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…
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…
Italian north-south genetic differences confirmed
Davide Piffer and Richard Lynn has a new study out: Piffer, D., & Lynn, R. (2022). In Italy, North-South Differences in Student Performance Are Mirrored by Differences in Polygenic Scores…
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…
Polygenic euphemisms
As every reader knows, whenever powers that be come up with a new euphemism for something, this works, and the previous meanings and associations are quickly forgotten. That's why we...…
Recent evidence on dysgenic trends (February 2021)
A friend asked me to give him some pointers to the recent evidence on dysgenics, or the selection against valued traits. Challenge was accepted. This is not an exhaustive review.…
What’s in your genome? Free services for personal polygenic scores (impute.me tour)
Polygenic scores are all the rage. Naturally, you want to know your own scores, and you have a reading of your genome from some company. Unfortunately, the company doesn't provide…
Predicting IQ from genetics: how far have we come? [January 2020]
Counting significant hits was always a dumb way to measure progress in genomic prediction of a trait. Breeders using animals and plants never bothered with this approach and they used…
Direct estimate of between group heritability with estimated polygenic scores
A while ago, I had an idea for a direct estimate of the between group heritability from polygenic scores. The idea is based on the old DeFries (1972) paper, which…
FAQ for Dunkel et al 2019 Ashkenazim polygenic score for intelligence
Dunkel, C. S., Woodley of Menie, M. A., Pallesen, J., & Kirkegaard, E. O. (2019). Polygenic scores mediate the Jewish phenotypic advantage in educational attainment and cognitive ability compared with…