US Geneticist Discusses North Korea Trip With Dennis Rodman 101
sciencehabit writes "If you happened to catch any of the news coverage of Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea last week, you might have spotted in the big man's entourage a white guy with an Amish-style beard, as in clean-shaven cheeks and no mustache. That's Joseph Terwilliger, 48, a statistical geneticist who splits his time at Columbia University and the University of Helsinki. He's now visited North Korea three times with the basketball star. He sat down with Science Magazine for a Q and A about how he got involved with Rodman and whether the trips are helping--or hurting--U.S. relations with the country."
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No, it doesn't. Didn't read the whole thing or even most of it, did you? I didn't get much whiff of pretense in it. I'm a hardcore cynic, yet I expect I'd like the guy if I met him.
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I read the whole thing, and it absolutely does.
There was an entire anecdote attempting to describe how nice the citizens were by risking their lives to prevent him from flying off of a cliff while he was having fun sledding. But of course he completely misses the irony that he and the rest of the North Korean elite were enjoying a newly build *ski resort* (quite literally "trampling" the workers in the process) while a significant portion of the population is near-starving, and any citizen who points that
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But of course he completely misses the irony that he and the rest of the North Korean elite were enjoying a newly build *ski resort* (quite literally "trampling" the workers in the process) while a significant portion of the population is near-starving, and any citizen who points that fact out is sent to a forced labor camp.
Patience. Western elites are working on evening out the situation.
Re:Meh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course none of your *ahem* observations while reading the article could possibly be due to personal bias or cynicism?
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No, *observations* are based on facts (e.g. he described an anecdote in the interview, he was at a new ski resort, NK citizens are some of the most oppressed in the world and just went through a horrible famine, and he didn't mention anything about this or the massive numbers of NK human rights violations even though it was a big controversy during Rodman's trip).
*Opinions* can be based on bias or cynicism. Though in this case the metaphor of workers being injured while the elites play is such a great meta
Re:sorry but.. (Score:5, Funny)
..what is this doing on Slashdot?
Is this the current Slashdot meme? Can't you find some subtile but helerious (in a geeky way) tie-in with Natalie Portman? Good grief, put some effort into it, man!
But to answer your question, the man is not just a geneticist, but a statistical geneticist, so that qualifies for the minimum needed geek factor for a poorly edited Slashdot "story".
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I'm just amazed to discover that the name "Terwilliger" actually exists in the real world. I had always assumed it was invented by Dr. Seuss for his classic song, "My Uncle Terwilliger Waltzes With Bears."
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Must be a slow news day. I don't think nerds give a fsck about either Rodman, or the 2 bit dictator of NK
Its certainly not stuff that matters
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No, but sledding accidents by statistical geneticists with funny beards, now that is important nerd business!
Re:sorry but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Look at the picture, the guy is clearly a nerd.
3. More importantly, from TFA: “Most of my work has been on trying to identify natural experiments that mimic experimental conditions in a way that might help us to understand the genetics of normal human variation in health and disease." The article is focused on stuff that has a more general interest, but North Korean genetics are absolutely interesting to a bio nerd as a "natural" experiment in the sense that it's not setup specifically to be an experiment.
It would be very interesting, for example, if you could show rapid human "evolution" in response to the shit that's going on there. I've heard that north koreans are on average a foot shorter than South Koreans. They've only been separated by two or three generations. Presumably a lot of that is due to malnutrition, but it's not too hard to imagine that some of that is due to people who are genetically predisposed to being shorter would survive better. How fast is that happening? Are there genes which correlate to "speaking out against tyranny" that are being selected against?
There are definitely very interesting questions that can be answered by north korea. It goes without saying that I wish this experiment were not occurring, but since it is, may as well collect data from it (though there are issues with informed consent probably).
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So, you are saying he's interested in North Korea because it's the only place he can get away with human experimentation?
Re:sorry but.. (Score:5, Informative)
I think it is a bit different. He's interested in N. Korea because human experimentation has been happening, and sees an opportunity to get data that would be otherwise unavailable, even unethical. His acquiring the data however, is not the cause of that unethical treatment and if he abandoned his studies, that treatment would continue unabated.
In a similar way, medical scientists study the effects of people's habits, for example, what happens to people who smoke, who run, who work in coal mines, who eat only vegetables, etc. etc. The scientists aren't the ones inducing people to engage in any particular behavior, but they see an opportunity to gather data by looking at various groupings. So while it would be one thing to set up an apparatus that made a person breathe coal dust for a decade, it is another thing altogether to acquire data from people who for some other reason unrelated to the scientist or the study, breathed coal dust for a decade.
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In a similar way, medical scientists study the effects of people's habits, for example, what happens to people who smoke, who run, who work in coal mines, who eat only vegetables, etc. etc.
