Any polygenic score for intellectual courage or curiosity, yet? Cowardly population can be modern cancel culture cultists, compare genomes of researchers and writers on IQ and genetics.
I fully agree with your take on the likely reason of citation failure by Reich lab. This doesn't excuse Akbari's disingenuous reply to Davide Piffer, but it shows the reality of today's politicized science, especially in such fields as anthropology.
I recently had an interesting e-mail conversation with David Reich on a different subject that has a bit of relevance here. It was about his new preprint that is generating a significant traction in paleoanthropo circles - about connection between early admixture of H sapiens to Neanderthals, emergence of Levallois and middle paleolithic and population surge at that time.
I don't expect D Reich to quote my model - it is just a Substack post, not a peer-reviewed article, and I am not a professional geneticist or anthropologist and I don't care much about academic publishing or building a citation index. My writing mostly concerns the idea that the "Recent Out of Africa" dogma needs to be retired completely, not just endlessly revised, as there are so much data now contradicting it. This heresy will unlikely be published academically in the climate today, and I am OK with that. In conversation with Reich it was clear and interesting to observe though that he is very receptive to these ideas but very cautious to acknowledge it publicly, as he was himself attacked a few times for various "heresies".
I fully support though Davide Piffer's fight for recognition of his work.
"My writing mostly concerns the idea that the "Recent Out of Africa" dogma needs to be retired completely, not just endlessly revised, as there are so much data now contradicting it. "
The continued support of the original Out of Africa theory is due mostly to leftist woke ideology.
It should be noted that Edward Wilson and Charles Lumsden in 1981 published the seminal theoretical argument for the coupling of genetic and cultural evolution in the book entitled Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Their work was broadly predictive of the recent empirical results.
Yes, I agree. I never met Edward Wilson, but I have met Charles Lumsden. It's unfortunate he completely abandoned this field of research. I understand the reasons, but it's still unfortunate.
I met Wilson and corresponded with him a little bit. He left a huge legacy by opening multiple doors for research, but communicating with him was not easy for me because he seemed too invested in his own interests and accomplishments. Bill Hamilton seemed to me a warmer soul.
Peter you're being petty and not exactly truthful. Reich at the height of denialism of possibly significant intergroup genetic differences, Reich issued a public statement to the effect they were to be expected. I'm sure you're aware off this.
Is that an inference or do you have evidence? Of course it may be a reason. Maybe other reasons as well. I did read your article and thought it was good. What does cooties mean? I'm not American though have lived there for 5 years and have visited many times
It's an inference in the sense I would have done the same thing. I would have felt terrible about it, but I still would have done it.
The word "cooties" is used by young children. If a child is unpopular, some kids will say he has "cooties." It's an imaginary germ that infects social outcasts.
That Nature accepted it is probably just the result of Donald winning the 2024 election and instituting anti-DEI policies. If Newsom wins in 2028, this will be memory-holed again. In between, it looks very much as David Reich stealing someone else's results. I mean, if you have millions in funding, you can easily reproduce some prior boot-strap from someone else.
Speaking as a scientist and reviewer, If you redo a sure-thing study and don't acknowledge, you steal intellectual property. There is always a temptation for people from a big lab to do that to people from a smaller lab. Particularly if you know Nature will side on your side because it hates people like Kirkegaarde, Piffer and Cremieux for political reasons. So yes.
When you use the term "intellectual property," you're implying that scientific findings can be copyrighted. This is not the case. Copyright applies to scientific publications, not to scientific findings. This distinction is foundational in copyright law:
- Facts, ideas, methods, and discoveries are not copyrightable
- Only the written article, figures, diagrams, and specific wording are copyrightable
There is no legal recourse for Emil Kirkegaard and Davide Piffer. There is only the recourse of public opinion.
I was never suggesting there will be a legal recourse. Scientific findings are not copyrightable and it is even very welcome that someone reproduces them. However, to do it without acknowledging is "stealing". Obviously, the best Emile and Davide could get would be the recourse of public opinion.
It is amazing what Reich and those guys have managed to get funded and published. They know how to frame things. The record can be set straight in the future Wallace vs Darwin and such. I remember a paper years ago proposing that northern peoples have larger crania so...they could see in the dark better. Fig leaves are needed.
Would you say that in Western Eurasia, an echelon corresponding with current cognitive ability was attained by 5-3000BC or so? I.e. that 'modern intelligence' was basically attained 5-7k years ago with little change since?
