. Um, in terms of we are the heterogametic sex, so we're the sex that has like... So in, in birds I think it's the opposite, or I know it is the opposite. Um, females are the heterogametic sex, the sex determination happens through them. And males have like the equivalent of two Xs. I think it's ZW and I think the males are ZZ. Anyway, um, so that's one issue. And when you think developmentally, you know, we all start out as females, the female is the template. Um, a- and so men have to go through extra processes. So the end of life is the opposite. Like women go through menopause, which is a proactive physiological shutdown, not just like a long slow decline like we go through in our reproductive processes. But at the beginning of life, I think it's the end of the first trimester, we go through this testosterone burst, right? SRY, the sex, um, you know, uh, you know, the sex chromosome, the, you know, the sex determining region kicks in and we become male, we become masculinized. So when you have a situation when you have extra developmental steps, hey, guess what? That can mess things up. Okay? So we also have higher testosterone. Testosterone is antagonistic to immune response. Um, so there are more males born than females, probably because the Y chromosome of the male, the sex... The sperm of a male Y chromosome is lighter than when it has an X chromosome. Okay? So probably male sperm, "male sperm" have an advantage in speed. There's about 104, 105 males born for 100 females. But in utero, there's a strong suspicion from people that have done like sampling on, um, miscarriage, miscarried fetuses, that males are overrepresented. So we actually start out with a bigger advantage. And we're already culled because of our genetic abnormality. Something on the order of like 10 to 50% of fetuses miscarry. Um, it's still kind of, uh, not clear what the total number is because it's really hard to track miscarriages early on, right?

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel29:57

      Mm-hmm.

   10. RKRazib Khan29:57

       Um, and so, so that, that explains like I think the downward, the low end. In terms of why there might be more male "geniuses," I think the way you might want to look at it is, there's really no reproductive value at the high end, it's just kind of like a freak thing. And, um, if we're less developmentally stable, uh, we can go off target a little bit more is the way I think of it.

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel30:22

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RKRazib Khan30:22

       There's no reason you need, you need to have your IQ be like once... There's no reason you need to be able to do algebraic topology easily. Okay?

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel30:30

       Yeah.

   14. RKRazib Khan30:30

       There's, there's no reason. And there, there is some evidence, there is some evidence in the genomic literature now with the most recent work that there is some enrichment for schizophrenia and other things with some of these educational attainment genes. Like some, there's some evidence.

9. 30:45 – 35:21

   Agricultural Man and Our Tiny Brains

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel30:46

      Yeah, uh, it, i- but is there some reason in the, um, ancestral environment why, I don't know, having a brain capable of algebraic topology would be advantageous? Like is there something that-

   2. RKRazib Khan30:56

      No.

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel30:56

      ... a human would need to do? Okay. And then-

   4. RKRazib Khan30:57

      No.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel30:57

      Uh, but, uh, i- i- it's, uh, a separate question, I guess, uh, you can answer it at the same time. It, it w- it, do we have an explanation for why brain size decreased by a, like, uh, m- what was it, uh, what d- it was 10% or something like that?

   6. RKRazib Khan31:08

      Something like it.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel31:08

      A- after the Ice Age?

   8. RKRazib Khan31:09

      Yeah, we're just smaller. So our-

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel31:10

      Yeah.

   10. RKRazib Khan31:10

       ... our bodies got smaller. Like it go- when, when it got warmer, we got smaller, but also agriculture seems to have given us really, really weak bones. We got-

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel31:19

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RKRazib Khan31:19

       ... more fragile, more gracile. We shrunk some with agriculture and so that, natural process of that is smaller brains. I bet you average nutrition probably decreased some, in, in terms of like quality as opposed to reliability and consistency, and that probably meant that, you know, smaller brain sizes are more optimal to survive, uh, through the famines. And we know smaller body sizes are.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel31:42

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RKRazib Khan31:42

       For sure. Um, we know small- smaller body sizes are. Um, there's been a lot of negative selection, uh, in Southern Europe and in Asia for small body size. And, um, last I checked, it seems pretty clear that people in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent are shorter genetically. And some of it is like East Asian ancestry, but like, I mean, just clearly like Bengalis are just a short people, you know?

