New causal variant estimates for intelligence
There's a new genetic analysis of intelligence out: Chen, H., Liao, Y., Tang, L., Wei, X., Li, T., & Chen, W. (2025). Multivariate genome-wide analysis reveals shared genetic architecture and…
Population size is not important for country outcomes
There is a recurrent feature of the immigration debate that goes like this: Emil: Look at how negative the fiscal contributions of 3rd world migrants are. People: Heh, that's nice,…
Migrant selection and informative priors
Chris Rufo wasn't happy with the recent American experience with the Somalians scamming the welfare state and wrote about how one should take into account "which national populations" people wish…
Against the economists on school spending
Some days ago I posted a chart about school spending (per-pupil spending) and math test scores: Note how I didn't say this cross-sectional scatterplot proves anything about causality, but we…
Are IQ scales interval or ordinal?
One of the more obscure objections to intelligence testing is that really the tests are only on ordinal scale, and thus many of the usual statistical operations are undefined. Recall,…
What did the new WGS UKBB study show?
I wasn't going to blog this, since I prefer not covering the same ground as others, but due to multiple requests and questions, I will cover it anyway. It's this…
Science vs. ideology on vertical transfers
Last year Marcus Feldman and Kevin Lala published one of those anti-hereditarian pieces: Lala, K. N., & Feldman, M. W. (2024). Genes, culture, and scientific racism. Proceedings of the National…
Herasight publishes their validation of IQ PGS; Nucleus open sources their models
There's two exciting news today in embryo selection. The technology is finally moving forward at an appreciable rate. Maybe we are not dysgenics doomed after all. First off, Herasight --…
How to norm a score
Suppose you have created a new scale of something ("Science Blog Rating Scale"). It can be psychology or some other soft science, but it doesn't have to be. Suppose you…
The genetics of beliefs
Nathan Cofnas wrote a great piece the other day, Beating Woke with Facts and Logic, which included this part: Beliefs Aren’t Genetically Determined Should we execute murderers? Raise taxes on…