Jedidiah Carlson
@jedidiahcarlson.com
Population genetics, doom metal, anti-racism, metaresearch, & eye-rolling. Stats prof at Macalester College. He/Him.
https://jedidiahcarlson.com
https://jedidiahcarlson.com
Pinned
Jedidiah Carlson
@jedidiahcarlson.com
· Nov 8
I decided to go ahead and make a starter pack of historians, scientists, and others who work on scientific racism. If you’d like to be added to the pack (or removed from it), let me know.
go.bsky.app/E9PN3oG
go.bsky.app/E9PN3oG
🧵One of the most encouraging trends in academia over the last decade is the semi-spontaneous emergence of a massive interdisciplinary network committed to confronting scientific racism in all of its disgusting forms and applications
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
"What James Watson got wrong about DNA"
By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com).
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...
By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com).
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...
What James Watson got wrong about DNA - The Boston Globe
The science he helped pioneer consistently undermines his view that genes determine everything about us.
www.bostonglobe.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
"What James Watson got wrong about DNA"
By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com).
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...
By the great Sohini Ramachandran (@sramach.bsky.social) and your boy for The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com).
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/o...
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
The pilfering, however, is selective. On articles in Wikipedia's "controversial topics" bucket, the differences are far greater.
And that's where Grokipedia disproportionately adds low-quality sources, including Stormfront and InfoWars.
And that's where Grokipedia disproportionately adds low-quality sources, including Stormfront and InfoWars.
November 13, 2025 at 1:22 PM
The pilfering, however, is selective. On articles in Wikipedia's "controversial topics" bucket, the differences are far greater.
And that's where Grokipedia disproportionately adds low-quality sources, including Stormfront and InfoWars.
And that's where Grokipedia disproportionately adds low-quality sources, including Stormfront and InfoWars.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
1882 to 198! Solidarity, new comrades, and congrats to the Coalition of Graduate Employees.
Penn State graduate students overwhelmingly vote in favor of unionizing
The election took place last month.
www.centredaily.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:44 PM
1882 to 198! Solidarity, new comrades, and congrats to the Coalition of Graduate Employees.
The problem here is not necessarily that Vance is attempting to platform "controversial"/discredited scientific claims (obvs not great, but there is plenty of bad science out there already!), but that scientists are largely disincentivized from confronting bullshit head-on.
JD Vance: "Science as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, then you ought to criticize it and you ought to argue against it."
November 13, 2025 at 5:44 PM
The problem here is not necessarily that Vance is attempting to platform "controversial"/discredited scientific claims (obvs not great, but there is plenty of bad science out there already!), but that scientists are largely disincentivized from confronting bullshit head-on.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
A whole lotta liberals who were willing to take Epstein’s money turning off their phones tonight.
November 13, 2025 at 12:39 AM
A whole lotta liberals who were willing to take Epstein’s money turning off their phones tonight.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
We don't want people to think you can see evil in the genome, but we'll call our Channel 4 documentary "Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a dictator".
November 12, 2025 at 10:35 PM
We don't want people to think you can see evil in the genome, but we'll call our Channel 4 documentary "Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a dictator".
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
This is eugenics. And it's a shockingly common immigration policy globally, one I was proud the US didn't have.
Let's remember this policy when we regain the numbers to fix it.
Let's remember this policy when we regain the numbers to fix it.
Obesity's now on the list of considerations, as well as cancer, & mental health, that may result in denial of an immigrant visa.
"Those who suffer from these medical conditions could become a “public charge,” & drain the nation of its resources, the directive argued."
🧾 nypost.com/2025/11/10/u...
"Those who suffer from these medical conditions could become a “public charge,” & drain the nation of its resources, the directive argued."
🧾 nypost.com/2025/11/10/u...
State Department to allow denial of immigrant visas to those with health issues, including obesity
US State Department guidance could deny immigrant visas for health conditions like obesity.
nypost.com
November 12, 2025 at 3:48 AM
This is eugenics. And it's a shockingly common immigration policy globally, one I was proud the US didn't have.
Let's remember this policy when we regain the numbers to fix it.
Let's remember this policy when we regain the numbers to fix it.
No one knows what the magnetosphere is
November 12, 2025 at 2:52 AM
No one knows what the magnetosphere is
132 imaginary spiders valiantly died trying
oh no Colin Wright is still at it
has nobody made fun of this guy’s lack of expertise enough to his face
has nobody made fun of this guy’s lack of expertise enough to his face
November 11, 2025 at 6:56 PM
132 imaginary spiders valiantly died trying
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
Musk recently referred to people living in small town UK and Ireland as innocent "hobbits" that have to be defended from the invading forces who rape their children. It's a not-so-subtle framing of immigrants as sub-humans, akin to orcs, and of people like him as heroes rather than gutter racists.