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel32:07

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RKRazib Khan32:07

       Uh, if you just like meet like people from Bangladesh or West Bengal in the West and like, they're chubby AF 'cause they get lot to eat. So it's not like genetics, you know? Like I used to, when I was-

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel32:18

       Huh.

   18. RKRazib Khan32:18

       Or not, or not genetics, but like environment. I used to, like, I was, like when I was little, people would say like, "Oh, well, you know, people, pe- you know, your, your parents..." Because my dad's short. "Your, your parents didn't eat a lot of meat." And I was just like, "Okay." But like now that I know about genetics, nutrition and class background, I'm like, no, like my, my family, like, like, you know, like people were like obese in my family, like they had enough to eat. They didn't suffer-

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel32:41

       Yeah.

   20. RKRazib Khan32:41

       ... from the Bengal famine. And also my family's Muslim so they eat beef and they got protein. No, they're just short 'cause of genetics, you know? And why? Well, we know the Bangla- the Bengali populations in Bangladesh, they have cholera resistance, obviously 'cause, you know, the issues with flooding and water. Um, that's different than other South In- uh, Indian subcontinental populations. I, there's some reasons why they're small too. I don't know why, why w- why Bengalis are small, but that's obviously true.

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel33:07

       Uh, s- so sorry, what's the link between cholera and, uh, height? Or cholera resistance and height?

   22. RKRazib Khan33:10

       Oh, there's no link. I'm just saying like there's been studies in selection.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel33:13

       Uh-huh.

   24. RKRazib Khan33:13

       Uh, there's selection for resistance to cholera in Bengal.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel33:17

       Uh-huh.

   26. RKRazib Khan33:17

       It's one of the canonical examples, like the vibrio, whatever, like that, the, the microbe. There's clearly a strong selection because of the cholera, uh, over the last couple of centuries.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel33:26

       Yeah. And then what do you make of the self domestication hypothesis, the idea that there's like a, j- uh, there's a set of genes that, um, or that I guess-

   28. RKRazib Khan33:33

       Yeah.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel33:34

       ... th- they happen together, th- they're associated in many different mammals with, um, um, domestication, you know, like s- smaller-

   30. RKRazib Khan33:41

       Mm-hmm.
10. 35:21 – 43:14

    The Church of Science

    1. RKRazib Khan35:21

    2. DPDwarkesh Patel35:21

       Gotcha. Um, okay. So this morning you tweeted, um, "If everyone who attends a church thinks that the point of church is to bask in the worth of fellow parishioners rather than worshiping God, the church won't last long." And then you fol- followed it up-

    3. RKRazib Khan35:33

       Yeah.

    4. DPDwarkesh Patel35:33

       ... uh, with a tweet that said, uh, uh, and in parentheses, " (I'm not talking about religion) ." So I, I genuinely don't know, uh, w- what you were, uh, what you were referring in that tweet. I, I don't know if you m- meant, meant to keep it, uh, unsaid, but I was just kind of curious what you were referring to.

    5. RKRazib Khan35:46

       Yeah, I was being sarcastic and I was just having a discussion. Um, I- I'll tell you what it was. Was having a discussion with a scientist friend of mine and we were talking about collegiality-

    6. DPDwarkesh Patel35:55

       Mm-hmm.

    7. RKRazib Khan35:55

       ... uh, and truth and, um, you know, it's like sometimes, sometimes it seems like in science today, um, and this just, not just online but just in general, uh, you know, like the community, um, (laughs) and just like, you know, comfort I guess, uh, I don't know, is like prioritized and a lot of it's fake. Uh, you know, science is like, it is like, um, is like, uh, it's like, uh, it's like management consulting. It's up or out, you know? So all this stuff about like support and... It's just fake, right?

    8. DPDwarkesh Patel36:33

       Yeah.

    9. RKRazib Khan36:33

       Like 1% of, 1% of incoming graduate students will have like a tenured R1, research one-

    10. DPDwarkesh Patel36:40

        Right.

    11. RKRazib Khan36:40

        ... like top research one position, like, you know, a relevant one, right?

    12. DPDwarkesh Patel36:43

        Yeah.

