Peter C. Kjærgaard

Nationwide Genomic Study in Denmark Reveals Remarkable Population Homogeneity

Denmark has played a substantial role in the history of Northern Europe. Through a nationwide scientific outreach initiative, we collected genetic and anthropometrical data from ∼800 high school students and used them to elucidate the genetic makeup of the Danish population, as well as to assess polygenic predictions of phenotypic traits in adolescents. We observed remarkable homogeneity across different geographic regions, although we could still detect weak signals of genetic structure reflecting the history of the country. Denmark presented genomic affinity with primarily neighboring countries with overall resemblance of decreasing weight from Britain, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and France. A Polish admixture signal was detected in Zealand and Funen, and our date estimates coincided with historical evidence of Wend settlements in the south of Denmark. We also observed considerably diverse demographic histories among Scandinavian countries, with Denmark having the smallest current effective population size compared to Norway and Sweden. Finally, we found that polygenic prediction of self-reported adolescent height in the population was remarkably accurate (R2 = 0.639 ± 0.015). The high homogeneity of the Danish population could render population structure a lesser concern for the upcoming large-scale gene-mapping studies in the country.

Hertz and Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Science

The German physicist Heinrich Hertz played a decisive role for Wittgensteins use of a unique philosophical method. Wittgenstein applied this method successfully to critical problems in logic and mathematics throughout his life. Logical paradoxes and foundational problems including those of mathematics were seen as pseudo-problems requiring clarity instead of solution. In effect, Wittgensteins controversial response to David Hilbert and Kurt Godel was deeply influenced by Hertz and can only be fully understood when seen in this context. To comprehend the arguments against the metamathematical programme, and to appreciate how profoundly the philosophical method employed actually shaped the content of Wittgensteins philosophy, it is necessary to make an intellectual biographical reconstruction of their philosophical framework, tracing the Hertzian elements in the early as well as in the later writings. In order to write Wittgensteins biography, we have to take seriously the coherence of his thought throughout his life, and not let convenient philosophical ideologies be our guidance in drawing up a “Wittgensteinian philosophy”. To do so, we have to take a second look upon what he actually wrote, not only in the already published material, but in the entire Nachlass. Clearly, this is not easily done, but it is a necessary task in the historical reconstruction of Wittgensteins life and work.The German physicist Heinrich Hertz played a decisive role for Wittgensteins use of a unique philosophical method. Wittgenstein applied this method successfully to critical problems in logic and mathematics throughout his life. Logical paradoxes and foundational problems including those of mathematics were seen as pseudo-problems requiring clarity instead of solution. In effect, Wittgensteins controversial response to David Hilbert and Kurt Gödel was deeply influenced by Hertz and can only be fully understood when seen in this context. To comprehend the arguments against the metamathematical programme, and to appreciate how profoundly the philosophical method employed actually shaped the content of Wittgensteins philosophy, it is necessary to make an intellectual biographical reconstruction of their philosophical framework, tracing the Hertzian elements in the early as well as in the later writings. In order to write Wittgensteins biography, we have to take seriously the coherence of his thought throughout his life, and not let convenient philosophical ideologies be our guidance in drawing up a “Wittgensteinian philosophy”. To do so, we have to take a second look upon what he actually wrote, not only in the already published material, but in the entire Nachlass. Clearly, this is not easily done, but it is a necessary task in the historical reconstruction of Wittgensteins life and work.

The taphonomy of fallow deer ( Dama dama ) skeletons from Denmark and its bearing on the pre-Weichselian occupation of northern Europe by humans

The ecological tolerances of Neandertals, their ability to subsist in the dense forests of full interglacials, and their capacity to colonize northern latitudes are the subject of ongoing debate. The site of Hollerup (northern Denmark) lies at the northern extreme of the Neandertal range. Dated by various techniques to the Eemian interglacial (MIS 5e), this site has yielded the remains of several purportedly butchered fallow deer (Dama dama). Taphonomic reanalysis of the remains from Hollerup and a handful of other Eemian-aged fallow deer skeletons cast doubt on the interpretation that they were humanly modified. We place this revised conclusion into the wider context of human settlement of southern Scandinavia during the Eemian. Other claims of Neandertal presence in the region rest on candidate Middle Paleolithic artifacts, all of which derive from surface contexts. With the fallow deer material removed as a secure indicator of Neandertal settlement of Denmark during the last interglacial, this lithic material must be viewed with renewed skepticism. While ecological and/or topographic factors may have played an important role in preventing Neandertals from penetrating into peninsular Scandinavia, we caution that geological, taphonomic, research-historical, and demographic factors may have significantly distorted our picture of their occupation in this region.

