News

How Far Would You Go for an Ivy League Kid?

Anderson Review — UCLA

Study finds interest in screening embryos for education propensity, especially if everyone else is doing it.

Picking Embryos With Best Health Odds Sparks New DNA Debate

Bloomberg

Science could allow parents to select for taller, smarter kids.

Embryo Selection, Polygenic Scoring and Unrealistic Expectations

Anderson Review — UCLA

False hope for instilling disease resistance and desirable traits?

A New Kind of Embryo Genetics Screening Makes Big Promises on Little Evidence

Slate

This article questions the use of polygenic risk scoring to screen embryos for IVF. The new genetic technology aims to reduce disease risks but current models have limitations and uncertainties.

A New Era of Designer Babies May Be Based on Overhyped Science

Scientific American

Genetic testing with IVF is being marketed as a means to choose a healthy embryo, despite questions about the soundness of the technology.

Don’t Use a Polygenic Risk Score to Choose Your IVF Embryo

Impact Factor

Dr. F. Perry Wilson of the Yale School of Medicine discusses polygenic risk scores.

Gene-Based Embryo Selection: Are ‘Designer Babies’ on the Horizon?

US News

The article examines using polygenic scoring during IVF to select embryos. Researchers warn of limitations and that companies overstate abilities. As the science advances, disparities may grow without guidance on ethics and policy to ensure informed consent.

Researchers Raise Concerns About Using Genetic Risk Scores to Pick ‘Healthier’ Embryos

STAT

The report underscores the concern that applying genetic research to develop risk scores and select embryos for IVF might be imperfect.

What Your DNA Can’t Tell You

The Scientist

Companies are selling reports about a wide range of physical, cognitive, and behavioral traits to consumers based on their genomic data, but such tests have a number of limitations.

The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

The New York Times

The New York Times Magazine article provides background on the origins of social-science genetics, and presents several viewpoints on ethical dilemmas faced by those working in the field.

How Scientists Are Learning to Predict Your Future With Your Genes

Vox

A primer on GWAS, discussing appropriate interpretations of the findings from our study on gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a GWAS of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals.

Why Study the Genetics of Staying in School?

The Atlantic

Draws attention to the findings, and appropriate interpretations of those findings, for our study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals.

Wie Gene die Intelligenz beeinflussen

Welt

Summarizes the findings of our study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals and discusses its implications in a broad context.

Many Genes Play a Role in Educational Attainment, Enormous Genetic Study Finds

The New York Times

Includes remarks from several of the authors on the study’s implications and avenues for future research.

Million-Person Genetic Study Finds Gene Patterns Linked to How Long People Stay in School

MIT Technology Review

Summarizes the findings of our 1.1-million-person study and includes comments from the paper’s authors and other researchers on its implications.

The Genetics of Staying in School

The Atlantic

Draws attention to the findings, and appropriate interpretations of those findings, for our study identifying 74 loci associated with educational attainment.

Is Academic Achievement Written Into Your DNA? It’s Complicated

STAT

Highlights the findings from our study identifying 74 loci associated with educational attainment, underlining how a complex behavior like going to college is not written in our DNA.

The First Happiness Genes Have Been Discovered

Psyblog

Introduces the findings of our study of genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms and neuroticism, including remarks from a few of the authors.

Massive Study Finds Genetic Links to Happiness and Depression

Forbes

Draws attention to our study of genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms and neuroticism.

A Height Gene? One for Smarts? Don’t Bet On It

The Wall Street Journal

Draws attention to our GWAS of 126,559 individuals and highlights its conclusion that educational attainment looks to be a very polygenic trait.

Dangerous Work: Behavioural Geneticists Must Tread Carefully to Prevent Their Research Being Misinterpreted

Nature

An editorial in Nature discussed the SSGAC as a best-practice approach to research in behavioral genetics, stating that “scientists would do well to follow the example of the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium.” We release FAQs with our publications to explain both the results and the limitations of our studies.

Genes Have Small Effect on Length of Education

Futurity

Futurity explains our work on educational attainment, quoting co-author Dalton Conley.

Genetic Variants Linked to Educational Attainment

Cornell Chronicle

Notes that the researchers were careful to say they have not discovered “the gene for education”, and that the findings do not imply a person’s educational attainment is determined at birth.

There Is No Gene for Finishing College

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Discusses the origins and possible implications of our work on educational attainment.

Herit-Ability

Science

The article in Science highlights the progress the SSGAC is making toward identifying genes underlying variation in educational attainment, by capitalizing on the wide availability of crude phenotypic measures to identify genes robustly associated with an outcome of broad social relevance.

An Introduction to Thinking About Trustworthy Research Into the Genetics of Intelligence

The Hastings Center

In November 2014 the Hastings Center convened a workshop on the ethics of research on the genetics of intelligence. In September 2015 the Hastings Center Report published the results in a special issue, “The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research”. Introducing the issue, the co-editors wrote:

Despite … concern and skepticism, no one at our workshop argued that such research should come to a halt. Rather, we heard that the right response to research into the genetics of general cognitive ability was to ensure that that research is done in a way that is “trustworthy”. … [The third feature of trustworthy research] entails taking steps to guard against hyperbole about its scientific or social significance. … In 2013, a group of researchers — the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium — published an article in Science on three genetic variants that are associated with educational attainment and simultaneously posted an essay that explained in plain English how the study was conducted and what it did — and did not — find. … [T]he SSGAC may be the best example of prophylaxis against hyperbole to which we can point.