Eric Turkheimer
@ent3c.bsky.social
Behavior genetics, clinical psychology, Mets. Occasional politics.
Substack (free): https://ericturkheimer.substack.com/
Book Is Out! Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate
https://shorturl.at/Ce2hf
Electronic Version: https://shorturl.at/Fq2jv
Substack (free): https://ericturkheimer.substack.com/
Book Is Out! Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate
https://shorturl.at/Ce2hf
Electronic Version: https://shorturl.at/Fq2jv
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.
The Paradox of James Watson
The discovery of DNA was evidence of how deeply interconnected humans are, but the late scientist saw only difference.
www.theatlantic.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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.
I'm in France for a week, and thought it would be fun to restart an old blog I used to keep about our time here, dating from our search for an apartment. Bon appetit.
Le Volant Basque
Hi, this is my old Paris blog, that I have had since 2008, when we were first shopping for an apartment here. I haven't written anything he...
ruedouessant.blogspot.com
November 1, 2025 at 4:56 PM
I'm in France for a week, and thought it would be fun to restart an old blog I used to keep about our time here, dating from our search for an apartment. Bon appetit.
An offer I may not follow up on...
October 28, 2025 at 11:00 PM
An offer I may not follow up on...
Got an email about my reply to Jay Joseph's review of my book. I didn't know it was out. Reply is titled, "Taking Correlations Seriously." I will link to my personal copy of my reply, and put a link to Jay's review in a reply to this post. Not sure how firewalled it is.
Turkheimer_Joseph_Reply.pdf
drive.google.com
October 22, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Got an email about my reply to Jay Joseph's review of my book. I didn't know it was out. Reply is titled, "Taking Correlations Seriously." I will link to my personal copy of my reply, and put a link to Jay's review in a reply to this post. Not sure how firewalled it is.
Just watched the Trump s**t video. I know, don't feed the trolls. But remind me-- why am I not allowed to have any negative feelings about people who voted for this guy? Oh right, that makes me an overeducated elite prig.
October 19, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Just watched the Trump s**t video. I know, don't feed the trolls. But remind me-- why am I not allowed to have any negative feelings about people who voted for this guy? Oh right, that makes me an overeducated elite prig.
Here in Central Virginia we have had the rarest of comforts lately-- temperate weather. Have not used either heat or air conditioning since early August.
October 18, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Here in Central Virginia we have had the rarest of comforts lately-- temperate weather. Have not used either heat or air conditioning since early August.
UVA says no to the compact. A little more polite than I might have preferred, but I'll take it. Whew.
October 17, 2025 at 8:47 PM
UVA says no to the compact. A little more polite than I might have preferred, but I'll take it. Whew.
Here is another way to put the paradox. If you ask, "If I had different genes, would my personality be different?" Then the answer is, "Probably, yes." If you ask, "If I had THESE genes, what would my personality be like?", the answer is, "We don't have any idea."
October 17, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Here is another way to put the paradox. If you ask, "If I had different genes, would my personality be different?" Then the answer is, "Probably, yes." If you ask, "If I had THESE genes, what would my personality be like?", the answer is, "We don't have any idea."
Blog post: Why I won the bet: The not so inexorable progress of human science. ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/why-i-won-...
Why I Won The Bet
The not-so-inexorable progress of human science
ericturkheimer.substack.com
October 17, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Blog post: Why I won the bet: The not so inexorable progress of human science. ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/why-i-won-...
Great time last night at the Jefferson Theater: Don Was and the Pan-Detroit ensemble. Played from their album "Groove in the Face of Adversity" and ALSO covered Blues for Allah, in its entirety, on the 50th anniversary of its release. Highly recommended.
Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble | The Jefferson Theater
www.jeffersontheater.com
October 17, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Great time last night at the Jefferson Theater: Don Was and the Pan-Detroit ensemble. Played from their album "Groove in the Face of Adversity" and ALSO covered Blues for Allah, in its entirety, on the 50th anniversary of its release. Highly recommended.