    13. RKRazib Khan36:43

        So all this stuff about how, "We're here to support you," no. Like, "We're here to like separate the wheat from the chaff." So that's kind of like fake right there. But, you know, there's a lot of talk about, you know-... just kind of the community and not making people uncomfortable and inclusion and equity. And I'm just like, "Science is, like, super inequitous." Right? It's not like, it's not like, um, pe- it's not like pediatrics or something, right? Yeah, there are superstar pediatricians but look, the average pediatrician makes a difference and pediatrician's a pediatrician. In science, it, you have, like, a few superstars who... I mean, like, it's hyper Pareto principle, right?

    14. DPDwarkesh Patel37:22

        Mm-hmm.

    15. RKRazib Khan37:22

        Uh, it's not like the 20-80, it's like, you know, the five to 95, you know? So, um, anyway, it just looked a little strange there and, um, you know, the whole idea is, like, truth and, you know, I've... You know, I'm, I, I've just seen things where it's like, oh, like people are like, "That's just uncomfortable. You can't say that. That makes people blah, blah, blah." And I'm just like, I mean, one, it's a very, very winnowing profession. They haven't changed that no matter what you say. Like, you can repeat these mantras, but it doesn't matter. Like, it's a winnowing profession. And the other thing is, um, you know, like I said, science is here for the truth. Like, if that's not the primary focus, if you're here for, like, quality of life, well... You know? It... I don't know. Like, w- why are we funding it then? (laughs) You know, I don't know.

    16. DPDwarkesh Patel38:12

        Yeah.

    17. RKRazib Khan38:13

        You know? That doesn't make sense.

    18. DPDwarkesh Patel38:14

        Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it makes sense.

    19. RKRazib Khan38:15

        Yeah.

    20. DPDwarkesh Patel38:15

        I- i- it's not only unequal in the sense that, uh, there's like a Laffer curve where a small minority of scientists make the largest, uh, much larger portion of the total, uh, contribution to science. But it's also unequal, I think it was you who said this or wrote about this, I- I- I don't know where I saw this, but, um, professors, uh, the career professorship has the highest, um, heredity in the sense that the- the- the highest correlation between the parent being, uh-

    21. RKRazib Khan38:36

        Yeah, yeah.

    22. DPDwarkesh Patel38:36

        ... professor and the child being a professor. Yeah, I- I-

    23. RKRazib Khan38:38

        Yeah.

    24. DPDwarkesh Patel38:39

        Was that you? Yeah.

    25. RKRazib Khan38:40

        Uh, I didn't... I mean, I probably retweeted it. I mean, that's not, that's not obvious.

    26. DPDwarkesh Patel38:43

        Uh-huh.

    27. RKRazib Khan38:44

        I didn't talk about it extensively because I was like, "Okay, everyone knows this."

    28. DPDwarkesh Patel38:47

        Huh.

    29. RKRazib Khan38:47

        "Everybody in science knows this."

    30. DPDwarkesh Patel38:48

        Right.
11. 43:14 – 45:04

    Professorship, a family business

    1. DPDwarkesh Patel43:14

    2. RKRazib Khan43:14

       You know?

    3. DPDwarkesh Patel43:14

       Uh, there's this professor, uh, we both know, but I obviously I'm not gonna say who it is. Um, and y- y- so his, um, h- his, his, his kids, uh, also want to become, uh, professors. So it- it- it, um, uh, the, the, the, kid, uh, at day, um, just graduated, uh, high school. And then, so they had a, a peer reviewed published paper while they were in high school because, you know, obviously-

    4. RKRazib Khan43:37

       Mm-hmm.

    5. DPDwarkesh Patel43:37

       ... the professor had guided, uh, guided them so that they would be in a good position to become a professor, uh, themselves, right?

    6. RKRazib Khan43:43

       Mm-hmm.

    7. DPDwarkesh Patel43:43

       So when you consider that kind of advantage and someone who just goes into college, like, "Oh, this subject seems interesting to me. Maybe I should consider a graduate, uh, academic career here," obviously there's, like, no comparison in the l- i- in just the level of advantage you have if you, if you've b- been planning it out, uh, like that.

