The populations in East&West Germany were far from being randomly selected groups: 1. the later border is already visible in pre-WWII data 2. WWII & the subsequent occupying forces affected East & West differently 3. a selective fifth fled from East 2 West Germany before the building of the Wall

Me & @aysuo.bsky.social are hiring a postdoc to study gene–environment interplay in health & social inequalities 🧬 You'll analyze genomic data as part of a collaboration with Uppsala & Oslo at @amsterdamumc.bsky.social (NL) werkenbij.amsterdamumc.org/en/vacatures... Please RT for karma points ♥️

There's something very nice about finishing a manuscript revision when the reviewers' and editor's comments actually made the work a lot better.

Meanwhile my public health colleagues

1. Place a huge national bet on energy-intensive AI. 2. Attack renewable energy, EVs. 3. Drive up oil prices by starting a war of choice in the Middle East. 4. ??? 5. Profit!

Last week, I mentioned this in passing in a workshop: In 1938 Enrico Fermi won a Nobel Prize for discovering two new elements of the periodic table. Lise Meitner shortly showed that Fermi was mistaken and instead had produced known lighter elements by fission. She did not win a Nobel prize.

Premiere am Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung! 🎉 Ein mobiler Magnetresonanztomograph geht an den Start – und reist im Spezialtrailer direkt an Forschungsorte – für eine lebensnahe Umweltneurowissenschaft @cen-mpib.bsky.social 🧠🌍 Mehr erfahren: youtube.com/shorts/3sTKv...

How has the public belief in meritocracy changed over time? We address this question in our new Data Viz (@sociusjournal.bsky.social) by examining trends in popular beliefs across cohorts and periods in 35 countries, based on two datasets. 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23780231261425841

The deadline has been extended till the end of this week, hurry! :)

As AI agents flood the digital frontier, we face a choice: obsolescence or re-evaluation? 🦞 A thread on lobsters and meritocracy to share my recent comment in AI & Society: doi.org/10.1007/s001... Prompted by this week’s surreal #Moltbook #OpenClaw moment #AgenticAI #Society #CyberSecurity 1/9🧵

#NewYearNewGoals: We're kicking off the new year with a "little" surprise 🌟 Take a peek! More soon... #LoveScience #ScientificCuriosity #ScienceForward #Innovation #MaxPlanckSociety

Literally a publication for eight-year olds 40 years ago

I wrote about Nucleus Genomics' "Have your best baby" ad campaign and Kris Jenner's "best version of myself" facelift, the parallels between embryo selection and cosmetic surgery, and competing definitions of "eugenics" kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/have-your-...

I'm working on some figures for a book to illustrate the foundation of quantitative genetics (as confirmed by GWAS a century later). Mendel showed discrete inheritance in peas (left figure, 1860s). Fisher showed that many such Mendelian effects yield continuous traits (right figure, 1918).

Jonathan Anomaly responds in a long comment to my post criticizing his writing on eugenics and that of his company Herasight. He argues against several specific points and I encourage reading it in full. open.substack.com/pub/theinfin...

I drafted a letter to the editor, please help me out by DMing, commenting, emailing feedback if you are an expert on colliderbias, id obviosuly ad you as a author, Ideally we submit within 24-48 hrs, draft: zenodo.org/records/1800... (click download if the pdf doesnt preview on zenodo)

Last week, our new paper on indirect assortative mating was published.🍾 Let’s take a closer look at what this means, why it matters, and what we found (🧵/32): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Within Anomaly’s defense of eugenics, one passage in his book especially alarmed me. It implies that his advocacy for “free reproductive choice” applies only when people choose to 'enhance' — since once an “enhanced” majority exists, those who refuse may face coercion or exclusion from reproduction.

Huh I wonder if there were any other global events happening in in 2008. Guess we’ll never know.

I wrote about the bizarre case of Herasight, the embryo selection company going all in on eugenics.

So happy to have co-authored this piece about IQ and education with my great colleague, the cognitive scientist and education expert Daniel Willingham @dtwuva.bsky.social. Our goal is to take intelligence seriously without lapsing into essentialism.

1/4 Thrilled to be sharing new work published today in Nature describing the third wave of results from the PGC Cross-Disorder Group. This reflects a massive group effort to examine shared and unique genetic signal across >1 million cases for 14 psychiatric disorders. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

adulthood is cool until adult things happen

💼 💔 Academia’s toxic love language is playing “hard to get” 🧪 💓 Science is the beautiful pursuit of building knowledge I wrote an essay for Nature Human Behaviour on treating academia as “just a job” www.nature.com/articles/s41... What ideas would you add? 💡 #HigherEd #PhDLife #DiversityInSTEM

I wrote about missing heritability, "missing environmentality," and why I still think twin studies are interesting and valuable: kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/twins-are-...

