“The best explanation for “missing heritability” is twin studies systematically overestimate heritability…When someone tells you IQ is 80% heritable & molecular studies are unreliable because they miss rare variants, link them to this post, especially if they’re trying to justify scientific racism”

HiveMind: I am teaching a graduate proposal writing seminar, and would appreciate suggestions for syllabi, readings, etc about how to write a good research proposal.

New comment on Venkataraman et al. out today w/ Jeff Winking in E&HB. Eager for feedback here. Been reading others as they are published and there is lots of nuance in arguments that can be hard to fit into short commentaries. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

OPEN LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITY! Mentorship, advocacy, and community — these are the backbone of #WplusEBS. As chair-elect or secretary of W+EBS, you'd help shape what that looks like for members around the world from 2026 to 2030. Nominate yourself or someone you know to run for office!

World models in natural and artificial intelligence royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/3... - super interesting and very timely collection of articles on what it means to understand the world...

You may have seen this graph in the FT, which claims to show birth rates plunging since the introduction to smartphone. Except it doesn't. Read my short piece with @debscohen.bsky.social on some of the problems with this graph of juicy cherries! unherd.com/newsroom/are...

Is there anyone on here who knows Martin and would like to persuade him to write this talk up (assuming he isn’t already doing so)?

I’m not saying correlation is causation but the inverse correlation between the quality of news articles on demography and the number of demographers quoted in them is…notable. I count one demographer in total across these two recent articles, for example 🤔

Excellent thread on how the concept of "losing the public trust" has become weaponized to encourage self-censorship in academia

Yesterday @royalsociety.org published its Science for Society report. It stresses the importance of science in our lives and encourages more engagement between scientists and wider society royalsociety.org/news-resourc...

For the theme of "Cross-Cultural & Ethnographic Perspectives", the Bridging Mental Health Network at Cambridge hosted two brilliant talks. Check them out for historical easter-eggs in psychiatry + rich story-telling Talk 1: @kristensyme.bsky.social youtu.be/-QEarzXEecw?... 🧵

"A regime of complete freedom in reproduction would be anarchy. It would dissolve social mechanisms ensuring parental responsibility, eliminate rules against incest, rape, child abuse.." - Kingsley Davis in 1973, on how much coercion should be used to achieve zero population growth

With @remyfurrer.bsky.social, a new piece in Nature Human Behavior. The standard description of a polygenic score as a "genetic predisposition" essentializes a statistical construct. It's not language policing: PGS are a new kind of entity; now is the time to think carefully about what they are.

AI monocultures and the collapse of knowledge, from @jevinwest.bsky.social and Damian Hodel. archive.ph/OWJ12

Is science under-using an existing self-correction mechanism? New research shows that "Only 3.3% of retracted papers had a preceding Expression of Concern". www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Good from @nilsgilman.bsky.social about how "long-term demographic projections are ideological fictions that tell us more about their authors' hangups than they do about the future" nilsgilman.substack.com/p/the-future...

Primate Profile #25: Wied's Marmoset More flexible than other marmosets in their habitats and diets, these monkeys are found at 4-889m altitude in the Atlantic coastal forests. 1 dominant female mates with many males and all group members help with rearing offspring. Image: @leopatrial (iNat.org)

“The reviewer’s job is to assess whether a piece of work makes a genuine contribution to the field and has been conducted ethically and rigorously. Checking whether the references exist is arguably quality control which ought to sit with the organisation that profits from the work.”

If someone you know is freaking out about birth rates, familiarize yourself with some of the important parts of this explainer by @drjenndowd.bsky.social. You might not be able to convince anyone else, but you can at least inoculate yourself. jenndowd.substack.com/p/is-our-pop...

"Paradoxically, for many it was the experience of social mobility that reinforced their belief in the immutability of their own and others’ underlying ‘class identities’." Neil Carter's chapter on "Essence and Class" in this new open access book... #SocialPsyc #Anthropology 🏺

1/4 Peer review is one of the foundations of science.🧪But history shows that even good systems can fail. Some important discoveries were delayed not because they lacked evidence,but because they challenged dominant assumptions too early. That tension between rigor and openness is fascinating #sciwri

"The Trump administration has struck what some see as the final blow to PEPFAR, the vaunted US program that has saved the lives of 26 million people living with HIV. The State Dept now says that as of 30 September, CDC support for PEPFAR will end in most countries." www.science.org/content/arti...

Johnny Cash makes a couple of cameos in my new book, an alternative history of science. Maybe he is Uatu, the Watcher. open.substack.com/pub/arutherf...

Tricked us into giving her two breakfasts today and she was STILL hungry enough to try tearing into her new box of food #caturday

This week I learned: the world is running out of sand www.theguardian.com/environment/...

