duetmimas

1. Columbus never discovered North America in the sense that it would affect North American Native Americans (as compared to the Islands San Salvador, Hispaniola, the Caribbean coast, and Central America). He did jump start the Europeans on the quest to claim various parts of the Americas. The way he treated the Southern Natives was deplorable and the US should not have a Columbus Day to celebrate him.
   

That being said, Columbus had less of an impact on the US Native Americans than the US government 400 years later (1800s) - when taking into account the region OP is from. Europeans in general enslaved the East coast Natives until but they died too fast from European diseases - which jump started the African slave trade. By the 1700s Eastern Natives were shadows of their former selves and the last bastion of the way things were - was in the west.

After the Civil War, manifest destiny drove European - Americans west and wars broke out, peace treaties were made with the US government, and then broken by the US government (Doesn't matter that Western native americans were more nomadic - following the migration patterns of the great herds - and had a hard time understanding the idea of land possession). And there are plenty of examples of the US government going back on their land treaties.

To sum up, Christopher Columbus isn't as bad as the US Government.

This is something that I have been thinking about recently, with the rise of Islamic extremism, the Black lives matter movement, and the way women are viewed. I've been thinking lately that part of it is ignorance of individuals, the fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, and negative bias. Therefore, is there a way that we can start to change the implicit bias of some people? (It seems that ALL white people to Muslims, blacks, and Hispanics are racists and participate in implicit bias - which itself is just negative bias)

Thank you for doing this AMA, I read Survival of the Sickest and it made me excited about biology; so much so that I decided to get a degree in it.

It would be interesting to learn about some other genetic diseases, such as Marfans Syndrome or cardiomyopathy, and if there was an evolutionary advantage. As the sufferers before modern medicine could live just long enough to pass the gene on (ignoring any de novo mutations). Do you have any input on any of these diseases?

Also, could you use a very passionate intern?