Pick your fucking baby?!? JFC! They’re not fucking puppies.

Die Wirtschaft muss Haltung zeigen Die Familienunternehmer öffnen sich für die #AfD. Dabei lebt die Wirtschaft von offenen Märkten, Stabilität und Vielfalt. Es ist ihre Aufgabe, diese Werte zu verteidigen. Meine neue Kolumne: www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2...

First time on Bsky and first big announcement! I am excited to announce that our new study explaining the missing heritability of many phenotypes using WGS data from ~347,000 UK Biobank participants has just been published in @Nature. Our manuscript is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Blog post: A Missing Heritability Update. Three legs and other problems. I follow up on the recent excellent post on the subject by @sashagusevposts.bsky.social. ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/missing-he...

I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short 🧵

“You see, the endless renovation of the Stuttgart train station is a symbol of our late-capitalist condition: the project is always ‘in progress,’ yet nothing ever progresses. The construction site itself becomes the true destination.”

Pleitropy (a set of known variants influencing the target 'positive' trait yet also potentially influencing another unknown -perhaps negative- outcome is already concern by itself (even if you don't care about the ethics and exacerbeting existing inequalities part of it which obviously you should)

With sequencing of Hitler's DNA making headlines, time for a reminder: analysing a polygenic score from a dead historically-significant figure won't give new insights into that person's behaviour. In a brief paper last year, we used Beethoven's genome to directly illustrate the fallacies involved.🧪👇

Unregulated and privatized polygenic embryo selection is a profound ethical threat. It turns reproduction into a commodity, reinforces social inequality, and normalizes genetic essentialism. Thank you, @arnovanhootegem.bsky.social & @gaiaghirardi.bsky.social for this powerful piece!

This paper clearly articulates what is, in my opinion, one of the major ethical problems with polygenic embryo testing companies--that they are *companies* that sell health as a private commodity. from @gaiaghirardi.bsky.social & @arnovanhootegem.bsky.social www.fertstert.org/news-do/embr...

Second thesis article now out in Political Behavior! Using PGIs for ~10 000 full-pair fraternal twins in STR, combined with rich, geo-coded register data, I highlight the compensatory interaction between genetics and family + neighbourhood factors, with regards to voting. 🗳️ doi.org/10.1007/s111...

With Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social we consider the greatness and bigotry of James Watson. Watson was not just a great scientist who turned out to be a bigot in his personal life. His bigotry was rooted in misunderstanding of the very science he created. Free link when I get one.

Interdisciplinary paper with @paulhufe.net Astrid Sandsør and Nicolai Borgen now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.... Causal evidence of gene-environment interaction for reading test scores based on: 🧬 Exogenous within-family genetic differences 🏫 Exogenous variation in school value added

We have an open postdoc position in Social Science Genomics in Berlin! Includes gene-environment interplay within German population cohorts & experimental online survey studies to probe public perceptions of potential DNA biomarker applications 🔗 www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/2196134/2025...

‼️ New RCT shows positive effects of public Montessori on kindergarten outcomes. Kids were randomized via lottery at age 3. A fairly racially- and economically-diverse sample because these were public programs. Work from Angeline Lillard and colleagues at UVA. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

If Harvard sneezes....

Illustrators call is out! Anyone who knows illustrators in Leipzig area! Tell them! All the info on this website: lauramayer.space/Science-Stre...

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.

Should we tax the super-rich? My favorite news show tackles this question this week: www.arte.tv/en/videos/11... (spoiler: the answer is yes)

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Nur eine (von idR zu vielen fehlenden) Perspektive(n) zum populären Social Media-Verbot für junge Menschen: In #Serbien haben Schüler*innen landesweit Insta-Accounts erstellt, über die sie seit knapp einem Jahr den Widerstand gegen ein autokratisches System und den Kampf für Demokratie organisieren.

35 Years of #Reunification MPIDR Researchers Discuss the Demographic Situation in #Germany Athina Anastasiadou#Reunification#Germanys Doctoral Student in the Laboratory of Migration and Mobility @mpidr.bsky.social. Full quote: https://ow.ly/SBJh50X4Wlw #EastGermany #WestGermany #Migration #Inequality #Gender

35 Years of #Reunification MPIDR Researchers Discuss the Demographic Situation in #Germany Henrik-Alexander Schubert is Research Scientist in the Laboratory of Fertility and Well-Being @mpidr.bsky.social Full quote: https://ow.ly/bpMV50X4l0h #EastGermany #WestGermany #Fertility #Inequality

Totally agree with the diagnosis, not sure about the suggestion of the two track system. it might create weird selection and sorting. cepr.org/voxeu/column... we should change the reward and publication system.