A collection of 20 posts
This is a story of some of the greatest findings in modern research, and of the dismal narrow-mindedness and motivated reasoning displayed by scholars who ought to know better.
Skin colour, genetics, race, and racism.
Human populations differ in psychological as well as physical traits.
A conversation with geneticist and writer Razib Khan.
A recognition that genetic influences on social outcomes are important will potentially influence the kind of help that society offers poorer individuals. But it does not in any way compel an absence of help, or a casual indifference.
If we allow ideological campaigns to discourage controversial research, we will be making a terrible mistake.
Not so long ago, he taught us, there were at least three distinct hominin lineages roaming large parts of the planet.
My mother could always sense the difference, the alienation, between me and my father. It’s not that we didn’t get along. It’s just that there was almost nothing there—nothing in common. He was American football, girls, tailgating, hunting, the Air Force, that one story about being
The truth is we can never hope for a perfect alignment between moral desert and material reward because we each have competing definitions of what constitutes merit.
The scientific idea that one’s genes affect one’s life outcomes isn’t novel.
Hope had been expressed during the early part of this century that DNA testing might be used to identify individuals with exceptional athletic ability.
Day by day, as genetic science advances, it becomes ever clearer that all psychological traits are genetically influenced.
The sordid and shameful history of eugenics in the U.S. should be better known, as should the role of another prominent American institution that was central to the development of eugenics ideology.
Instead of using the label “eugenics” to discredit advocates of genetic enhancement, it would be more productive to ask what precisely we deem unacceptable and why.