Larger brains = better thinking? Beyond a certain level in brain size, I doubt this is a valid rule. The 'best and the brightest' have repeatedly led their followers to doom and disaster. There is no reason to think the situation was that different 60,000 years ago. Maybe those big brains died out because they were too clever by 12.5%

that's nonsense. Progress is real. That's for sure. I was born naked, soaking wet & ignorant, now look at me.

pre-contact Polynesian societies, for example: women weren't allowed in canoes -- Those barbarians made their women swim to the uninhabited islands while the men got to ride in the canoes.

Thus, identical mitochondrial DNA will exist through the maternal hierarchy of families. There have already been found exceptions to this statement. See this: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/347/8/576 A man with a severe mitochondrial disorder was found to have inherited his father's (not his mother's) mitochrondrial DNA, along with a new mutation unique to the patient which caused his disorder. From that article: "paternal mtDNA inheritance may go unrecognized ... because mitochondrial haplotypes are rarely investigated in diagnostic analyses."

that's all pretty theoretical, right? Not at all. In the bad old days, conquerors would kill or emasculate the entire male population of their prey, thus eliminating that particular Y chromosome from that population. A rather definite genetic change forced on a population by a cultural event.

There's a lot of literature out there about gunfights, a lot of it is chilling reading. The vast majority of news stories I've read in my lifetime about 'gunfights' involve lots of rounds being expended & not many hits. Lots and lots of stories about the first shot being fired, and that missing completely. Any studies of several hundred modern 'gunfights' that say otherwise? Any studies at all? 'If he draws first, you are dead.' No, if he kills you, you are dead. There are way more possibilities in encounters involving firearms than you suggest. Your writing style, however, is more entertaining than mine.

Much easier to destroy everything in your house at the same time. This is most unlikely, unless you are referring to damage caused by grapeshot from a large caliber cannon. A blast from a regular shotgun will do what I would call minor cosmetic damage that could easily be repaired. There would also be a chance that the wielder of a shotgun might be hit by pellet ricochet or flying debris. Contrast the cost of repairs to your body should an assailant make a good connection with a weapon or just his bare hands.

If my computer goes down, I turn on one of several backup computers.

The failure to get all the blood possible out of the afterbirth and into the infant reduces the health of the infant. Although it's common in modern childbirth to cut the cord as soon as possible, it's very very bad practice. Your opinion is not shared by modern obstetricians. In any case there will always be some blood retained in the veins of the umbilical cord that would otherwise go to waste.

One painless, uncontroversial source of both young blood and stem cells is (or was) your umbilical cord blood. This is usually thrown away. Collecting it after a baby is born is trivially easy. The material is easy to preserve for decades. Costs are mostly related to storage & record-keeping.

Whenever a car with the security feature was stolen, they pretty much decided that the owner had to be in on the theft. I was not aware that the chipped ignition key system was capable of preventing a car from being loaded on a flat bed truck & carried away. I learn something new here every day.

I've seen similar price differences in the same retail outlet, the only difference being whether or not an item was covered by Medicare. I needed to buy a portable wheelchair for my mother to use occasionally. The store marketed chairs for $120 to people whose chairs were not paid for by Medicare, and then chairs for $500 for people whose chairs were paid for by Medicare. The more expensive chairs looked better, but were not functionally different.

Afghanistan hasn't gone anywhere in 3 invasions. It has never recovered from the Mongol invasion(s). It hasn't gone anywhere in 700 years.