The far right is obsessed with Lord of the Rings and Musk keeps posting about "hobbits" because modern scientific racism owes more to fantasy worlds and gaming systems than genetic science, and they see both as effective mediums for right-wing propaganda www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons and Dragons to Be Racist
The fantastical roots of “scientific racism”
www.theatlantic.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Musk recently referred to people living in small town UK and Ireland as innocent "hobbits" that have to be defended from the invading forces who rape their children. It's a not-so-subtle framing of immigrants as sub-humans, akin to orcs, and of people like him as heroes rather than gutter racists.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
Is it "surprising research"? @dasharez0ne.bsky.social taught us all this years ago.
November 10, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Is it "surprising research"? @dasharez0ne.bsky.social taught us all this years ago.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
Whoop whoop
November 10, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Whoop whoop
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
It's irritating that they describe the effects of his racism as limited to causing controversy within science and reputational consequences for himself rather than giving an immeasurable boost, false veneer of legitimacy, and idiot-friendly prestige to modern scientific racism and eugenics.
James D. Watson died on Thursday in East Northport, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 97.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/s...
James Watson, Who Helped Discover the Structure of DNA, Is Dead at 97
www.nytimes.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:42 PM
It's irritating that they describe the effects of his racism as limited to causing controversy within science and reputational consequences for himself rather than giving an immeasurable boost, false veneer of legitimacy, and idiot-friendly prestige to modern scientific racism and eugenics.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
Oh so we're kink-shaming Herasight's entire customer base now?
a few hundred point mutations cannot be the cause of racial differences unless highly correlated.
flip one coin. fifty-fifty chance it's heads. flip two coins, 25% chance. if white people are durably smarter, it's because they flip five hundred coins whenever they fuck and it's always all heads.
flip one coin. fifty-fifty chance it's heads. flip two coins, 25% chance. if white people are durably smarter, it's because they flip five hundred coins whenever they fuck and it's always all heads.
November 8, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Oh so we're kink-shaming Herasight's entire customer base now?
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
@jbenning.bsky.social @jedidiahcarlson.com
et al. exemplify how confounding can lead to flawed inference on genetic causality. In studies of human behavior and social outcomes, the cost of downplaying this problem can be steep. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.... bsky.app/profile/jben...
et al. exemplify how confounding can lead to flawed inference on genetic causality. In studies of human behavior and social outcomes, the cost of downplaying this problem can be steep. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.... bsky.app/profile/jben...
November 7, 2025 at 8:07 PM
@jbenning.bsky.social @jedidiahcarlson.com
et al. exemplify how confounding can lead to flawed inference on genetic causality. In studies of human behavior and social outcomes, the cost of downplaying this problem can be steep. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.... bsky.app/profile/jben...
et al. exemplify how confounding can lead to flawed inference on genetic causality. In studies of human behavior and social outcomes, the cost of downplaying this problem can be steep. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.... bsky.app/profile/jben...
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
We are concerned that a publishing culture which rewards sensationalism may drive a decline in standards of rigor. In that respect, everyone has a role to play: it is crucial that researchers, reviewers and editors uphold high standards in their handling of these issues.
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
We are concerned that a publishing culture which rewards sensationalism may drive a decline in standards of rigor. In that respect, everyone has a role to play: it is crucial that researchers, reviewers and editors uphold high standards in their handling of these issues.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
The study of the genetics underlying human behavior and social outcomes, with its fraught history and heightened potential for misappropriation, requires rigorous science. The failure to fully reckon with confounding fuels misinterpretation of genetics research and impedes scientific progress.
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
The study of the genetics underlying human behavior and social outcomes, with its fraught history and heightened potential for misappropriation, requires rigorous science. The failure to fully reckon with confounding fuels misinterpretation of genetics research and impedes scientific progress.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
(iii) how confounding is obscured or even leveraged in a broader class of contemporary genetic studies. In particular, we discuss where claims about genetic causality may reach beyond the evidence.
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
(iii) how confounding is obscured or even leveraged in a broader class of contemporary genetic studies. In particular, we discuss where claims about genetic causality may reach beyond the evidence.
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
(ii) a study by Song & Zhang (2024) purporting to solve a paradox: the evolutionary maintenance of genetic variants that increase same-sex sexual behavior, despite being “reproductively disadvantageous.”