Go to page 8 (Figure 4) of the Akbari et al. paper. You'll find three graphs of cognitive evolution (intelligence, household income, years of schooling). The paper is available here:
All three graphs show an upward trend from 7,000 years ago to the present (with a decline between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago). Two of the three graphs indicate an all-time peak around 3,000 years ago
Of the three graphs, I have the most confidence in the one that uses alleles associated with years of schooling (educational attainment), since this polygenic score uses the largest number of alleles and is a very good proxy for intelligence. The intelligence graph uses a smaller number of alleles and is more prone to error.
Good to see this research getting more attention Peter. One question I have for you: Is there a large representative sample of genomes, from across Europe and into places like Cappadocia, that shows an increase or decrease in cognitive ability; from genomes during the post Imperial period when the Roman empire's capital moved to Constantinople - and right until the 15th century?
Not with good resolution for the period between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages. In my second-last post, I proposed the following model of European cognitive evolution, largely on the basis of two studies:
Piffer D, Dutton, E., & Kirkegaard, E.O.W. (2023). Intelligence Trends in Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of Roman Polygenic Scores. OpenPsych, July 21, 2023. https://doi.org/10.26775/OP.2023.07.21
300 – 800? (Late Antiquity) - The decline of mean cognitive ability reversed with the rise of Christianity. Possible causes:
Aggressive promotion of monogamy by the Church, which forced elite men to focus on procreation with a lawful wife, usually of similar status, rather than on sex with prostitutes or slave women. Socioeconomic success thus translated into reproductive success, and hence into selection for cognitive ability.
Shift from orthopraxy to orthodoxy, i.e., from correct conduct (paganism) to correct belief (Christianity). The Church favored those who were better at learning its rules, teachings, and doctrines.
800? – 1350 (Middle Ages to the Black Death) - Cognitive evolution now entered a period of either stasis or slow increase that cannot be measured with current data. Possible causes:
Rise of feudalism, from the 9th century onward. Feudal manors provided security in exchange for personal freedom. With fewer life choices, and less scope for innovation, serfs had fewer cognitive demands to deal with (Schooler, 1976).
Rise of monasticism, especially the Cluniac movement (founded in 910). Monks came disproportionately from aristocratic families, who provided endowments and appreciated the education provided by monastic living (Janin & Carlson, 2023, pp. 14, 39). Their vows of chastity kept them from passing on their mental aptitudes.
1350 – 1850 (late medieval and post-medieval periods) - Cognitive evolution accelerated after the Black Death and continued at a fast pace until the Victorian Era. Possible causes:
Growth of the middle class, due to the expanding market economy.
Gradual demographic replacement of the lower class, through the downward mobility of surplus middle-class individuals and the failure of the lower class to reproduce itself due to a higher death rate and lower marriage rate.
1850 – present (Modern Era) - Mean cognitive ability plateaued and eventually declined. Possible causes:
Shift from cottage industry to factory capitalism, where a business no longer relied primarily on family members to do the work, and where the workforce could now be expanded or contracted at will through hiring or firing. Because businesses were no longer “ma and pa” shops, the owners, generally men, had no economic incentive to marry early and have children. Reproductive success was thus severed from socioeconomic success
Creation of new needs to maintain a middle-class lifestyle, including the maintenance of a wife and family. Children became more costly and offered fewer economic benefits.
Decline of religion, especially the relaxation of its restrictions on marriage, divorce and sexual behavior.
And he also said, lying through his teeth, that one thing we can be sure is these differences will not correspond to stereotypes. So we can totally expect that genetics will show Africans are genetically more intelligent, Chinese genetically short-lived, Tibetans genetically ill-equipped to living at altitude etc etc
I can't defend everything he does. But keep in mind the current "intellectual" environment.
If I had been more cunning, I might be enjoying a nice university position now (instead of the precarious contracts I actually have). On the other hand, I would have been deathly afraid of saying what I think and believe. Life is a trade-off.
Cold environments selected for intelligence only when humans were hunter-gatherers. We see this selection in studies of recent hunter-gatherer populations.
In summary:
- Tools become more diverse and complex as effective temperature decreases because food has to be obtained during limited periods and over large areas.
- There is also more storage of food and fuel and greater use of untended traps and snares.
- Finally, shelters have to be sturdier, and clothing more cold-resistant.
The resulting cognitive demands are met primarily by women because the lack of opportunities for food gathering pushes them into more cognitively demanding tasks, like garment making, needlework, weaving, leatherworking, pottery, and kiln operation.