With the fundraising link: www.tommychooseslove.org

This is brilliant...... “Tommy Robinson’s far right march has unwittingly raised over £100k for refugees. “Over 2,000 of you have chipped in to make tomorrow’s far right march the biggest sponsored walk for refugees EVER.”

"Our findings do not support the claim that Australia’s heavily self-regulatory approach is working well to ensure robust and visible correction of the research record."

Very useful new paper out on how preprint servers are exploited by race scientists to spread misinformation about race. Discusses some of the topics they frequently cover 👇 and the difficult problem of how to counter this misuse (NOT a criticism of preprint servers which are a boon to science!)

Our paper unpacking "fitness" is out doi.org/10.1093/gene.... How to define fitness depends on what question you ask. Selection acts on organismal vital rates, longer-term outcomes make sense for genetic lineages, models link them. "Invasion fitness" = speed, but sometimes probability matters more.

My new article on the “Pig in the Python” argues that the demand for young workers will grow dramatically over the coming decades, likely leading to rising wages, stronger unions, and lower inequality. 1/28

Great new work by @evangiangrande.bsky.social tracking how race scientists exploit preprint servers to legitimize and spread their work

There has been a LOT of research on misinformation over the last decade. In a new paper (for Annual Review of Psychology), @dgrand.bsky.social and I attempt to distill the key points of consensus, highlight major disagreements, and point to future directions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Last day to apply for the Empowerment Award of the @neuroethology.org. If you're a disadvantaged researcher investigating the mechanisms of animal behaviour, this award is to help you overcome barriers. Deadline: May 15th 2026 Info here: www.neuroethology.org/empowerment-... Please share

Shifting power in pandemics: perspectives from African settings "All contributions to this special issue present perspectives from African settings, drawing on research co-designed & conducted in close engagement with local communities or in dialogue with African scientists & public health actors"

"But while psychology is now in an era of science reform, there are two parallel conversations going on – by those who continue to insist upon reproducibility to strengthen psychological research, and those trying to reform the science as communal, compassionate and open to issues of bias."

New piece in Science: Sudden elimination of USAID grants triggered waves of violence in affected regions in Africa, undermining civic governance and fueling civic unrest. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I should mention, if anyone wants more details on this, and Cattell's *waves hands around* whole thing, check out the late, great Bill Tucker's book, The Cattell Controversy

AI companies are writing their own constitutions. Meanwhile, a shared vocabulary for contesting algorithmic power has been traveling across red and blue states, from legislatures to civil society. New from me in @science.org: "A Civic Grammar for AI Rights" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵

I've changed my mind about the origins of essentialist intuitions quite a bit over the years, and it was great to have Wolfgang Wagner renew my attention to the puzzle. So many clever contributors have refined my beliefs about the phenomena and changed my mind about what we know.

The final version of our paper (w/ @nheinzelmann.bsky.social) on the ethics and moral psychology of HPV vaccination is out! #ethics #bioethics #Xphi This is an observational study on parents living in 🇩🇪🇬🇧🇺🇸 who have not (yet) vaccinated their kids against HPV www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association is planning an online global event in 2028, as a way of expanding its networks and reach 👇 Get in touch through the form below if you're interested in getting involved

New in PN: The assault on higher ed goes deeper than you think "This is bigger than budget cuts. It’s not just a continuation of things like longtime GOP efforts to cut Pell Grants. It’s a wide-ranging assault designed to drastically limit access to higher ed for all but the rich & well-connected."

Scelza’s call: stop framing findings like these as “exceptions to the rule.” The more exceptions we find, the more we should rethink the rule itself. Not to abandon sexual selection theory — but to broaden the questions we ask. #HBES2026

New paper out (Biology Letters, OA): in primates, male-biased size differences are better predicted by between-group competition than by mating system. Time to look beyond the group in studies of sexual selection. doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

Brunel's hiring! We're building up in clinical, with 2 separate full research/teaching lines. One's aimed at early career (Lecturer rank), one's mid-seniorish (Senior Lecturer/Reader). Apply & spread the word! Feel free to reach out with questions SL/Reader here, Lecturer ad in next post

Very pleased to announce another translation of our Anti-Autocracy Handbook: wiki.savescience.eu/.... 1/6

In our new paper of how Bluesky users discuss retracted papers, we found: ✅ 90% of Bluesky posts show "good practices" (flagging issues/retraction status) ❌ Only 10% show "bad practices" This highlights Bluesky's vital role in responsible science communication! arxiv.org/abs/2605.04334

New banner image for PREGNANCY INTERRUPTED just dropped! AND The paperback edition of PERIOD is 50% off right now:

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