On the other site: A rare compliment, or at least I think so.
October 14, 2025 at 9:33 PM
On the other site: A rare compliment, or at least I think so.
Blogpost: How my bet with Charles Murray came about. ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/my-bet-wit...
My Bet with Charles Murray
How the bet came about
ericturkheimer.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Blogpost: How my bet with Charles Murray came about. ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/my-bet-wit...
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.
Your Genes Are Simply Not Enough to Explain How Smart You Are
Seven years ago, I took a bet with Charles Murray about whether we’d basically understand the genetics of intelligence by now.
www.theatlantic.com
October 13, 2025 at 1:33 PM
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.
Blog post: Ancestry and Education
Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal.
I write about a preprint by Wang et al, in which they look for associations with genetic ancestry in an admixed Mexican population. They found genetic effects for height and Type-II diabetes, but not for education.
Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal.
I write about a preprint by Wang et al, in which they look for associations with genetic ancestry in an admixed Mexican population. They found genetic effects for height and Type-II diabetes, but not for education.
Ancestry and Education
Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal
ericturkheimer.substack.com
October 9, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Blog post: Ancestry and Education
Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal.
I write about a preprint by Wang et al, in which they look for associations with genetic ancestry in an admixed Mexican population. They found genetic effects for height and Type-II diabetes, but not for education.
Indirect, direct, confounded and quasi-causal.
I write about a preprint by Wang et al, in which they look for associations with genetic ancestry in an admixed Mexican population. They found genetic effects for height and Type-II diabetes, but not for education.
Something happened to the link in my post. Here is the link to, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/the-hard-q...
The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology
Reprinted by the author from: Turkheimer, E. (2017). The hard question in psychiatric nosology. Philosophical Issues in Psychiatry IV: Psychiatric Nosology, 27-44.
ericturkheimer.substack.com
October 8, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Something happened to the link in my post. Here is the link to, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." ericturkheimer.substack.com/p/the-hard-q...
Haven't posted much lately-- busy. One of my Substack projects is republishing my chapters from the Kendler and Parnas series on the philosophy of psychiatry. The books are expensive and hard to find. This is, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." /1 @awaisaftab.bsky.social
October 8, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Haven't posted much lately-- busy. One of my Substack projects is republishing my chapters from the Kendler and Parnas series on the philosophy of psychiatry. The books are expensive and hard to find. This is, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." /1 @awaisaftab.bsky.social
After several recent visits to extraordinarily busy hospitals and clinics (I am fine), my conclusion is that on the list of what is keeping the economy going, #1 may be AI, but #2 is keeping baby boomers alive.
October 6, 2025 at 6:27 PM
After several recent visits to extraordinarily busy hospitals and clinics (I am fine), my conclusion is that on the list of what is keeping the economy going, #1 may be AI, but #2 is keeping baby boomers alive.
The first song on Taylor Swift's album is obviously evoking Shakespeare, with some mentions of Dylan. But the real (unlikely, I know) reference is to Robert Hunter: You may meet the fate of Ophelia, sleeping and perchance to dream. /
Honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered in the extreme.
Honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered in the extreme.
October 3, 2025 at 10:32 PM
The first song on Taylor Swift's album is obviously evoking Shakespeare, with some mentions of Dylan. But the real (unlikely, I know) reference is to Robert Hunter: You may meet the fate of Ophelia, sleeping and perchance to dream. /
Honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered in the extreme.
Honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered in the extreme.
Ah, I am assigned a 1 hour training video this morning. I spend several hours a week doing training and compliance activities. At a university, of course, they don't come with a recommendation for what other activity I should NOT do. Implicit understanding is that I will do it over the weekend.
October 3, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Ah, I am assigned a 1 hour training video this morning. I spend several hours a week doing training and compliance activities. At a university, of course, they don't come with a recommendation for what other activity I should NOT do. Implicit understanding is that I will do it over the weekend.