After hunting and gathering gave way to farming, there was a rapid rise in social complexity, i.e., larger, sedentary communities, population growth, rise of the State, literacy and numeracy, etc.
As a result, the selection pressure for increased cognitive ability shifted from the Arctic zone to the Temperate zone, where conditions were more optimal for farming and population growth.
There were three prior studies, only one of which was co-authored by Emil Kirkegaard.
One of those studies was authored by Yunus Kuijpers and his research team, i.e., Dominguez-Andrés, Bakker, Gupta, Grasshof, Xu, Joosten, Bertranpetit, Netea, and Li. None of them has ever been guilty of having "cooties." Their study was also published in a journal that ranks in the top third.
I'm not asking you to like a finding you dislike. I'm just asking you to play fair. The Reich Lab shouldn't be given full credit for a finding simply because David Reich doesn't have "cooties."
If you’ve been paying attention, you would know that Reich also has a level of “cooties” due to his NYT op ed. The difference is that he has independently demonstrated his competence and lack of agenda.
Could you please address my main point? Does Yunus Kuijpers have "cooties"? Is he "incompetent"? Has he or anyone on his research team done anything wrong? Do any of them have an "agenda"?
Any polygenic score for intellectual courage or curiosity, yet? Cowardly population can be modern cancel culture cultists, compare genomes of researchers and writers on IQ and genetics.
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012453
Some researchers are working on it.
I fully agree with your take on the likely reason of citation failure by Reich lab. This doesn't excuse Akbari's disingenuous reply to Davide Piffer, but it shows the reality of today's politicized science, especially in such fields as anthropology.
I recently had an interesting e-mail conversation with David Reich on a different subject that has a bit of relevance here. It was about his new preprint that is generating a significant traction in paleoanthropo circles - about connection between early admixture of H sapiens to Neanderthals, emergence of Levallois and middle paleolithic and population surge at that time.
It turned out I proposed somewhat similar model last year in a substack post (here the note of comparison of these models https://substack.com/home/post/p-193615677 and my original post here https://kirillpankratov.substack.com/p/two-million-years-of-human-history ). I wrote to him about it and he acknowledged a significant similarity, and in fact made a 3-page comment on my e-mail to him.
I don't expect D Reich to quote my model - it is just a Substack post, not a peer-reviewed article, and I am not a professional geneticist or anthropologist and I don't care much about academic publishing or building a citation index. My writing mostly concerns the idea that the "Recent Out of Africa" dogma needs to be retired completely, not just endlessly revised, as there are so much data now contradicting it. This heresy will unlikely be published academically in the climate today, and I am OK with that. In conversation with Reich it was clear and interesting to observe though that he is very receptive to these ideas but very cautious to acknowledge it publicly, as he was himself attacked a few times for various "heresies".
I fully support though Davide Piffer's fight for recognition of his work.
I largely support the Out-of-Africa model, but that is neither here nor there. Research on cognitive evolution mostly concerns the last 10,000 years.
Davide Piffer will eventually be recognized for his work. He's still young, and he won't suffer the fate of Gregor Mendel.
"My writing mostly concerns the idea that the "Recent Out of Africa" dogma needs to be retired completely, not just endlessly revised, as there are so much data now contradicting it. "
The continued support of the original Out of Africa theory is due mostly to leftist woke ideology.
Agree
It should be noted that Edward Wilson and Charles Lumsden in 1981 published the seminal theoretical argument for the coupling of genetic and cultural evolution in the book entitled Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Their work was broadly predictive of the recent empirical results.
Yes, I agree. I never met Edward Wilson, but I have met Charles Lumsden. It's unfortunate he completely abandoned this field of research. I understand the reasons, but it's still unfortunate.
I met Wilson and corresponded with him a little bit. He left a huge legacy by opening multiple doors for research, but communicating with him was not easy for me because he seemed too invested in his own interests and accomplishments. Bill Hamilton seemed to me a warmer soul.
Peter you're being petty and not exactly truthful. Reich at the height of denialism of possibly significant intergroup genetic differences, Reich issued a public statement to the effect they were to be expected. I'm sure you're aware off this.
Yes, I am aware. And I understand David Reich's reasons. Please read my article.
He avoided citing the prior studies because he understood the importance of publicizing this finding in a highly visible journal like Nature.
"He avoided citing the prior studies because he understood the importance of publicizing this finding in a highly visible journal like Nature."
This may well be true, but the sad part is that an ideological organ such as Nature is 'highly visible'.
