First real post on the new blog! If you follow human genetics, you've likely of "missing heritability". If you look at twins to estimate heritability, you get values much larger than what molecular genomic methods produce. IQ, for example, goes from 50-80% heritability to 10-15%. Which is right?

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.

My review of Crick by @matthewcobb.bsky.social . A fine book. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

When the CDC conveys uncertainty, but the evidence is certain, public trust is compromised and it fosters science denialism; results of a randomized study of ~3,000 participants @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Amazon has a global technical issue; my paperback is still stuck. But! The eBook & hardback are available. If you want to read beyond telling and retrieval get a copy: mybook.to/teachingmean... I'd really appreciate the support (and an honest review to help this calamitous launch).

A nice review of my book Trusting Science by Dana Zeidler in Science & Education. Delighted and grateful to read this. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I wrote for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social about Kathryn Paige Harden's new book, an attempt to popularize the eugenics of criminality. I read it as a gambit to build liberal support for the project animating far right politics today, inspired by Replacement theory.

« …the growing divide between how much universities say they value interdisciplinary research and how poorly their internal structures are set up to reward it. What made Donovan a singular talent also made it easier for him to fall between the cracks. » So true …

A brilliant colleague who now has to leave science education research… www.statnews.com/2026/04/07/b...

Just published: "Improving scientific mentoring with history and philosophy of science" (open access) With my good friends and colleagues Alan Love and Tobias Uller. royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Indeed! I have been thinking: If we delete Fisher’s name from buildings, should we also stop using the methods he developed? I have no easy answer, but owning a field’s history and acknowledging both what we like and do not like is a decent way to go.

Just published: "Improving scientific mentoring with history and philosophy of science" (open access) With my good friends and colleagues Alan Love and Tobias Uller. royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

It is usually scientists who make such claims, but it seems that historians can do it as well. Mendel did not write about any atoms of heredity or hereditary factors, as Bob Olby explained clearly in 1979: adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1979His...

It was a pleasure to talk to Phil for an hour and a half about the conceptual foundations of the life sciences as part of his New Biology project. It's an exciting time to be a philosopher of biology! #hpbio #philsci #philsky

Delighted to be giving a talk in about 4 weeks at the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics. I am grateful to Noah Rosenberg for the invitation. cehg.stanford.edu/cehg-program...

I had a great talk with philosopher of biology Dan Nicholson, for the New Biology project with Marginalia Review of Books, about going beyond the machine metaphor in biology. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ds0...

Now out: Cultural evolution and Social Ontology: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge), edited by Martina Valković and me. Available (with discount code below) at: www.routledge.com/Cultural-Evo...

For those interested in the relation between HPS and science itself, here is our new page about HPS Mentoring in Science (with Alan Love and Tobias Uller) www.hps-mentoring-in-biology.org

OK, I have a US jacket design now. I think it looks rather handsome. The book is published in the autumn, in both the UK (Little Brown) and US (University of Chicago Press).

I will be co-editing a special issue titled "Teaching Evo-Devo: Concepts, Conceptions, and Pedagogies". If you are interested in contributing, check out the call for papers below. The submission deadline is 31 December 2026. link.springer.com/collections/...

I will be co-editing a special issue titled "Teaching Evo-Devo: Concepts, Conceptions, and Pedagogies". If you are interested in contributing, check out the call for papers below. The submission deadline is 31 December 2026. link.springer.com/collections/...

Published Tomorrow! (5th March)

New pub+project from Alan Love, @kampourakisk.bsky.social & Tobias Uller. “Improving scientific mentoring w/HPS.” Paper available soon: @royalsocietypublishing.org journal #ProceedingsB buff.ly/XY0algj Until then, check out buff.ly/8Jv3Osi & consider contributing #HPS-mentoring-in-biology

Understanding Life - Check it out! view.updates.cambridge.org/?vawpToken=YYY…

“Remote Greek culture has been a genetic ‘island’ for 4500 years New DNA analysis links Deep Maniots to Greece’s premedieval past” , a news post on Science referring to this study: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

I had a great time chatting about scientific discovery and the role of individuals, focusing on Francis Crick, on Michael Shermer’s Skeptic podcast. I look rather intense in the thumbnail; I promise it’s not quite so serious (and yes, I’m talking about the discovery of the double helix, not DNA).

I wrote an Opinion piece for @thelancet.com about James Watson. It's not an obituary - Georgina Ferry did that for them - but offers some thoughts on the problematic aspects of Watson's history. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

THE WONDER OF LIFE ON EARTH will be published in the UK on 5 Feb 2026. Editions are projected in German, Danish, Chinese, Korean, Bulgarian and Spanish (for Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay & Peru). www.panmacmillan.com/authors/henr...

When to trust scientific claims (RFKj's ones included) substack.com/@kostaskampo...

Here's a clip from my chat yesterday with @erictopol.bsky.social – this is about Crick's first encounter with the psychedelic poetry of Michael McClure, in 1959. For the full chat (it lasts an hour - you could just listen) go here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns2c...

Now live, and thanks to @erictopol.bsky.social for organising this!

When to trust scientific claims (RFKj's ones included) substack.com/@kostaskampo...

Is the claim “vaccines do not cause autism” an evidence-based claim? Absence of evidence vs. evidence of absence open.substack.com/pub/kostaska...

In the summer (you can tell by the shirt) I had a fabulous conversation about embryology and stem cells with @nmoris.bsky.social at the Crick Institute. Here's the first part of it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WB0...

Is the claim “vaccines do not cause autism” an evidence-based claim? Absence of evidence vs. evidence of absence open.substack.com/pub/kostaska...

Is having an Irish parent the same with having Irish DNA? open.substack.com/pub/kostaska...

Putting aside the deeper issues of why this analysis was done and how it has been promoted, the choice to broadcast a tv show before releasing a preprint should make people skeptical of the results. How can one be sure of their scientific claims?

A thoughtful review of CRICK - “vivid and authoritative” - in @nytimes.com.

Is having an Irish parent the same with having Irish DNA? open.substack.com/pub/kostaska...

A nice coincidence! The Greek and the Turkish edition of my book Ancestry Reimagined are being published a few weeks apart. I hope the message is clear: we are all family, there are no pure ethnicities! Geographic neighbors are also close relatives, in relative terms. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

My review of this review: It is not a review, it is carping. It's riddled with inaccuracies, innuendo & cheap shots. It's more about Mr. Pachter than about Watson or CSHL. There's much to criticize about Watson. It should have a full, fair, open hearing. This ain't that.

A nice evening last Monday at the CUP.gr bookstore in Athens, about the Greek edition of my book Ancestry Reimagined

A nice evening last Monday at the CUP.gr bookstore in Athens, about the Greek edition of my book Ancestry Reimagined

James D. Watson is dead. Stay tuned for some thoughts, based on my research on his biography, to be published soon. While I write that up, y'all can throw tomatoes at this if you like. But I will offer a more nuanced take. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...

If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.

What is a "single-origin" individual? How can one identify "single-origin individuals" in a way that is not arbitrary, or at least operational? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What is a "single-origin" individual? How can one identify "single-origin individuals" in a way that is not arbitrary, or at least operational? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why studies about reconstructing the past based on contemporary DNA makes me think of the streetlight effect open.substack.com/pub/kostaska...

In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

This is a lovely review of my (brief) history of alchemy by Kit Chapman. As Kit says, I wanted neither to duck the esoteric/spiritual aspects of the alchemical tradition & make it out to be *just* early chemistry, nor to over-emphasize those things as some books have. www.nature.com/articles/d41...