![(a) Song & Zhang [32] show that the estimated genetic correlation between BSB (a measure of bisexual behaviour) in males and number of children is significantly different from zero (left diagram). They hypothesized the causal structure shown in the right diagram: genetic variants affecting BSB affect the number of children only through their simultaneous effect on risk-taking behaviour. When adjusting for genetic effects on risk-taking behaviour, the partial (residualized) genetic correlation between BSB and number of children is no longer significantly non-zero. They take this observation as evidence for their hypothesis. (b) When we repeat this analysis but replace risk taking with a variety of other measures (‘measure X,’ blue in causal diagram), 16 out of 18 measures we examined yield a partial genetic correlation between BSB and number of children that does not significantly differ from zero (bars show 95% confidence intervals). Therefore, the data are equally consistent with the hypothesis that genetic variants driving BSB are maintained through evolution as a byproduct of selection on any of these 16 measures. We note that most of these measures—like risk-taking behaviour—have a significant partial genetic correlation with number of children. Four of the measures, denoted with an asterisk, are not. (c) Male participants in the study sample who reported having first had sex before the age of 13 (including victims of childhood sexual assault, many of which would have had same-sex perpetrators) are likelier to be classified as BSB by the criteria used in Song & Zhang [32]. N, total number of males in each group.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ab4pnmwh4mepfdavgpxiqtyk/bafkreigadzssmgskbkdknxsc32ai5qvte3rjfct35sjt7buz3unv4wxb7y@jpeg)
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
(ii) a study by Song & Zhang (2024) purporting to solve a paradox: the evolutionary maintenance of genetic variants that increase same-sex sexual behavior, despite being “reproductively disadvantageous.”
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
(i) a study by Clark (2023) suggesting that patterns of similarity in social status between relatives indicate that social status is largely determined by one’s DNA
![Confounding between genetic and non-genetic factors influencing traits. (a) Confounding within families. Non-genetic transmission can parallel genetic transmission and their respective effects are confounded in observational data. Illustrated is a model where a trait value is the sum of an inherited component from parents and random noise. Under this model, the expected resemblance between relatives depends on transmissibility (t2, the portion of trait variation attributable to the transmitted component) and a rate of decay across genealogical distance (the ‘persistence rate,’ b, which increases with increasing degree of assortative mating). Ignoring the confounding of genetic and non-genetic transmission in the data, Clark [3] misassigns all transmission as genetic heritability and all assortative mating to be on a latent ‘social genotype’.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ab4pnmwh4mepfdavgpxiqtyk/bafkreia5tvv32hfxhyrcq7vvjja4mm6npjm4qt2zzusigf6l7fqmtgmlvi@jpeg)
![Reanalyses of data from Clark [3] challenge the paper’s claims. (a) Example of confounding between genetic and non-genetic transmission. The relationship between paternal wealth and a measure of social status suggest at least one source of confounding between genetic and non-genetic transmission. Across relative pairs, correlation in occupational status is highly correlated (Pearson’s r = 0.91) with those relatives’ correlation in paternal wealth. Inset shows that individual occupational status is strongly correlated (Pearson’s r = 0.72) with father’s wealth. (b) Pseudoreplication distorted estimates of familial correlations. Familial correlations (95% confidence interval (CI)) in occupational status (1780−1859) using the approach employed by [3] (in gold) involved pervasive, non-uniform pseudoreplication (electronic supplementary material, note S6). For example, the (1780−1859) occupational status correlation for fourth cousins is calculated from 17 382 pairs, derived from only 1878 unique individuals. In teal we show conservative estimates using only a single relative pair per surname (means and 95% CI over 1000 bootstrap samples are plotted for each familial correlation), which are therefore not susceptible to pseudoreplication. Distant cousins show dramatically higher correlations after adjusting for pseudoreplication. (c) Signals of change in social mobility. Parent-offspring correlations in multiple status measures generally decrease over time in Clark’s [3] data, in contrast to claims of stagnant social mobility made in the original paper. To mitigate pseudoreplication, we calculated correlations using one pair from each surname (as in (b)). Shown are average correlations (95% CI) across 500 bootstrap iterations of correlation estimation. The electronic supplementary material, figure S13 shows two complementary analyses estimating correlations either without accounting for pseudoreplication, or using percentile ranks—both result in similar trends.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ab4pnmwh4mepfdavgpxiqtyk/bafkreifkieycjlnnblrtzptezw7ox26z66rkhpfzcx4o2vp56znsyn3vcy@jpeg)
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
(i) a study by Clark (2023) suggesting that patterns of similarity in social status between relatives indicate that social status is largely determined by one’s DNA
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
We detail how multiple modes of confounding are incompletely understood and underappreciated in many contemporary papers. We illustrate these issues through reanalysis of data from case studies and discussion of the literature. We focus on…
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
We detail how multiple modes of confounding are incompletely understood and underappreciated in many contemporary papers. We illustrate these issues through reanalysis of data from case studies and discussion of the literature. We focus on…
Reposted by Jedidiah Carlson
Full OA paper here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Confounding fuels misinterpretation in human genetics | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
The scientific literature has seen a resurgence of interest in genetic influences
on human behaviour and socioeconomic outcomes. Such studies face the central difficulty
of distinguishing possible cau...
royalsocietypublishing.org
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Full OA paper here: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...