Is that an inference or do you have evidence? Of course it may be a reason. Maybe other reasons as well. I did read your article and thought it was good. What does cooties mean? I'm not American though have lived there for 5 years and have visited many times
It's an inference in the sense I would have done the same thing. I would have felt terrible about it, but I still would have done it.
The word "cooties" is used by young children. If a child is unpopular, some kids will say he has "cooties." It's an imaginary germ that infects social outcasts.
Cooties are head lice.
That may have been the original meaning. But I often heard kids use it at school for anyone who was unpopular.
That Nature accepted it is probably just the result of Donald winning the 2024 election and instituting anti-DEI policies. If Newsom wins in 2028, this will be memory-holed again. In between, it looks very much as David Reich stealing someone else's results. I mean, if you have millions in funding, you can easily reproduce some prior boot-strap from someone else.
Nature is published in the UK, not the US.
David Reich didn't "steal" any results. An observation of reality cannot be stolen, if only because reality isn't subject to copyright.
The wrongdoing was the failure to acknowledge prior research. I understand why this happened, and I would have done the same thing, with much regret.
Speaking as a scientist and reviewer, If you redo a sure-thing study and don't acknowledge, you steal intellectual property. There is always a temptation for people from a big lab to do that to people from a smaller lab. Particularly if you know Nature will side on your side because it hates people like Kirkegaarde, Piffer and Cremieux for political reasons. So yes.
When you use the term "intellectual property," you're implying that scientific findings can be copyrighted. This is not the case. Copyright applies to scientific publications, not to scientific findings. This distinction is foundational in copyright law:
- Facts, ideas, methods, and discoveries are not copyrightable
- Only the written article, figures, diagrams, and specific wording are copyrightable
There is no legal recourse for Emil Kirkegaard and Davide Piffer. There is only the recourse of public opinion.
I was never suggesting there will be a legal recourse. Scientific findings are not copyrightable and it is even very welcome that someone reproduces them. However, to do it without acknowledging is "stealing". Obviously, the best Emile and Davide could get would be the recourse of public opinion.
It is amazing what Reich and those guys have managed to get funded and published. They know how to frame things. The record can be set straight in the future Wallace vs Darwin and such. I remember a paper years ago proposing that northern peoples have larger crania so...they could see in the dark better. Fig leaves are needed.
Great article. I'm saddened that the current situation requires such maneuvering.
It's like that exchange of words in West Side Story between Doc and the Jets:
"What does it take to get through to you? When do you stop? You make this world lousy!"
"That's the way we found it, Doc."
Would you say that in Western Eurasia, an echelon corresponding with current cognitive ability was attained by 5-3000BC or so? I.e. that 'modern intelligence' was basically attained 5-7k years ago with little change since?
Go to page 8 (Figure 4) of the Akbari et al. paper. You'll find three graphs of cognitive evolution (intelligence, household income, years of schooling). The paper is available here:
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2026_Akbari_Nature_selection_0.pdf
All three graphs show an upward trend from 7,000 years ago to the present (with a decline between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago). Two of the three graphs indicate an all-time peak around 3,000 years ago
Of the three graphs, I have the most confidence in the one that uses alleles associated with years of schooling (educational attainment), since this polygenic score uses the largest number of alleles and is a very good proxy for intelligence. The intelligence graph uses a smaller number of alleles and is more prone to error.
Good to see this research getting more attention Peter. One question I have for you: Is there a large representative sample of genomes, from across Europe and into places like Cappadocia, that shows an increase or decrease in cognitive ability; from genomes during the post Imperial period when the Roman empire's capital moved to Constantinople - and right until the 15th century?
Not with good resolution for the period between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages. In my second-last post, I proposed the following model of European cognitive evolution, largely on the basis of two studies:
Piffer D, Dutton, E., & Kirkegaard, E.O.W. (2023). Intelligence Trends in Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of Roman Polygenic Scores. OpenPsych, July 21, 2023. https://doi.org/10.26775/OP.2023.07.21
Piffer, D., & Connor, G. (2025b). Genomic Evidence for Clark’s Theory of the Industrial Revolution, preprint, ResearchGate, November. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392808200_Genomic_evidence_for_Clark’s_theory_of_the_Industrial_Revolution
This is my proposed timeline:
300 – 800? (Late Antiquity) - The decline of mean cognitive ability reversed with the rise of Christianity. Possible causes:
Aggressive promotion of monogamy by the Church, which forced elite men to focus on procreation with a lawful wife, usually of similar status, rather than on sex with prostitutes or slave women. Socioeconomic success thus translated into reproductive success, and hence into selection for cognitive ability.