    8. RKRazib Khan43:57

       Yeah, I don't know. I, I don't know what's going on here. Um, I've talked to multiple friends who are, like, in postdoc level and they just talk about, like, they can see over the last 10 years a massive inflation in publication where they're postdocs now and, like, some of their graduate students have, like, two or three publications coming in.

    9. DPDwarkesh Patel44:17

       Mm-hmm.

    10. RKRazib Khan44:17

        And, like, they didn't have any publications until their, like, third or fourth year of graduate school. And they went to the same university as what's happening here. Um, you know, and we... I mean, you know this. Like, okay, like, in the past they didn't publish as much, but they did a lot of science. So this is, this is, like, one of those issues when you devise a metric-

    11. DPDwarkesh Patel44:35

        Yeah.

    12. RKRazib Khan44:35

        ... to measure something, eventually the metric gets distorted, right? It's just like a truism.

    13. DPDwarkesh Patel44:39

        Right.

    14. RKRazib Khan44:39

        Metric's getting distorted. There are people who are, like, producing... I mean, look, I mean, some of these researchers who are, like, who have, like, 30 papers a year, what, what, what? You know?

    15. DPDwarkesh Patel44:50

        (laughs)

    16. RKRazib Khan44:50

        I mean, you're not contribu- you're just- you're not really contributing to it, you know? So...

    17. DPDwarkesh Patel44:55

        Yeah, yeah.

    18. RKRazib Khan44:56

        Yeah.

    19. DPDwarkesh Patel44:56

        There's, like, uh, there's, like, full time bloggers who don't output as many blog posts as you are outputting papers, right? (laughs)

    20. RKRazib Khan45:03

        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

12. 45:04 – 53:23

    Long History

    1. DPDwarkesh Patel45:04

       Um-

    2. RKRazib Khan45:04

       I mean...

    3. DPDwarkesh Patel45:05

       Uh...

    4. RKRazib Khan45:06

       Yeah.

    5. DPDwarkesh Patel45:07

       Yeah. Um, okay. So y- y- within the spheres that I travel in, maybe that you travel in as well, on, like, ƒ:A adjust and stuff, there's this idea that we are living in a, like, a very important time in history and then th- there's, like, um, there's, like, a step function, right? So that you have, like, different steps, like agriculture, domestication, metallurgy-

    6. RKRazib Khan45:26

       Mm-hmm.

    7. DPDwarkesh Patel45:26

       ... um, ind- industrialization and, like, w- we're at another step right now. Um, so I, I, uh, from all the people I know, you, you know the most about history, especially ancient history. Um, so do you view history as a sort of, um, uh, a series of step functions, each one, uh, the newest one more important than the last? Or do you view it as just, like, a sort of gradual exponential curve? Like, what is your view of...

    8. RKRazib Khan45:48

       Mm-hmm.

    9. DPDwarkesh Patel45:48

       ... your long view of history?

    10. RKRazib Khan45:50

        (sighs) I think it's mostly gradual. Uh, we, we reify it into a step, but I think we might actually be at a step now.

    11. DPDwarkesh Patel46:01

        Mm-hmm.

    12. RKRazib Khan46:02

        I mean, e- e- if the slope is steep enough, it's a step, right?

    13. DPDwarkesh Patel46:07

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RKRazib Khan46:08

        Um, so I think we might be at a step now. Um, and there have been steps in the past, but mostly we reify... So the Industrial Revolution, my understanding from economic history is, is really more gradual and exponential, uh, than, like, "revolution." Agriculture was probably like that as well. Uh, Peter Turchin's work with some of his collaborators indicates that the Axial Age was actually more gradual. Um, some of the coalescing of ideas, it wasn't, like, a step within one century, you know, around 600 BC or whatever. So, um, you know, th- this is just a situation where most of the time I think we, we tend to, like, simplify it as a step, but, you know, um, you know, right now we live in an age of miracles that we don't take for granted because, you know, me, you, everybody, we're just, we're scrambling. You know, we have super computers in our pockets, they're called phones. You know, we're doing, you know, science fictional video stuff and, uh, my kids, uh, who are, like... My oldest kid is, say, 10. My youngest is, like, five, right? Something like that. And so they're, they're a little dubious about this idea. Sometimes you use the phone, uh, for these non-video calls, and they're very confused why people would do that, and they're very skeptical of this idea that that's what this phone was actually originally designed for.