The Money Trail: A New Historiography for Networks, Patronage, and Scientific Careers

Money is everywhere in science. Yet historians have only rarely placed the money trail at the center of their analyses. The essays in this Focus section demonstrate that following the money offers a historiographical path for investigating a number of key issues across disciplinary boundaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on cases and materials relating to a number of scientific fields, including electrical engineering, aeronautics, agriculture, and paleontology, the essays examine the continuous role of money in industrial and military patronage, personal connections and networks, and spatial and geographical dimensions of science, as well as in relation to state funding and ownership. Together, the contributions demonstrate how following the money offers a way of overcoming hyperprofessionalism in the history of science.

Biocultural theory: The current state of knowledge.

Biocultural theory is an integrative research program designed to investigate the causal interactions between biological adaptations and cultural constructions. From the biocultural perspective, cultural processes are rooted in the biological necessities of the human life cycle: specifically human forms of birth, growth, survival, mating, parenting, and sociality. Conversely, from the biocultural perspective, human biological processes are constrained, organized, and developed by culture, which includes technology, culturally specific socioeconomic and political structures, religious and ideological beliefs, and artistic practices such as music, dance, painting, and storytelling. Establishing biocultural theory as a program that self-consciously encompasses the different particular forms of human evolutionary research could help scholars and scientists envision their own specialized areas of research as contributions to a coherent, collective research program. This article argues that a mature biocultural paradigm needs to be informed by at least 7 major research clusters: (a) gene-culture coevolution; (b) human life history theory; (c) evolutionary social psychology; (d) anthropological research on contemporary hunter-gatherers; (e) biocultural socioeconomic and political history; (f) evolutionary aesthetics; and (g) biocultural research in the humanities (religions, ideologies, the history of ideas, and the arts). This article explains the way these research clusters are integrated in biocultural theory, evaluates the level of development in each cluster, and locates current biocultural theory within the historical trajectory of the social sciences and the humanities.

Spitting for Science: Danish High School Students Commit to a Large-Scale Self-Reported Genetic Study

Scientific outreach delivers science to the people. But it can also deliver people to the science. In this work, we report our experience from a large-scale public engagement project promoting genomic literacy among Danish high school students with the additional benefit of collecting data for studying the genetic makeup of the Danish population. Not only did we confirm that students have a great interest in their genetic past, but we were also gratified to see that, with the right motivation, adolescents can provide high-quality data for genetic studies.

Inventing Homo gardarensis : Prestige, Pressure, and Human Evolution in Interwar Scandinavia

In the 1920s there were still very few fossil human remains to support an evolutionary explanation of human origins. Nonetheless, evolution as an explanatory framework was widely accepted. This led to a search for ancestors in several continents with fierce international competition. With so little fossil evidence available and the idea of a Missing Link as a crucial piece of evidence in human evolution still intact, many actors participated in the scientific race to identify the human ancestor. The curious case of Homo gardarensis serves as an example of how personal ambitions and national pride were deeply interconnected as scientific concerns were sometimes slighted in interwar palaeoanthropology.

Going the whole orang: Darwin, Wallace and the natural history of orangutans

This article surveys the European discovery and early ideas about orangutans followed by the contrasting experiences with these animals of the co-founders of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The first non-human great ape that both of them interacted with was the orangutan. They were both profoundly influenced by what they saw, but the contexts of their observations could hardly be more different. Darwin met orangutans in the Zoological Gardens in London while Wallace saw them in the wild in Borneo. In different ways these observations helped shape their views of human evolution and humanitys place in nature. Their findings played a major role in shaping some of the key questions that were pursued in human evolutionary studies during the rest of the nineteenth century.