Newest releases from Nucleus and Herasight
Things are moving fast in the embryo selection sector. There was never really any technological barriers here the last 10+ years, just the usual social taboos and various incompetent people…
Genomic prediction of faces
I sometimes get asked when we are going to get face accurate prediction from genomes. I tell people that it will take a while because variation is mostly continuous (unlike…
How many human genomes do we need for accurate genetic prediction models?
In a recent thread on X, I added: Why do we need so much genetic data? Well, there are 3B positions in the genome, about 1% of them vary (30M).…
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…
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…
Sasha Gusev won’t answer basic questions about his beliefs
Sasha Gusev is a statistical geneticist who spends a lot of time on Twitter. He has been attacking various behavioral genetics studies lately, thus earning some ire from people in…
Polygenic score validity and group differences
Probably the most common objection to studies of polygenic scores for education/intelligence for race differences is that the polygenic scores are less valid for non-European populations. For instance, here's a…
Variance explained is mostly bad
Reporting the proportion of variance explained by some statistical model is ubiquitous. However, just like p-values, it is a misleading metric. I'll try explain why it is used, and why…
The genetics of mental illness
In popular discourse and the media, the debate is between those who recognize significant genetic causation in mental illnesses versus the status quo blank slate people who leave all such…
What have we learned from the 2022 education GWAS?
Okbay, A., Wu, Y., Wang, N., Jayashankar, H., Bennett, M., Nehzati, S. M., ... & Young, A. I. (2022). Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide…