Highlights From The Comments On Missing Heritability
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
[Original thread here: ] 1: Comments From People Named In The Post 2: Very Long Comments From Other Very Knowledgeable People 3: Small But Important Corrections 4: Other Comments
info_outline
Links For July 2025
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
[I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]
info_outline
Contra Skolnick On Schizophrenia Microbes
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
Stephen Skolnick is a gut microbiome expert blogging at . His argues that contra the psychiatric consensus, schizophrenia isn’t genetic at all - it’s caused by a gut microbe. He argues: Scientists think schizophrenia is genetic because it obviously runs in families But the twin concordance rates are pretty low - if your identical twin has schizophrenia, there’s only about a 30%-40% chance that you get it too. Is that really what we would expect from a genetic disease? Also, scientists have looked for schizophrenia genes, and can only find about 1-2% as many as they were expecting. So...
info_outline
Your Review: Alpha School
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
[This is one of the finalists in the 2025 review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I’ll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you’ve read them all, I’ll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] “Just as we don’t accept students using AI to write their essays, we will not accept districts using AI to supplant the critical role of teachers.” — Arthur Steinberg, American Federation of Teachers‑PA, reacting to Alpha’s cyber‑charter bid, January 2025 In January 2025, the...
info_outline
Missing Heritability: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
The Story So Far The mid-20th century was the golden age of nurture. Psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and the spirit of the ‘60s convinced most experts that parents, peers, and propaganda were the most important causes of adult personality. Starting in the 1970s, the pendulum swung the other way. Twin studies shocked the world by demonstrating that most behavioral traits - especially socially relevant traits like IQ - were substantially genetic. Typical estimates for adult IQ found it was about 60% genetic, 40% unpredictable, and barely related at all to parenting or family environment. By the...
info_outline
Open Questions For Future ACX Grants Rounds
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
Related to:
info_outline
ACX Grants 1-3 Year Updates
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
The first cohort of ACX Grants was announced in , the second in . In 2022, I posted for the first cohort. Now, as I start thinking about a third round, I’ve collected one-year updates on the second and three-year updates on the first. Many people said my request for updates went to their spam folder; relatedly, many people have not yet sent in their updates. If you’re a grantee who didn’t see my original email, but you do see this post, please fill in the update form . All quote blocks are the grantees’ own words; text outside of quote blocks is my commentary.
info_outline
The Claude Bliss Attractor
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
This is where if two copies of Claude talk to each other, they end up spiraling into rapturous discussion of spiritual bliss, Buddhism, and the nature of consciousness. From the : Anthropic swears they didn’t do this on purpose; when they ask Claude why this keeps happening, Claude can’t explain. Needless to say, this has made lots of people freak out / speculate wildly. I think there are already a few good partial explanations of this (especially Nostalgebraist ), but they deserve to be fleshed out and spread more fully.
info_outline
"But" vs. "Yes, But"
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
This is another heuristic from the same place as . If someone proves you are absolutely, 100% wrong about something, it’s polite to say “Oh, I guess I was wrong, sorry” before launching into your next argument. That is, instead of:
info_outline
If It's Worth Your Time To Lie, It's Worth My Time To Correct It
Astral Codex Ten Podcast
People don’t like nitpickers. “He literally did the WELL AKTUALLY!” If you say Joe Criminal committed ten murders and five rapes, and I object that it was actually only six murders and two rapes, then why am I “defending” Joe Criminal? Because if it’s worth your time to lie, it’s worth my time to correct it.
info_outlineMany cities have regular Astral Codex Ten meetup groups. Twice a year, I try to advertise their upcoming meetups and make a bigger deal of it than usual so that irregular attendees can attend. This is one of those times.
This year we have spring meetups planned in over eighty cities, from Tokyo, Japan to Seminyak, Indonesia. Thanks to all the organizers who responded to my request for details, and to Meetups Czar Skyler and the Less Wrong team for making this happen.
You can find the list below, in the following order:
-
Africa & Middle East
-
Asia-Pacific (including Australia)
-
Europe (including UK)
-
North America & Central America
-
South America
There should very shortly be a map of these meetups on the LessWrong community page.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/spring-meetups-everywhere-2024