This looks really interesting and I look forward to reading the paper. I have a question, though, about publishing in Mankind Quarterly. My sense is that many scientists will dismiss this work because of their biases against this journal. I think that these biases are probably unfair, but they seem to exist. Is it possible to publish work like this in a more mainstream journal? Or are there significant barriers to doing that?
Keep up the good work, and for god’s sake keep sending these out to any audience willing to read such. Journals be damned.
Just the other week, I reunited with a university school mate whom I’d not had contact with in 50 years! What I told him about my current interest in genetic population differences came as a complete surprise. Not so much the concept and implication (he’s a sharp guy), but that he’d not seen such discussion in the literature he normally views. He really had no idea of the barriers to dissemination of the science as well as any concept of the possibility of research done outside of traditional venues such as university.
So here we have perfect example of a receptive mind who lacked only a few pointers to historical figures, current researchers, and where to obtain such information as it becomes available. From followup email, he seems to have caught on and now drops the names of folks like Lynn as he catches up on the science.
Social media, like Twitter and Substack, have made it relatively pointless to publish in prestigious journals if the goal is readership. I can write an article and immediately send it to several thousand readers without delay. Peer review can take years. No academic journal can compete with this. Happy that people find it interesting!
Does this imply the genes coding for varying levels of intelligence are similar in Chinese and European populations? Therefore most of that variation must have been present before those populations diverged, which implies there's some sort of tradeoff such that both the higher-IQ and lower-IQ versions persist in populations in both Europe and China. Maybe being smart leads to fewer kids, or only helps under certain conditions? It's interesting Chinese masculinity has the idea of wen & wu, which isn't that different from our geek-jock distinction.
Also worth looking into is the selective effect of the exam system, which started in the Tang dynasty. Whatever else it may be, writing essays with quotes from Confucian classics is definitely g-loaded.
Companies like Orchid Health or Genomic Prediction try to do embryo screening and selection at the individual level. Given that we have the best data on Europeans, I have always wondered how well their predictors work on non Europeans or embryos from mixed-race couples.
What you're saying that the SNPs identified from European GWAS studies do reasonably well on China DNA data at a provincial level. Is that correct? But at an individual level when trying to identify the best embryo out of 10 or 20, it will not work as well?
Interesting question, I asked chatGPT+: ‘Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified from European genome-wide association studies (GWAS) do seem to perform reasonably well on Chinese DNA data, particularly at the aggregate (provincial) level. For example, European-derived polygenic scores (PGS) for traits like educational attainment and height showed moderate to strong correlations with similar traits across Chinese provinces, indicating that the genetic predictors can transfer reasonably well when analyzing larger populations.
However, when it comes to the individual level, such as in embryo screening for selecting specific traits, the predictive accuracy of these European-derived PGS diminishes. This reduction is largely due to linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay—a phenomenon where the correlations between genetic variants differ across populations. Essentially, the SNPs that serve as proxies for causal variants in Europeans may not work as effectively in non-European populations due to variations in LD patterns. As a result, the predictive validity decreases, especially when selecting between individuals within a smaller sample, like embryos.
In mixed-race contexts, these challenges become even more pronounced. The genetic architectures of mixed-race embryos involve diverse LD patterns that differ significantly from those of any single population. This makes it even less likely that European-trained GWAS would accurately capture the complex interactions at play.
In sum, while European-derived PGS can be useful at broader population levels in different ethnic groups (like across Chinese provinces), their efficacy is limited when applied to individual selection, particularly for non-Europeans or mixed-race embryos.’
It seems like all my PGS scores for intelligence are nearly maxed out somehow even the schizophrenia score is super low too, might be because my mom is a professor and my dad is an engineer. I got 4th percentile for schizophrenia,99th for SES, and 85th for brain size. I only bought the nebula genome sequencing to try and diagnose my mystery brain disease.
FYI = nebula genomics only supplies dna data in a modified .vcf file that cant be uploaded to other platforms like promethease.
"Hereditarianism keeps winning"
As it always will. Thanks for the article.
"From the perspective of someone like Sasha Gusev who seems to think everything is a coincidence and nothing works, the findings are mysterious."