    15. DPDwarkesh Patel47:29

        (laughs)

    16. RKRazib Khan47:29

        You know? So I mean-

    17. DPDwarkesh Patel47:31

        Yeah.

    18. RKRazib Khan47:31

        ... like, this is to the point where it's like, okay, like... And, like, also, like, they, um, they see a flip phone and they're very confused of how that could be a phone, like, "What is this ancient technology from 2007?" You know? So...

    19. DPDwarkesh Patel47:43

        Mm-hmm.

    20. RKRazib Khan47:43

        It's just like, you know, 'cause we have, like, a, like a lot of people, we have, like, a desk full of phones, o- old phones that we never threw away 'cause of whatever, right? Um, and so, like, you know, my, my kids saw the phone and they were like, "What is this thing?" And like, "It's cool." And they're like... I'm like, "Oh, that's a phone." And they're like, "No, but a phone's a square," you know?

    21. DPDwarkesh Patel48:02

        (laughs)

    22. RKRazib Khan48:02

        And, um, they have an old rotary, like, f- toy phone, um, they traditionally use it as a hammer. You know? It's just like they don't really know what the, the form factor... It's totally, like, weird for them. So, you know, um, we are living through a radical change in terms of, you know, like, our social technology, our information technology, like most of your viewers probably know Kurzweil, information technology is exponential.

    23. DPDwarkesh Patel48:26

        Yeah.

    24. RKRazib Khan48:27

        So there's some radical changes going on right now and we need to, um, think about what that means 'cause I think we're, like, you know... I mean, VR is gonna be a big deal. So I, I, I have said, like, I did say 20 years ago probably, um, 'cause we, again, like, you know, I know people... Hope Holden will be okay with me saying that. I've known Holden for 15 years, you know? Uh, Holden Karnofsky, I think he's-

    25. DPDwarkesh Patel48:51

        Mm-hmm.

    26. RKRazib Khan48:51

        ... you know, might be one of the people you're talking about about this century.

    27. DPDwarkesh Patel48:55

        Yeah.

    28. RKRazib Khan48:55

        And I said, like, this might be, like, the last century of humans in a way that we would recognize or it might be a century of regression.I- I think that we are in a meta-stable state right now where, I mean, I'm looking at you right now and you look like a primate, you know? And you are a primate, you know?

    29. DPDwarkesh Patel49:16

        Yeah.

    30. RKRazib Khan49:16

        But like, you have access to all this technology. Like, what's going on? You know what I'm saying?
13. 53:23 – 57:11

    Future of Human, Computer Interfacing

    1. DPDwarkesh Patel53:23

       Uh, um, oh, so, uh, going back to, you made a very interesting comment about like we're at a point where- where you- you're using our computers to do magic, but the person behind that computer is a primate. Um, so do you see, knowing what you know about genetics and, uh, the potential malleability of our genetics, do you see the future iteration as, um, as us adding onto or modifying or selecting on the same biological substrate? Or do you see the future iteration, do you think it's more feasible that we just move on to, uh, entirely virtual, um... We're- we're like M's living on computers? Like which seems more feasible to you?

    2. RKRazib Khan54:00

       I mean, it would be ironic if we're a simulation that uploads ourselves into a computer. (laughs) But anyway, I don't want to get into that, you know?

    3. DPDwarkesh Patel54:09

       (laughs)

    4. RKRazib Khan54:09

       I don't want to get into that. Um, what seems more feasible? I think in the sim- in the- okay, like the biological program of re- of redoing ourselves I think is like actually... It's not straightforward in terms of like, you know, minimal risk. There's gonna be a lot of false starts, which is gonna be kind of crazy. But I do think people will improve themselves. Okay? I think they- they will edit themselves better, uh, over the next century. Um, and but I think that there's gonna be some integration with brain-computer interfaces. Yes, I do... I mean, I haven't like followed it closely, but, you know, I- I do move in some of the similar circles and I think, you know, brain, um, technology interfaces are gonna be a big deal and I think they're gonna really change the game. And I think that's gonna be, um... But- but the issue there is like... So I guess I think of gene editing, to be honest, more as like Smithian growth where it's like, you know, increased efficiencies 'cause we have the genetic variation now.Like, we can make him smarter. We have the technology. Okay, like, we're not- we're not there yet. I can see that though. I mean, we can all, like, understand the basic logic there. Like, there is John Mah... John von Neumann existed. The experiment has been done.