Except it *is* unethical if the scientists know that the activity is harmful, they might be able to help, and they lie or don't mention the risks (see, Tuskegee Experiment). Or at least if it happened in the past and they feel like they need to use the data, to state disagreement/disgust with how it was collected (see, Axis WWII human experimentation).
But this guy hasn't made any statements against the practices of the North Korean government because he doesn't want to lose his access. And THAT is as good
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Nobody in North Korea is a volunteer, so informing them of the risks of having an autocratic dictator is kinda... out there.
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It goes without saying that I wish this experiment were not occurring, but since it is, may as well collect data from it (though there are issues with informed consent probably).
"issues"? You might want to at least skim the rather large collection of information on what most people would consider ethically appropriate experimentation, and for a fun contrast you can start by reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation#Modern_ethical_issues [wikipedia.org]
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It isn't that sort of experiment. The "experiment" is that the North Koreans kill or remove from the breeding population a large number of people, using different selection factors than normally exist in the human population. This is not some sort of set-up experiment; it is a political situation with real consequences where the data is simply the result of the political situation, not some "experiment" set up by the researcher.
You might want to slow your skimming down, and think about the difference for a
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With the nazi human experiments, there was no informed consent. There was pretty clearly opposition on the part of the victims to the experiments. North koreans would be able to agree to the study, but some issues I'd immediately be concerned about:
-If the NK government agrees to it, how likely is it that they'r
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You could make the case that only the cowards who ran from battle survived, and so the french are now more surrender prone... but that would only be a joke.
The North Korea situation on the other hand, people DO survive famine and prolonged periods of malnutritio
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It's already well studied in Japan that the significant increase in average height over the last 2 - 3 generations is entirely down to diet - specifically, increased protein intake. It isn't difficult to guess that post-war South Korea has followed post-war Japan in their dietary trends, while North Korea is going in the opposite direction with their frequent famines.
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Yes he's from earth, it's just all the years of drugs and booze have taken its toll. He now has more holes than the Comstock Lode with all the piercings. That's why he has a geneticist with him to try and stabilize his DNA so he doesn't do a trick like on X-Men and turn to water and dissolve.
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He hasn't publicly showed off his birth certificate. Therefore, he must be a Kenyan. Kenya's on earth (I think - I've never visited.)
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Now why would you go all Birther on us?
We can learn a lot from NK about ski park design (Score:5, Funny)
Let me guess, the water park slides all end in shark tanks?
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So we're propagandists here. Poasting our propaganda. To influence world politics on behalf of the State Department.
o_O
Also, wtf is wrong with US ski resorts that they don't have tackle-gangs lining the slopes to prevent injuries? Our resort operators are just using landscaping and safety barriers to avoid paying sacrificial slope guards. Greedy capitalists.
Re:We can learn a lot from NK about ski park desig (Score:5, Insightful)
Also I'd think that the Korean War, economic sanctions, etc., have done more harm to US - NK relations than these visitors ever will.
You're right. After all, we started a war of aggression, attempting to unify the country at gunpoint. Once we were defeated by the free and brave North Korean people we spent the next half century engaging in terrorist attacks against them. We even sent commandos across the border [wikipedia.org] in an attempt to assassinate their President once upon a time. Heck, just a few years ago a United States Navy Submarine torpedoed and sank [wikipedia.org] a North Korean ship on the high seas, killing dozens of innocent North Korean sailors just to make a political point. That's not the only hostile action on the high seas, one time we captured [wikipedia.org] a North Korean ship in international waters, then held the crew hostage and tortured them for nearly a year before releasing them.
The history of American aggression towards North Korea is truly astonishing. Thank you Anonymous Coward for bravely stating the truth, which shall set us all free!
Re: We can learn a lot from NK about ski park desi (Score:4, Funny)
Dude, you need to use a sarcasm tag or something... I wasted thre of my lifetime quota of clicks following your links, thinking "he's got it completely opposite"
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They build a bunny slope with a 100 foot cliff at the bottom and this guys comments on how kind they are to have stopped him from going over in his inner tube. I do not think I would have seen it that way. I'm pretty sure I would have called them a bunch of morons.
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PizzAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Actually, this is the real reason that North Korea wants nuclear weapons. They're trying to build a double black diamond slope. I hear it's going to be a killer.
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I agree - I read that part about a 100 foot cliff at the end of the bunny hill and immediately thought "design fail..."
Re:We can learn a lot from NK about ski park desig (Score:5, Insightful)
I then kept moving in the tube and five other Korean men also were knocked to the ground in their effort to stop my tube from going off a 100 foot cliff that was located at the bottom of the bunny slope.
North Korea, the only country where humans are cheaper than a fence.
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Perhaps all their propaganda is true. You will never know unless you go there. However you will never go there because you know that place is full of crazy inferiors who do you share your enlightened view of humanity that you do.