This looks really interesting and I look forward to reading the paper. I have a question, though, about publishing in Mankind Quarterly. My sense is that many scientists will dismiss this work because of their biases against this journal. I think that these biases are probably unfair, but they seem to exist. Is it possible to publish work like this in a more mainstream journal? Or are there significant barriers to doing that?
It's close to impossible to publish this work anywhere mainstream.
Keep up the good work, and for god’s sake keep sending these out to any audience willing to read such. Journals be damned.
Just the other week, I reunited with a university school mate whom I’d not had contact with in 50 years! What I told him about my current interest in genetic population differences came as a complete surprise. Not so much the concept and implication (he’s a sharp guy), but that he’d not seen such discussion in the literature he normally views. He really had no idea of the barriers to dissemination of the science as well as any concept of the possibility of research done outside of traditional venues such as university.
So here we have perfect example of a receptive mind who lacked only a few pointers to historical figures, current researchers, and where to obtain such information as it becomes available. From followup email, he seems to have caught on and now drops the names of folks like Lynn as he catches up on the science.
Social media, like Twitter and Substack, have made it relatively pointless to publish in prestigious journals if the goal is readership. I can write an article and immediately send it to several thousand readers without delay. Peer review can take years. No academic journal can compete with this. Happy that people find it interesting!
Those who want the truth must seek it out; it is rarely handed on a platter.
Does this imply the genes coding for varying levels of intelligence are similar in Chinese and European populations? Therefore most of that variation must have been present before those populations diverged, which implies there's some sort of tradeoff such that both the higher-IQ and lower-IQ versions persist in populations in both Europe and China. Maybe being smart leads to fewer kids, or only helps under certain conditions? It's interesting Chinese masculinity has the idea of wen & wu, which isn't that different from our geek-jock distinction.
Also worth looking into is the selective effect of the exam system, which started in the Tang dynasty. Whatever else it may be, writing essays with quotes from Confucian classics is definitely g-loaded.
Companies like Orchid Health or Genomic Prediction try to do embryo screening and selection at the individual level. Given that we have the best data on Europeans, I have always wondered how well their predictors work on non Europeans or embryos from mixed-race couples.
What you're saying that the SNPs identified from European GWAS studies do reasonably well on China DNA data at a provincial level. Is that correct? But at an individual level when trying to identify the best embryo out of 10 or 20, it will not work as well?
Interesting question, I asked chatGPT+: ‘Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) identified from European genome-wide association studies (GWAS) do seem to perform reasonably well on Chinese DNA data, particularly at the aggregate (provincial) level. For example, European-derived polygenic scores (PGS) for traits like educational attainment and height showed moderate to strong correlations with similar traits across Chinese provinces, indicating that the genetic predictors can transfer reasonably well when analyzing larger populations.
However, when it comes to the individual level, such as in embryo screening for selecting specific traits, the predictive accuracy of these European-derived PGS diminishes. This reduction is largely due to linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay—a phenomenon where the correlations between genetic variants differ across populations. Essentially, the SNPs that serve as proxies for causal variants in Europeans may not work as effectively in non-European populations due to variations in LD patterns. As a result, the predictive validity decreases, especially when selecting between individuals within a smaller sample, like embryos.
In mixed-race contexts, these challenges become even more pronounced. The genetic architectures of mixed-race embryos involve diverse LD patterns that differ significantly from those of any single population. This makes it even less likely that European-trained GWAS would accurately capture the complex interactions at play.
In sum, while European-derived PGS can be useful at broader population levels in different ethnic groups (like across Chinese provinces), their efficacy is limited when applied to individual selection, particularly for non-Europeans or mixed-race embryos.’
It seems like all my PGS scores for intelligence are nearly maxed out somehow even the schizophrenia score is super low too, might be because my mom is a professor and my dad is an engineer. I got 4th percentile for schizophrenia,99th for SES, and 85th for brain size. I only bought the nebula genome sequencing to try and diagnose my mystery brain disease.
FYI = nebula genomics only supplies dna data in a modified .vcf file that cant be uploaded to other platforms like promethease.