    5. DPDwarkesh Patel55:15

       Yeah.

    6. RKRazib Khan55:15

       So we can aspire to create, like, a bunch of von Neumanns. Okay, that's great. Now, the issue is, like, um, with- with, like, with the, with the human computer interfaces, that's never been done, right? So that is, um, that is, like, a, an innovation that's like, you know, uh, technology driven growth that's increasing, like, the baseline productivity by, like, crazy amount. Like, that's, that could be the possible quantum leap, so, um...

    7. DPDwarkesh Patel55:40

       Mm-hmm.

    8. RKRazib Khan55:41

       (sneezes) Excuse me. Um, that could be a big deal, uh, in a good way or a bad way. And I think a lot of your listeners know about all the existential risk crisis and artificial... You know, like we talk about, like, you know, hostile AI and general artificial intelligence and all this stuff, but I mean... I mean, perhaps it'll start with us, you know? Perhaps Skynet will be some uploaded crazy kid, you know?

    9. DPDwarkesh Patel56:05

       Yeah.

    10. RKRazib Khan56:05

        Where it's like... There's some- ma- maybe it's gonna be a situation where it's like, it's like going to the new world where... You know, there were attempts to go to, like, to the new wor- they didn't know the new world was there, but there were people in the Middle Ages who left for the West and they never... Obviously, the ships just disappeared. You know, they die, you know, they died-

    11. DPDwarkesh Patel56:25

        Yeah.

    12. RKRazib Khan56:25

        ... at sea, right? So there's gonna be people who do things like go to Mars. There's gonna be high fo- mortality rates, you know, these sorts of things. Uh, similarly with, like, these br- human computer interfaces, there's gonna be high death rates. Like, just basically people just disappear into the ether. But then the first person that gets in there is gonna be, like, Christopher Columbus or, you know, uh, it's gonna be a situation where they may be, like, actually, like, in a very, very advantageous position. Instead of being a primitive prototype, they might, like, basically have all the, quote unquote, "land" in this cyberspace, right? Where it's like they do all the learnings really early on. They iterate, they pivot, and so they could be like, you know, the god of that universe. I don't know. I'm just speculating here, but I'm trying to say that, like, I think the possibilities there are, like, pretty extensive,

14. 57:11 – 1:00:00

    Near Future of Gene Editing

    1. RKRazib Khan57:11

       pretty high variance.

    2. DPDwarkesh Patel57:12

       Mm-hmm. And I- in the short term, uh, what is the landscape of, um, uh, just b- m- b- w- i- guess gene editing, polygenic selection? What does that look like in the next 10 to 20 years? So, I mean, I- is there potential that, you know, you could, like, raise your kid's IQ by one or two standard deviations? Um, or are these gonna be, like, uh, marginal, uh, a ch- marginal improvements? Like, or...

    3. RKRazib Khan57:36

       I- well, with intelli- yeah.

    4. DPDwarkesh Patel57:37

       By the time I'm ready to have kids, what will it look like?

    5. RKRazib Khan57:39

       Yeah, I think with gene editing, the intelligence thing is gonna be like 20 years. Let's say 20 years, okay? Like I think in the short term-

    6. DPDwarkesh Patel57:44

       Yeah.

    7. RKRazib Khan57:44

       ... what gene editing really will do is it'll probably cure cystic fibrosis, cure sickle cell. Like, these are, like, Mendelian, quasi-Mendelian diseases with large effect loci, and people just have issues. And so, you know, there's always a delivery problem. There's always a problem with off-target effects, which can cause mutations which cause cancers. But, you know, if you have cystic fibrosis, you're gonna be dead by 45. Like, you're gonna take the risk, right? So I think, like, that's honestly-

    8. DPDwarkesh Patel58:05

       Mm-hmm.