Not even Kim Jung Un is stopping you, just don't leave the official tour group!
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Sounds like Mr. Wiggin designed the place. At least there were no rotating knives...
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I know, right? At least he took the time to understand their accent, though.
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Well, what you said is a more humorous version of my thoughts. What I was thinking was that if they didn't stop his tube and he did go over the cliff, 6 Korean men would find themselves living in a prison camp.
Further, the guy keeps talking about how nice the Korean people are to him and Rodman. Is this because if they were not nice they would be in the gulag? I'm sure that my views of DPRK are biased, because they mostly come from a biased media. That said, I have read reports from South Korea from peo
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Kind of delusional? (Score:1)
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They can't possibly be moving their missile program forwards without some solid scientific training, at least for the technical elites. Look how many other countries, with more money and less sanctions, have so much more trouble pushing that tech forwards. I doubt they are investing a lot of time in "pure" science, but in that case they probably have a large number of scientifically-minded engineers who are ripe for exposure to western scientific culture.
A lot of what he says is totally bogus stuff, and I'm
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No, there are definitely things a population geneticist could study in North Korea. Some of them involve horrible things the regime has done to large numbers of people.
I have an idea the IRB (Institutional Review Board, basically the research ethics review body for each of the colleges he works with) would look very closely at any data he or arrangements gotten from there.
Some things would be ethical, but it would be awfully easy to go beyond the bounds of what's ethical in studies involving humans.
It's p
Neckbeard (Score:1)
That's the proverbial (on slashdot anyways) "neckbeard". It's also the Muslim beard style (i.e., beard with mustache shaved). Maybe it's a biblical thing?
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it's a biblical thing?
No.
Nazi regime (Score:2)
Re:Nazi regime (Score:4, Informative)
Beside "both are really nasty regimes," the comparison isn't particularly apt. The NK regime is highly internally repressive (to a level only dreamt of by Nazi security forces), but also extremely isolationist (compared to the aggressive expansion and conquest used by Hitler to secure internal support for his programs). Visiting this crazy fat asshole is more like visiting Kim Jong-Il in 2010; the NK dynasty represents its own unique variety of crazy.
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Except Nazi's were a threat to the world and ended up attempting multiple genocides.
DPRK is more like a Nazi Germany who never tried to invade Poland and just focused on running Germany. The DPRKs atrocities are in the past, they're still doing massive horrible repression, but they've purged all the people they want to purge so the sense of urgency is gone.
I think there's a serious question of where to go from here. War is BAD. Notwithstanding their nukes of dubious quality the cost in lives would be immens
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The DPRKs atrocities are in the past, they're still doing massive horrible repression, but they've purged all the people they want to purge so the sense of urgency is gone.
You have an interesting definition of "past", given that they JUST purged some poor bastard less than a month ago, continue to hold a US Citizen without charges (though that dumbass voluntarily went there, so I have little sympathy for him, what kind of idiot willingly goes to North Korea?), and have anywhere from 1% to 5% of their population locked away in gulags for political crimes.
I think there's a serious question of where to go from here.
Not really. It will collapse sooner or later, with some subtle help from the South, Japan, the US, and perhaps even China
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Beria was a scum-sucking asshole too.... that doesn't mean he deserved a bullet to the temple simply to make Khrushchev's life easier.
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"You have an interesting definition of "past", given that they JUST purged some poor bastard less than a month ago"
while the US "purges" criminals all the time via the death penalty
" continue to hold a US Citizen without charges"
*cough* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
" and have anywhere from 1% to 5% of their population locked away in gulags for political crimes. "
while the US has the same amount locked away for the same thing, aka the war on drugs.
"Not really. It will collapse sooner or later, with some
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DPRK is more like a Nazi Germany who never tried to invade Poland and just focused on running Germany. The DPRKs atrocities are in the past, they're still doing massive horrible repression, but they've purged all the people they want to purge so the sense of urgency is gone.
They did try. Ever hear of the Korean War? The difference is they were smacked down for it before they could get very far. It would be like the rest of the world coming in and smacking down Germany as soon as they thought about annexing Austria.
And to claim DPRK atrocities are "in the past" is ridiculous http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/north-korea [hrw.org]
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Ever hear of the Korean War?
You mean the War of Imperialist American Aggression, right? ;)
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They did try. Ever hear of the Korean War? The difference is they were smacked down for it before they could get very far. It would be like the rest of the world coming in and smacking down Germany as soon as they thought about annexing Austria.
And to claim DPRK atrocities are "in the past" is ridiculous http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013/country-chapters/north-korea [hrw.org]
The Korean War was essentially a civil war. Germany's claim to Austria wasn't nearly as strong though the Austrian's were at least partially supportive of it.
