Genetics Human Agency | Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog

Here is a very non-controversial way to frame the IQ Debate: at any given moment, some people have better cognitive functioning than others.  That much is obvious, isn’t it?  Some people can spell better, some people can do more complicated math problems, some people have…

July 26, 2016 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

My great mentor Irv Gottesman passed away recently.  I was in Europe at the time and was unable to be at his memorial in Minnesota.  Here is something I wrote about him to be read in my absence.  It is more personal than professional.  Hopefully…

Haven’t blogged in a long time.  As of a couple of months from now I will be under some contractual obligation to blog, so I guess I had better get started. First of all, the location of the blog has moved to the Genetics and Human…

June 3, 2016 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

I recently had the opportunity to contribute a blog at Cato Unbound in reply to an essay by James Flynn, summarizing his new book. I am an admirer of Flynn’s work and found little to argue with in the original part of the blog. Perhaps…

Elliot Tucker-Drob and Tim Bates have published a meta-analysis [fire-walled] of the Scarr-Rowe effect, the observation that the heritability of intelligence is lower in impoverished families. The reaction to the analysis has been a little strange.  I read the meta-analysis as broadly supportive of the existence of…

June 5, 2015 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

So referring again to Callie Burt’s post, here, while failing to adhere to my own strictures about being brief.  I see two major issues. First, whether the BG side of the debate is being defensive in taking issue with bringing an end to “heritability studies,” or…

June 4, 2015 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

Here.  I have a talk to get ready for and I won’t be able to think much about this before tonight.  It isn’t clear to me, in general, how much arguing I want to do here.  In some ways that’s the point, but it gets…

June 1, 2015 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

As most readers will know, there has recently been an extended debate about the value of “heritability studies” in the journal Criminology.  Burt and Simons original paper is here, with a reply from Barnes et al here, a rebuttal from Burt and Simons, here, and…

May 29, 2015 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

A story in the New York Times a couple of days ago, linked here.  The story was prompted by a paper in Evolutionary and Human Behavior by Brendan Zietsch et al, linked here. The title says it all:  “Infidelity Lurks in Your Genes.”  I should say…

May 28, 2015 In Eric Turkheimer – Gloomy Prospect Blog By Eric Turkheimer

I am getting asked what I think of the recent paper by Polderman et al in Nature Genetics, linked here (firewall).  The answer is that I am ambivalent about it, and rather than try to squeeze my thoughts into a Facebook post, I thought I might…

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