    9. RKRazib Khan58:05

       ... gonna be the first thing. The first thing is gonna be transfection or, like, you know, gene editing of adults, uh, for Mendelian diseases. So that's the next 10 years, okay? It's already happening now. Uh, they're already curing people of, of malaria or sickle cell, and I think they're working literally right now as we record on cystic fibrosis and ALS. You know? Uh, 'cause they're just degenerative diseases that kill people in the prime of their life- lives. Um, but, you know, 20 years, that's a long time. Um, you know, we have 40-year-old IVF babies now. You know? I think almost 40, but, uh... So I- I think 20 years, yes, you will start to see parents editing the genes of their offspring. Um, I think intelligence is, like, difficult, um, because it's a polygenic trait, um, with a lot of, a lot of different genomic positions. I wonder if they're gonna go for other things first and then kind of work to it. And then, you know, there's that theory that Armand Leroi was- was talking about it, but other people, is like, it's not like... What you should do is focus for, like, uh, focus, uh, on mutations and other things. Try to fix those and see if that just inadvertently, like, increases the, you know-

    10. DPDwarkesh Patel59:17

        Hmm.

    11. RKRazib Khan59:17

        ... intelligence.

    12. DPDwarkesh Patel59:17

        Interesting.

    13. RKRazib Khan59:18

        Rather than focusing on getting gain-of-function genes, which is like, okay, like how do you identify those? Uh, fix all of your copy errors.

    14. DPDwarkesh Patel59:25

        Ah.

    15. RKRazib Khan59:26

        'Cause that's a finite number. Look at... Compare it to the pedigree of the parents, look at the de novo mutations, look at the parents' de novo mutations against the idealized reference, et cetera, et cetera. That might be much more feasible. Yeah.

    16. DPDwarkesh Patel59:37

        Oh, interesting. Yeah, I didn't know about that.

    17. RKRazib Khan59:38

        Yeah.

    18. DPDwarkesh Patel59:38

        Do you have an estimate for how many SNPs, uh, affect the variation in intelligence between people?

    19. RKRazib Khan59:44

        Uh, let's see. Um, how many SNPs. Let me look at that.

    20. DPDwarkesh Patel59:51

        Or like just, uh, yeah.

    21. RKRazib Khan59:51

        I think it's gonna be order of thousands. Um, just-

    22. DPDwarkesh Patel59:53

        Okay.

    23. RKRazib Khan59:53

        ... just... Yeah, so yeah.

    24. DPDwarkesh Patel59:57

        Yeah, yeah. Um, all right. So j- just, just some meta questions

15. 1:00:00 – 1:03:55

    Meta Questions and Closing

    1. DPDwarkesh Patel1:00:00

       to close out on. So-

    2. RKRazib Khan1:00:01

       Yeah.

    3. DPDwarkesh Patel1:00:01

       Um, y- you've, uh, you know, you- you distinguished yourself, uh, in your career by being somebody who, who's like an expert in history and an expert in genomics and life sciences more generally. Um, are there other fields where you think, uh, knowledge of history would be very useful in setting up, like, a separate niche? Just 'cause like you- you have a niche in history and genomics. Um, but I... You know, it would be hard to imagine, for example, somebody-

    4. RKRazib Khan1:00:22

       Hmm.

    5. DPDwarkesh Patel1:00:22

       ... knowing a lot about history and computer science having a special niche, right?

    6. RKRazib Khan1:00:25

       Yeah. So cultural evolution.

    7. DPDwarkesh Patel1:00:26

       It's like... What- what- what good is history there?

    8. RKRazib Khan1:00:27

       Yeah, cultural evolution. That's what Joe Henrich and some of p- his people are wanna- wanted to do.

    9. DPDwarkesh Patel1:00:32

       Uh-huh.

    10. RKRazib Khan1:00:32

        Um, yeah. So I think, um, I think, like, in cultural evolution, there's gonna be a lot of gains 'cause, uh, you know, Peter Turchin, Joe Henrich, these people are applying evolutionary principles to historical processes and to have the empirical data set, um, um, uh... Ne- to have the empirical data set's really important, and this is a really new nascent field. So I think that that's gonna be the big thing that I would think people should focus on. Um, Peter said like, oh, like, get anthropology knowledge, and oh my God, I- I don't- I don't think the short term knowledge is super important. I think having a deep, deep kno- deep, thick knowledge about historical arcs, um, uh, would probably be pretty useful. Yeah.

