Rushton vindicated again: developmental speed vs. intelligence
A few days ago, geneticist Shai Carmi posted a new study on Twitter. And then he deleted his tweet and reposted a "I disavow" version. Well, what happened is that…
On genetic potential
During much of human history, it wasn't known that diseases or traits 'ran in families'. In fact, early mentions appear for instance in the 1700s: The recurrence of specific signs…
The eugenic effect of religiousness confirmed
Some time ago, Ed Dutton and I published a study showing that in the USA, being a member of the Mormon club seems to protect one against having a dysgenic…
Hispaniolan craniometry
I can't resist blogging this one. First, so it doesn't get lost, and second because it's scientifically interesting. Right now, Haiti is in the news due to social failure and…
What do ancient genomes show about recent human evolution?
Davide Piffer and I have a new study out: Piffer, D., & Kirkegaard, E. O. W. (2024). Evolutionary Trends of Polygenic Scores in European Populations From the Paleolithic to Modern…
Will USA cease to be a safe space for embryo selection?
You may have heard about the new Supreme Court of Alabama decision. You can read the full decision here, which I did (130 pages). The case is straightforward enough: Facts…
The UMAP brouhaha
If you follow population genetics on Twitter, you may have seen the current thing to be concerned about. For instance, we have Jonathan Pritchard at Stanford: https://twitter.com/jkpritch/status/1759769445759893832 And Graham Coop…
Heritability for individuals too, and the application to group differences
It is commonly said that heritability is a population level statistic that doesn't apply to individuals. For instance, here's Robert Plomin et al's textbook Behavioral Genetics (2017, 7th edition), the…
Taking the human extended phenotypes seriously
Back in 1982 Richard Dawkins wrote a book called The Extended Phenotype, which argued that the "phenotype should not be limited to biological processes such as protein biosynthesis or tissue…
Heritability, within and between groups
There is a new preprint that's making the rounds on Twitter: Schraiber, J. G., & Edge, M. D. (2023). Heritability within groups is uninformative about differences among groups: cases from…