Shift from orthopraxy to orthodoxy, i.e., from correct conduct (paganism) to correct belief (Christianity). The Church favored those who were better at learning its rules, teachings, and doctrines.
800? – 1350 (Middle Ages to the Black Death) - Cognitive evolution now entered a period of either stasis or slow increase that cannot be measured with current data. Possible causes:
Rise of feudalism, from the 9th century onward. Feudal manors provided security in exchange for personal freedom. With fewer life choices, and less scope for innovation, serfs had fewer cognitive demands to deal with (Schooler, 1976).
Rise of monasticism, especially the Cluniac movement (founded in 910). Monks came disproportionately from aristocratic families, who provided endowments and appreciated the education provided by monastic living (Janin & Carlson, 2023, pp. 14, 39). Their vows of chastity kept them from passing on their mental aptitudes.
1350 – 1850 (late medieval and post-medieval periods) - Cognitive evolution accelerated after the Black Death and continued at a fast pace until the Victorian Era. Possible causes:
Growth of the middle class, due to the expanding market economy.
Gradual demographic replacement of the lower class, through the downward mobility of surplus middle-class individuals and the failure of the lower class to reproduce itself due to a higher death rate and lower marriage rate.
1850 – present (Modern Era) - Mean cognitive ability plateaued and eventually declined. Possible causes:
Shift from cottage industry to factory capitalism, where a business no longer relied primarily on family members to do the work, and where the workforce could now be expanded or contracted at will through hiring or firing. Because businesses were no longer “ma and pa” shops, the owners, generally men, had no economic incentive to marry early and have children. Reproductive success was thus severed from socioeconomic success
Creation of new needs to maintain a middle-class lifestyle, including the maintenance of a wife and family. Children became more costly and offered fewer economic benefits.
Decline of religion, especially the relaxation of its restrictions on marriage, divorce and sexual behavior.
And he also said, lying through his teeth, that one thing we can be sure is these differences will not correspond to stereotypes. So we can totally expect that genetics will show Africans are genetically more intelligent, Chinese genetically short-lived, Tibetans genetically ill-equipped to living at altitude etc etc
I can't defend everything he does. But keep in mind the current "intellectual" environment.
If I had been more cunning, I might be enjoying a nice university position now (instead of the precarious contracts I actually have). On the other hand, I would have been deathly afraid of saying what I think and believe. Life is a trade-off.
So has this not lowered your credence in cold winter theory then?
I only half-believed in that theory.
Cold environments selected for intelligence only when humans were hunter-gatherers. We see this selection in studies of recent hunter-gatherer populations.
In summary:
- Tools become more diverse and complex as effective temperature decreases because food has to be obtained during limited periods and over large areas.
- There is also more storage of food and fuel and greater use of untended traps and snares.
- Finally, shelters have to be sturdier, and clothing more cold-resistant.
The resulting cognitive demands are met primarily by women because the lack of opportunities for food gathering pushes them into more cognitively demanding tasks, like garment making, needlework, weaving, leatherworking, pottery, and kiln operation.
After hunting and gathering gave way to farming, there was a rapid rise in social complexity, i.e., larger, sedentary communities, population growth, rise of the State, literacy and numeracy, etc.
As a result, the selection pressure for increased cognitive ability shifted from the Arctic zone to the Temperate zone, where conditions were more optimal for farming and population growth.
https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/1/1/12
Because Kierkegaard is a crank who is trying to push an agenda. If he gets something right occasionally, it’s a coincidence.
There were three prior studies, only one of which was co-authored by Emil Kirkegaard.
One of those studies was authored by Yunus Kuijpers and his research team, i.e., Dominguez-Andrés, Bakker, Gupta, Grasshof, Xu, Joosten, Bertranpetit, Netea, and Li. None of them has ever been guilty of having "cooties." Their study was also published in a journal that ranks in the top third.
I'm not asking you to like a finding you dislike. I'm just asking you to play fair. The Reich Lab shouldn't be given full credit for a finding simply because David Reich doesn't have "cooties."
If you’ve been paying attention, you would know that Reich also has a level of “cooties” due to his NYT op ed. The difference is that he has independently demonstrated his competence and lack of agenda.
Could you please address my main point? Does Yunus Kuijpers have "cooties"? Is he "incompetent"? Has he or anyone on his research team done anything wrong? Do any of them have an "agenda"?