John Hawks
@johnhawks.net
Paleoanthropologist | Chair and Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin–Madison 🧪🏺💀https://www.johnhawks.net
My PhD advisee Aaron Sams did his dissertation work on celiac and evolution. It's a fascinating case because it doesn't fit the “mismatch” model that is often applied to diet change and health. It may be a model for some other autoimmune diseases, though.
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Patterns of Population Differentiation and Natural Selection on the Celiac Disease Background Risk Network
Celiac disease is a common small intestinal inflammatory condition induced by wheat gluten and related proteins from rye and barley. Left untreated, the clinical presentation of CD can include failure...
journals.plos.org
November 25, 2025 at 8:06 PM
My PhD advisee Aaron Sams did his dissertation work on celiac and evolution. It's a fascinating case because it doesn't fit the “mismatch” model that is often applied to diet change and health. It may be a model for some other autoimmune diseases, though.
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
It's a great question that you ask. The largest genetic risk factor for celiac is an HLA DQ2 haplotype that is thought to have first appeared in modern people long after Neanderthals existed. There is a rather complicated polygenic story beyond HLA, and we can't rule out other possible mechanisms.
November 25, 2025 at 7:56 PM
It's a great question that you ask. The largest genetic risk factor for celiac is an HLA DQ2 haplotype that is thought to have first appeared in modern people long after Neanderthals existed. There is a rather complicated polygenic story beyond HLA, and we can't rule out other possible mechanisms.
A good bit of this work has already been done, would be great to have a fully updated version using the newly enlarged sample. There remain some fairly important discrepancies among studies regarding orangutan species / subspecies differentiation. www.johnhawks.net/p/genetic-hi...
Tracing the genetic histories of ghost apes
The footprints of extinct lineages are the closest we have to a fossil record of the African apes.
www.johnhawks.net
November 25, 2025 at 6:41 PM
A good bit of this work has already been done, would be great to have a fully updated version using the newly enlarged sample. There remain some fairly important discrepancies among studies regarding orangutan species / subspecies differentiation. www.johnhawks.net/p/genetic-hi...
Reposted by John Hawks
The entire concept of such a book is fatally flawed from the start.
And though I don't think this point comes up in the podcast, I think there is a major selection-bias problem here too: the only ppl willing to write a book like this are the ones must vulnerable to bad-outcome overconfidence.
And though I don't think this point comes up in the podcast, I think there is a major selection-bias problem here too: the only ppl willing to write a book like this are the ones must vulnerable to bad-outcome overconfidence.
November 22, 2025 at 7:25 PM
The entire concept of such a book is fatally flawed from the start.
And though I don't think this point comes up in the podcast, I think there is a major selection-bias problem here too: the only ppl willing to write a book like this are the ones must vulnerable to bad-outcome overconfidence.
And though I don't think this point comes up in the podcast, I think there is a major selection-bias problem here too: the only ppl willing to write a book like this are the ones must vulnerable to bad-outcome overconfidence.
“No PCA tree inferred from any of the 2,400,000 shape datasets was identical to the sampled tree, regardless of the number of axes.”
It has become so routine to see studies of skull shape, tooth shape, enamel-dentine junction, all arguing for phylogenetic classification.
It has become so routine to see studies of skull shape, tooth shape, enamel-dentine junction, all arguing for phylogenetic classification.
November 8, 2025 at 8:53 PM
“No PCA tree inferred from any of the 2,400,000 shape datasets was identical to the sampled tree, regardless of the number of axes.”
It has become so routine to see studies of skull shape, tooth shape, enamel-dentine junction, all arguing for phylogenetic classification.
It has become so routine to see studies of skull shape, tooth shape, enamel-dentine junction, all arguing for phylogenetic classification.