Talk:Diseases:Malaria
From Tractatus
I saw an interesting article today in the NYT which mentioned the sickle-cell anemia/Malaria observation. The article discussed a hypothesis which related certain neurological diseases, and high IQ in Ashkenazic Jews with 'natural' selection in Eastern Europe. The (racist, impolitic) argument goes that because Jews were denied agricultural work, and forced into professions which required intellect, mutations which encourage intellect were rewarded, regardless of the cost(disease).
There was a counter argument, which said that the effect was not due to 'natural' selection, but instead due to the founder effect -- mutations made noticeable by large reduction in the size of the population.
Either way, the thing to be careful of with argumetns like these is not excusing the persecutions of the past merely because of an effect like 'High IQ.' Or merely acting to stereotype. What is interesting is the connection between the benefit, and the disease. --Iain 22:11, 3 Jun 2005 (EDT)
Hmm. So Marc made an interesting copy-edit which I am going to have to think about. He changed the phrase 'in the past year' to 'last year.' I like the edit because it reads better, but I am not sure if the phrases mean the same thing. Regardless, it made me pause to reflect. I think the description is a little clunky, and maybe I should revise the whole entry. --Iain 01:43, 11 Jun 2005 (EDT)
I actually changed it back to your original text, preserving the other edits. The two phrases definitely mean something different, and I thought you probably meant what you'd originally said. I take "in the past year" to mean during the 12 months prior to the time of writing, and "last year" to mean during 2004. You should definitely consider what you meant to say.
--Magus 02:46, 13 Jun 2005 (EDT)
I don't think that I really thought about it at the time. I did not want to refer to any particular year, so I used in the last. You only tend to be able to look up statistics for a January to December calendar year (usually several years ago). I think the deciding factor her is not meaning, but flow, and I like your edit. I think I'll revise the entry. --Iain 11:21, 13 Jun 2005 (EDT)