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…
Book review: DNA, Race, and Reproduction (Emily Klancher Merchant (Editor), Meaghan O’Keefe (editor))
So I occasionally go out of my way to read left-wing historians, bioethicists and the like. In general, bioethicists are one of those occupations where they do the exact opposite…
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…
Heritability, race, and police bias: Kareem Carr’s blunder
This was given to me as an example, so let's cover it even though it's two years old. Archived. So let's try his idea out. Here's what I did (R…
High heritability does mean that social interventions likely won’t work well
The scientific literature is full of claims like this one (Paige Harden 2021): This hereditarian pessimism about the possibility of social change, however, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of…
The dimensionality of politics
Most political science research is based on a 1 dimensional model of politics: left vs. right. However, this model is actually and obviously false in a nontrivial way. Take studies…
Heritabilities are usually underestimated
When we read popular books by leading authors, we often find statements like this: Since the 1960s scientists conducting long-term studies on special relatives like twins and adoptees have built…
Terman’s belief in high heritability of intelligence: unwarranted confidence?
Warne, R. T. (2018). An Evaluation (and Vindication?) of Lewis Terman: What the Father of Gifted Education Can Teach the 21st Century. Gifted Child Quarterly, 0016986218799433. Russell Warne has a…
Getting personality right
This post covers some stuff already covered by others, but more briefly. Two studies of interest: Riemann, R., Angleitner, A., & Strelau, J. (1997). Genetic and Environmental Influences on Personality:…
Notes on Steve Hsu’s second interview w/ Daphne Martschenko
Back in January, Steve Hsu did an interview with Daphne Martschenko who is a phd candidate at Cambridge in education. She's basically doing science journalism on behavioral genetics as far…