Welcoming Nautilus to the fold

If you’re not familiar with the Nautilus science website, here’s some information from Wikipedia:

Nautilus is an online and print science magazine that “combines the sciences, culture and philosophy into a single story.”^[1] It publishes one “issue” on a selected topic each month on its website, releasing one “chapter” each Thursday.^[2] Issue topics have included human uniqueness, time, uncertainty, genius, mergers & acquisitions, and feedback.^[3] Nautilus also publishes a print edition six times a year,^[4] and a daily blog called Facts So Romantic.^[5] It makes regular use of original commissioned illustration to accompany its stories. The headquarters are in New York, NY…

In 2014, the magazine won a Webby Award for best science website^[10] and was nominated for two others;^[11][12] had two stories selected to be included in 2014 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing;^[13] won a FOLIO award for Best Standalone Digital Consumer Magazine; and was nominated for two Webby Awards.

In 2015, Nautilus won two National Magazine Awards (aka “Ellies”), for General Excellence (Literature, Science and Politics Magazines) and Best Website.^[14] It is the only magazine in the history of the award to have won multiple Ellies in its first year of eligibility. It also had one story included in the 2015 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and another story win a AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. RealClearScience again named it a top-10 science website.

In 2016, Nautilus had one story included in the 2016 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing; won an American Society of Magazine Editor’s Award for Best Style and Design of a cover; and was nominated for a Webby Award.

In 2017, Nautilus had three stories selected for inclusion in the 2017 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing; had one piece win a AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award; and was a Webby Award Nominee for Best Editorial Writing.

Over a dozen Nautilus illustrations have been recognized by American Illustration, Spectrum, and the Society of Illustrators.

In other words, it’s a fairly reputable publication.

Too bad it’s racist. Yes, you heard me right. Nautilus is a neo-Nazi, Alt-Right, bigoted, prejudiced, white-supremacist, KKK-loving hate-group that peddles pseudo-science. Oh, and they probably want to murder 6 millions Jews.

You see, their views on race are… problematic. Take a look at this excerpt from an article titled “Why Are You So Smart? Thank Mom and Your Difficult Birth.”

A lot of our growth in intelligence is due to an increase in brain size. Even when looking at the differences between one person and another, brain size accounts for 16 percent of the variance in intelligence. A bigger brain might have been the simplest way to make us smarter. As brain sizes grew, so did the pelvises of the women who had to give birth to all of these big-headed babies.

The link takes us to Scientific American. Unfortunately, that article is behind a paywall – but it’s obvious that Scientific American is also a neo-Nazi, Alt-Right, bigoted, prejudiced, white-supremacist, KKK-loving hate-group that peddles pseudo-science and probably wants to murder 6 millions Jews.

Yes, that Scientific American article is behind a paywall, but another Scientific American article, which is not, somewhat downplays the correlation between brain size and intelligence. It’s a fine line they must walk, but Scientific American is not off the hook – because it does seem to recognize the validity of IQ tests, and how their results correlate with real life trends:

Differences in general intelligence, assessed in this way, correlate with success in life, with social mobility and job performance, with health and with life span. In a study of one million Swedish men, an increase in IQ by one standard deviation, a measure of variability, was associated with an amazing 32 percent reduction in mortality.

I’ve shown, in previous posts, that there are racial differences in brain size (speaking of averages, of course). To avoid sounding like a broken record, I’ll add a new tidbit here:

American blacks suffer disproportionately from Alzheimer’s. Articles, such as the one in USA Today, list a few possible underlying causes – including genetics. Intuitively, one would think that larger brains would be less susceptible to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Indeed, this is the subject of a research paper titled “The protective role of brain size in Alzheimer disease.”

The brain reserve hypothesis suggests that larger brain size is associated with a greater ability to tolerate pathological damage before showing any cognitive decline. This theory has been used to explain why many patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology are cognitively normal before death. The literature concerning the brain reserve hypothesis is however mixed with evidence both for and against this theory. Perneczky and colleagues tested the theory by assessing whether premorbid brain size, measured using head circumference, alters the relationship between brain atrophy and cognitive decline in 270 AD patients. They found that head circumference was associated with a reduced impact of atrophy on cognitive performance. Hence, for a given degree of atrophy, cognitive performance was better in patients with larger head circumference. These findings therefore support the brain reserve hypothesis. This evaluation will discuss the brain reserve concept and potential limitations and significance of this study.

One needn’t have a large brain to put two and two together:

* There is a correlation between biological race (not “social-construct race”) and brain size

* There is a correlation between brain size and intelligence

* There is a (probable) correlation between Alzheimer’s and brain size

* There is a correlation between race and Alzheimer’s

I’ll conclude by saying that I don’t want anybody, black, white or otherwise, to get Alzheimer’s; it’s a terrible disease.