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For more than 20 years, I’ve hammered behavioral genetics, and especially research linking genes to intelligence. Last spring, I proposed a ban on research into race and intelligence. As I explained in a follow-up post, I oppose this research not only because of its potential to exacerbate racism but also because the entire field of behavioral genetics has a horrendous track record, with a long string of sensational claims that turned out to be erroneous.
I wrote that “the methodology of behavioral geneticists is highly susceptible to false positives. Researchers select a group of people who share a trait and then start searching for a gene that occurs not universally and exclusively but simply more often in this group than in a control group. If you look at enough genes, you will almost inevitably find one that meets these criteria simply through chance.”
A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has bolstered my skepticism. Titled “Common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance identified using the proxy-phenotype method,” the paper was authored...
I wrote that “the methodology of behavioral geneticists is highly susceptible to false positives. Researchers select a group of people who share a trait and then start searching for a gene that occurs not universally and exclusively but simply more often in this group than in a control group. If you look at enough genes, you will almost inevitably find one that meets these criteria simply through chance.”
A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has bolstered my skepticism. Titled “Common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance identified using the proxy-phenotype method,” the paper was authored...