Shamanism, schizophrenia and OCD

[ionelv]

Holly Mackerel! I stumbled upon this benign deconstruction of religion by accident (via a FB comment that mentioned the speaker). I was so excited, I posted this before I even finished reading the speech transcript :) Favorite chunk unrelated to religion

Sickle-cell anemia: full-blown version, fatal hematological disorder; partial version, you don’t get malaria. Tay Sachs disease: full-blown version, your nervous system is destroyed within a couple of months of life; partial version, you’re resistant to tuberculosis. Cystic fibrosis: full-blown version, you’re typically dead by 20; partial version, you’re resistant to cholera. This turns out to be a theme with a lot of human genetics. As long as there’s enough folks with the advantageous partial version, you can afford the occasional cousin with the full-blown version.