As for the current state of DPRK actions, no one contests that they're horrible, but they're sustainable which is what I was getting at, the things you list are the cost of maintaining a horrible repressive government. But as for atrocities, supposedly 11% of the North Korean population died during the Korean war (most not DPRK's direct fault, there wa
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The Korean War was essentially a civil war.
No, the Korean War was essentially a proxy war between China & USSR and the US. In fact, China had fully planned to invade Taiwan at the time, but had to cancel it and shift all of those troops to bail out North Korea before they disappeared entirely. If it hadn't been for the UN action in Korea, China/USSR/NK probably would have dominated a large part of Asia in the cold war...
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They didn't get very far in terms of regional domination. In fact, NK had to retreat all the way to the Chinese border until China entered the war. The whole thing was really a proxy fight between China (and somewhat USSR) and the US over control of most of East Asia. It's pretty clear if the UN/US did nothing USSR/China/NK would basically have made half of Asia puppet states, RoC would be part of China, etc. So the analogy is still pretty apt.
Visiting Hitler (Score:2)
21 teams went to Berlin in 1936 to play basketball [wikipedia.org]. The US team got the gold medal. 7 of the nations playing were invaded by Germany in the following war. Spain withdrew before and saw Luftwaffe action that same year.
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Thanks for the link. The score in the finals was 19-8, as the played in the rain on a muddy court and neither team could dribble the ball!
Awesome :).
This guy is no dummy (Score:2)
Wow, pretty shrewd, that he saw this opportunity to meet with Rodman and capitalized, furthering his own agenda. A pity that the article only soft-balled some lame questions and didn't get him to comment on the advisory role he played to Rodman's entourage.
Yet another ambiguous headline (Score:2)
US Geneticist Discusses North Korea Trip With Dennis Rodman
I expect they probably did have a chat about it at some point, yeah.
Honestly, I thought that J. Random Geneticist had scooped an interview.
hey, let's feed the troll (Score:4, Informative)
Japan will wage another massive war against a reunified Korea rather than see Korea become the other dominant force in the area (second to China). Japan is an incredibly racist and fascist State. It pretends that, despite the rise of China, Japan is still 'top dog'. It will NOT allow its old slave colony of Korea to gain greater power than Japan itself, not least for fear that Korea will eventually seek revenge for the deplorable history of crimes against the people of Korea by the Japanese.
Japan has far more to worry about from the PRC than Korea, unified or otherwise.
Population of Japan: 127.6 million
Population of South Korea: 50 million
Population of North Korea: 24.7 million
A unified Korea starts off with less human capital than Japan. That's without accounting for the generations long project of bringing North Korea out of the stone age. It cost trillions of dollars and took more than a generation to bring East Germany up to West Germany's standard of living. North Korea starts out from a much worse state than East Germany. East Germany had a relatively educated population, a decent industrial base, and preexisting trade relationships. North Korea has none of those.
Bottom line, Korea isn't going to overtake Japan in any meaningful measure of power (hard or soft) within the 21st Century, unification or not. Japan has a fairly deplorable history in Korea that they still haven't owned up to, but their actions in China during WW2 were arguably worse, and China actually has the soft and hard power to give Japan a run for her money. Of course, Japan + the United States + Australia + the Philippines + New Zealand + Korea is a different story. Beijing will be contained the same way the USSR was contained, by an alliance of like minded Democratic counties.
Remember how when WW2 began, Russia was an aggressor (and partner of Nazi Germany in the invasion of Poland) and NOT a victim.
The Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Poles, and Lithuanians are sympathetic to this argument. Of course, you've vastly oversimplified matters. Hitler had designs on the Soviet Union before he ever came to power (read Mein Kampf) and one could easily argue that Stalin's ruthlessness towards his small neighbors bought needed strategic depth that saved Moscow in 1941. Germany was coming regardless of Stalin's treatment of his smaller neighbors.
The bigger lost opportunity was the chance the Western Powers had to enlist Stalin in a containment alliance directed against Germany, France tried to make this happen, but the UK was ambivalent about dealing with Stalin for obvious reasons. Whatever slim chance existed evaporated after Munich, when Stalin concluded that the West lacked the backbone to stand up to Germany. Once the balloon went up Eastern Europe was screwed regardless of what happened on the battlefield. The UK couldn't impose its will on the USSR, France was a spent force, and the United States wasn't going to absorb another million battlefield casualties for the sake of Poland and the Baltic States.
Population of Japan (Score:2)
Not to enter the argument, however one point to make is about the population of Japan. They may have about 130 million people, however A) they are one of the few countries with a demographic of more older people, B) They have few kids, C) as a nation they appear to be a bit anti-immigration.
Not exactly a great combination. Over the next 20 years their population will be in decline as a result.
Amish? (Score:1)
Who's the spy? (Score:1)
Am I the only one who thinks the CIA was knocking at his door the instant he got the invite? He's a crazy dick, who would suspect?