    11. DPDwarkesh Patel1:01:13

        Hmm. Interesting, interesting. And, um-

    12. RKRazib Khan1:01:15

        But, uh, Joe, Joe and his group are ... They're working that. They're, they're moving into history. They're going ... They're doing some serious imperi- imperialism that's causing problems. Yeah.

    13. DPDwarkesh Patel1:01:24

        Oh, c- causing problems how?

    14. RKRazib Khan1:01:25

        Yeah. Uh, just historians do not like that turf, turf infringement. That's what I'm saying, so-

    15. DPDwarkesh Patel1:01:32

        I see. Yeah, yeah.

    16. RKRazib Khan1:01:33

        Yeah.

    17. DPDwarkesh Patel1:01:34

        Right. Um, and you ... So you're, you're, you're one of the top bloggers on Substack, and you have this, like, deeply technical blog going, you know, the science of genomics and other things. Um, you know, that, that, that's like, uh ... You, you would think beforehand that ... or your prior would be like, "Oh, like, how many people are ever gonna be able to understand this or be interested in this?" But in fact you're ... You know, you're one of the top people on Substack. Like, what has the experience of that been like, and, like, ha- has it surprised you, the popularity of your work and everything?

    18. RKRazib Khan1:01:59

        Uh, honestly, no 'cause, (laughs) uh-

    19. DPDwarkesh Patel1:02:02

        (laughs)

    20. RKRazib Khan1:02:02

        Well, I mean, it surprised ... Okay, I'm gonna be honest. It p- it probably surprised me, like, how many people are willing to pay, but people have been reading me for a long time.

    21. DPDwarkesh Patel1:02:08

        Mm-hmm.

    22. RKRazib Khan1:02:08

        So I just kind of, like, professionalized it some. Um, and, uh, yeah. Um, it's, it's been great. Uh, and, uh, it's really, like, helped me figure out what people are interested in, in terms of what they're willing to pay for. And, uh, you know, it's, it's given me some direction, I guess. But, um, I'm, I plan to do ... I basically do what I continue h- to have done in various ways in the past into the future. And, um, you know, like, thinking of startup world, uh, way I would pivot and iterate is what, is what I'm thinking.

    23. DPDwarkesh Patel1:02:41

        Mm. An- and final question. Do, do you have any advice for people who, like, want to write about technical topics, uh, in a way that's, like, uh, y- uh, very interesting to a broad audience?

    24. RKRazib Khan1:02:51

        Uh, okay. So, you have to make it relevant to them somehow. So, for example, uh, like, let's say you want to write about signal detection. Um-

    25. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03:02

        Mm-hmm.

    26. RKRazib Khan1:03:02

        I think that, you know, um, text-to-speech-type stuff, like, is one of ... There, there, there are things people are super interested in. So, for example, people are super interested in Ashkenazi Jewish genetics. Uh, people are super interested in the genetic architecture of skin color. I mean, okay, why? I could talk about the genetic architecture of, like, I don't know, something else, you know? Uh, and it wouldn't be as super interesting. So you, you have to find the domain that they're interested in and then apply your method, right?

    27. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03:31

        Mm-hmm.

    28. RKRazib Khan1:03:31

        So if you're interested in ... So actually there's a, a Substack on personality, uh, per- ... That talks about personality and using, um, machine learning methods to classify personality. Okay?

    29. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03:44

        Mm-hmm.

    30. RKRazib Khan1:03:44

        Machine learning is technical, but personality is interesting. Right. So.
16. 1:03:55 – 1:04:42

    Outro

    1. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03:55

       This was a lot of fun.

    2. RKRazib Khan1:03:55

       Oh, my pleasure.

    3. DPDwarkesh Patel1:04:00

       (instrumental music) Hey. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you did and you wanna help support the podcast, the most helpful thing you can do is share it on social media and with your friends. Other than that, please make sure to like and subscribe, and click here for more content like this. Huge thanks to my co-founder Grayson Rouger for producing the show. I'll see you next time. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:04:40