Reposted by Eric Turkheimer
Prepping for @dgps.bsky.social Methods, few recent papers pushing ctsem and dynamic models in interesting directions
#1 Developmental changes in twin cognitive correlation (ACE) across age, test instrument, zygosity, with @evangiangrande.bsky.social @ent3c.bsky.social et al
osf.io/preprints/ps...
#1 Developmental changes in twin cognitive correlation (ACE) across age, test instrument, zygosity, with @evangiangrande.bsky.social @ent3c.bsky.social et al
osf.io/preprints/ps...
September 25, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Prepping for @dgps.bsky.social Methods, few recent papers pushing ctsem and dynamic models in interesting directions
#1 Developmental changes in twin cognitive correlation (ACE) across age, test instrument, zygosity, with @evangiangrande.bsky.social @ent3c.bsky.social et al
osf.io/preprints/ps...
#1 Developmental changes in twin cognitive correlation (ACE) across age, test instrument, zygosity, with @evangiangrande.bsky.social @ent3c.bsky.social et al
osf.io/preprints/ps...
This study of intelligence in the UK Biobank is typical of a lot of current social science genomics. Impressive technically, and not over-interpreted. But still, a main result gets lost in the sauce. Within-families, the direct-effect polygenic score explains no more that 1-3% of the variance. /1
Imputation of fluid intelligence scores reduces ascertainment bias and increases power for analyses of common and rare variants
Studying the genetics of measures of intelligence can help us understand the neurobiology of cognitive function and the aetiology of rare neurodevelopmental conditions. The largest previous genetic st...
www.researchsquare.com
September 22, 2025 at 12:27 PM
This study of intelligence in the UK Biobank is typical of a lot of current social science genomics. Impressive technically, and not over-interpreted. But still, a main result gets lost in the sauce. Within-families, the direct-effect polygenic score explains no more that 1-3% of the variance. /1
Reposted by Eric Turkheimer
Reposted by Eric Turkheimer
Nice writeup on our paper that was recently published in Aging where we found second generation epigenetic clocks predicted cognitive decline in midlife in the Louisville Twins @ent3c.bsky.social @aging-us.bsky.social
www.psypost.org/biological-a...
www.psypost.org/biological-a...
Biological aging predicts midlife cognitive decline, especially in those raised in poverty
A new study using twin data indicates that accelerated biological aging predicts cognitive decline from childhood to midlife—especially for those raised in lower-income households. The research sheds ...
www.psypost.org
September 8, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Nice writeup on our paper that was recently published in Aging where we found second generation epigenetic clocks predicted cognitive decline in midlife in the Louisville Twins @ent3c.bsky.social @aging-us.bsky.social
www.psypost.org/biological-a...
www.psypost.org/biological-a...
At the risk of defending someone I have no interest in defending, this story is not as simple as it seems. It is an indisputable fact that there are more males at the very low end of the IQ distribution, because there are many rare X-linked syndromes that confer developmental disability. /1
EJ Antoni, Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shared a Darwinism-inspired theory about inherent differences between men and women's IQs during a talk to Heritage Foundation interns last year.
from @jacobbogage.bsky.social
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
from @jacobbogage.bsky.social
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Trump’s BLS nominee discussed controversial theory on gender IQ with interns
Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, E.J. Antoni, discussed a controversial scientific theory on gender IQ differences with Heritage interns.
www.washingtonpost.com
September 2, 2025 at 8:18 PM
At the risk of defending someone I have no interest in defending, this story is not as simple as it seems. It is an indisputable fact that there are more males at the very low end of the IQ distribution, because there are many rare X-linked syndromes that confer developmental disability. /1
Protip to undergrads: if emailing my grad student Sophie about working in the lab, opening your email with "Hey, Sophia" is probably not the best approach.
August 29, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Protip to undergrads: if emailing my grad student Sophie about working in the lab, opening your email with "Hey, Sophia" is probably not the best approach.