Eric Turkheimer

An aside is that Robert Plomin (a consultant to Nucleus) has recently been making the claim that polygenic scores should not be corrected for confounds using within-family data. Interesting that in this case it isn't a choice: embryo selection is BY DEFINITION within family, that's the whole point.

No, You Can’t Design Your Baby—And Trying Would Be a Terrible Idea A genomics firm saying they can help parents with “genetic optimization” of their embryos is tone-deaf Silicon Valley marketing trampling over legitimate science. Parents should be wary

Excellent takedown of Nucleus Embryo by Arthur Caplan and James Tabery. The problem with Nucleus isn't eugenics. It is rescued from its own eugenic intentions by the fact that it won't work. It is bogus science.

Study in Twins Links Childhood Environment to Epigenetic Aging and Cognitive Decline | Aging Our genetically informed twin design suggested that epigenetic aging may represent a pathway through which early-life socioeconomic disadvantage impacts midlife cognitive health."Click here to li...

Nice shout out of our new paper at Aging, led by @sophiebell.bsky.social (unfortunately with the PI, Chris Beam, going unmentioned!). What I like about this paper is that we can predict DECLINE, ie, adult IQ after controlling for childhood IQ, which already accounts for half the variance.

I'd be interested to see it.

Yes, more or less. Epigenetic markers estimate biological as opposed to chronological aging. Biological aging predicts cognitive decline, especially in relatively poor people. @sophiebell.bsky.social has a grant proposal to get in, but when she is done I'll ask her to write an explainer.

Murray actually believes it, and has said so publicly. More problematic in some ways are the heterodox thinkers like Haidt, Pinker, and Harris who try to have it both ways: "Oh no I am not a white supremacist, but we should have a cool-headed scientific discussions about it."

I just received the sad news that my student Mary Waldron has died. Mary was the first in a line of gifted graduate students in behavior genetics in my lab. She co-wrote the Nonshared Environment paper with me, and generally transformed my career.

Hastings Center Report / Volume 55, Issue 3 / p. 46 Letter Genetics and Scientific Values Jan te Nijenhuis, Bryan J. Pesta, John G. R. Fuerst First published: 25 June 2025 https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.5013 Abstract This letter responds to the essay "Confronting the Weaponization' of Genetics by Racists Online and Elsewhere," by Aaron Panofsky, Kushan Dasgupta, Nicole Iturriaga, and Bernard Koch, in "Envisioning a More Just Genomics," the November-December 2024 special report of the Hastings Center Report.

Is the @hastingscenter.bsky.social out of their mind?

Opinion | I Hate, Therefore I Am

Nice piece from my astoundingly well-read friend Mark Edmundson....

Graph illustrating interaction effect whereby epigenetic clocks predict IQ decline more strongly in twins from low SES backgrounds.

New paper with first author @sophiebell.bsky.social. We show that epigenetic clocks predict decline in IQ between adolescence and midlife, between and within twin pairs, and that the effect is stronger among people from low SES backgrounds. A Scarr-Rowe-adjacent effect. www.aging-us.com/advance

Opinion | The Political Legacy of Jerry Garcia

The rare NYTimes op-ed that made me happy.

Absolutely, and Denny is also a Guttman fan. The statistical background of network theory owes a lot to Guttman's image analysis.

Two structural laws for intelligence tests This article discusses two structural laws for intelligence tests. After reviewing the relevant definitions and the empirical evidence supporting thes…

Guttman is tricky. He wasn't a very accessible writer, and several of his books are out of print. This would give you a flavor (firewalled):

The Mismeasure of Man Amazon.com: The Mismeasure of Man: 9780393039726: Gould, Stephen Jay: Books

The hereditarians and g-people hate it, but I have always been a fan of Mismeasure of Man. It's a little polemical, but a fun read, and the second half is as good an intro to factor analysis and its problems as I have ever come across.

What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect Amazon.com: What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect: 9781848162235: Flynn, James R.: Books

Basically anything James Flynn ever wrote. You could start here:

Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count Buy Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders

Ritchie would pair well with Richard Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It, which is much less essentialist, with a focus on educational and social implications.

Regret about suggesting my own book prompts me to do a little better. (I don't know the OPs background...). I disagree with the outlook of Stuart Ritchie's Intelligence: All That Matters, but it is a good brief introduction to the classical Spearman psychometric theory.

That chapter of the book is actually more about intelligence per se than it is about genetics

Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate (Understanding Life) Amazon.com: Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate (Understanding Life): 9781108958165: Turkheimer, Eric: Books

With apologies for the self promotion, chapter 8 of my book lays out an introductory point of view on intelligence that might be useful. www.amazon.com/Understandin...

We still do not understand family resemblance ...

I wrote a little bit about a cool recent paper looking at heritability estimates from very large registry data, and how we still really don't understand why outcomes track in families. A short 🧵:

Twin studies....

I lived through the 1981 flash floods in Austin. Spent the night in a basement apartment right across Lamar from Shoal Creek. Took two inches of water. Walked down Lamar the next morning and there were cars in the trees.

Is he perfect? No. Can New Yorkers vote for whoever they want? Of course. But there was an open primary, and he won. Easily. It’s the party’s job to support him, never mind reflect on why he is so popular.

I don't live in NYC either, but I'll take youthful inexperience and energy over ossfied open corruption any day. Mamdani can hire people with experience. Adams can't hire uncorrupted people.

So are you supporting Adams, or Cuomo?

Last thought while I have the floor. None of this would be happening if senior Democrats got their heads out of their asses and supported a successful young candidate. Trumpists love their young radicals. So should we.

Or this one. The problem is, one can wind up spending half one's time responding to junk like this.

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Second, sometimes the reviewers, or at least the community, does identify racist pseuoscience:

A few additional interesting points about Jordan Lasker. One, he appled to work as a graduate student in my lab years ago:

bsky.app/profile/ent3...

YouTube video by Jen Howk Face of the Deep Episode 16: Correlation is Not a Conclusion (with Professor Eric Turkheimer)

I had a great time talking to Jen Howk on her Face of the Deep podcast. Jen describes herself as a "reformed hereditarian" so there was plenty to talk about.