News
November 16, 2018
"The 'Geno-Economists' say DNA can predict our chances of success" in The New York Times Magazine
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.
August 23, 2018
"How Scientists are Learning to Predict Your Future with Your Genes" in Vox
TheVox article provides a primer on GWAS and discusses appropriate interpretations of the findings from our study titled “Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals."
July 23, 2018
"Many Genes Play a Role in Educational Attainment, Enormous Genetic Study Finds" in The New York Times
The New York Times article draws attention to the findings for our study titled “Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals." The article includes remarks from several of the authors on the study's implications, and avenues for future research.
July 23, 2018
"Why Study the Genetics of Staying in School?" in The Atlantic
The Atlantic article draws attention to the findings and appropriate interpretations of these findings for our study titled “Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals."
July 23, 2018
"Wie Gene die Intelligenz beeinflussen" (How genes affect intelligence) in Welt
The Welt article summarizes the findings of our study titled “Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals" and discusses its implications in a broad context.
July 23, 2018
"Million-person genetic study finds gene patterns linked to how long people stay in school" in MIT Technology Review
The MIT Technology Review article summarizes the findings of our study title “Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals" and includes comments from the paper's authors and other researchers on its implications.
May 11, 2016
"The Genetics of Staying in School" in The Atlantic
The Atlantic article draws attention to the findings and appropriate interpretations of these findings for our study titled “Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment."
May 11, 2016
"Is academic achievement written into your DNA? It’s complicated" in STAT
The STAT article highlights the findings from our study titled “Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment" and emphasizes that that although there are genes with significant associations with educational attainment, "underlining how a complex behavior like going to college is not written in our DNA."
April 22, 2016
"Massive Study Finds Genetic Links To Happiness And Depression" in Forbes
The Forbes article draws attention to our study titled "Genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms and neuroticism identified through genome-wide analyses."
May 5, 2016
"The First Happiness Genes Have Been Discovered" in Psyblog
The Psyblog article introduces the findings of our study titled "Genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms and neuroticism identified through genome-wide analyses," including some remarks about the interpretations of these findings from a few of the authors.
September, 2015
"An Introduction to Thinking about Trustworthy Research into the Genetics of Intelligence" by The Hastings Center
In November 2014, the Hastings Center, the well-known independent bioethics research institute, convened a workshop to examine the ethics of research on the genetics of intelligence. In September 2015, the Hastings Center Report published the results of that workshop in a special issue, "The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research." In 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 of three features of trustworthy research the workshop members identified "entails taking steps to guard against hyperbole about its scientific or social significance. . . . Fortunately, efforts at guarding against hyperbole are already under way. 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 (which they took to be a proxy for intelligence) and simultaneously posted an essay that explained in plain English how the study was conducted and what it did—and did not—find. They explained why they had not found 'the gene for educational attainment' and why it would be 'extremely premature' to infer policy implications from their findings. . . . [T]he SSGAC may be the best example of prophylaxis against hyperbole to which we can point . ."
January 31, 2014
"A Height Gene? One for Smarts? Don't Bet On It" in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal article draws attention to our study titled “GWAS of 126,559 Individuals Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Educational Attainment” and highlights its conclusion that “educational attainment looks to be a very polygenic trait".
June 03, 2013
"Genes Have Small Effect on Length of Education" in Futurity
Futurity explains our recent work on educational attainment, quoting one of the study's co-authors, Dalton Conley:
“We have now taken a small but important first step toward identifying the specific genetic variants that predict educational attainment. Armed with this knowledge, we can now begin to examine how other factors—including public policy, parental roles, and economic status—dampen or amplify genetic effects and ultimately devise better remedies to bolster educational outcomes.”
October 02, 2013
"Dangerous Work: Behavioural geneticists must tread carefully to prevent their research being misinterpreted" in Nature
An editorial in Nature discussed the SSGAC as best practice approach to research in behavioral genetics and stated that "scientists would do well to follow the example of the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium." At the SSGAC, we release FAQs with our publications to explain both the results and limitations of our studies to avoid any misinterpretation of our work.
June 21, 2013
"Herit-Ability" in 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 very crude phenotypic measures to identify genes robustly associated with an outcome of broad social relevance”, and then analyzing these genes with the “knowledge that they are associated with something, even if it isn’t known exactly what or how”.
May 30, 2013
"Genetic variants linked to educational attainment" in the Cornell Chronicle
The Chronicle discusses the SSGAC"s work on educational attainment, noting that, 'The researchers were careful to note that they have not discovered "the gene for education" and that these findings somehow [do not] imply that a person's educational attainment is determined at birth."
May 30, 2013
"There Is No Gene for Finishing College" in The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses the origins and possible implications of our work on educational attainment. The article highlights that while “there will never be a gene for educational success”, the SSGAC demonstrates that “genoeconomists are ready to play at a higher level, and everyone should start listening”.