It is worth noting - although this does not excuse Giangrande & Turkheimer in any way - that modern publishing basically demands the approach they took. It would not be in their interest to expend significant effort as you have suggested they should. They would gain nothing from it, and in fact have gained substantially by not undertaking that work, in multiple ways. First, of course, they save time. Second, they avoid doing labor and learning they may be mistaken. And third, if anyone attempts to correct the record more broadly, they can merely say they were raising what they saw as likely issues, but of course one would have to check to be certain.
Incentives in academia are often very misaligned with truth seeking, as I suspect is not remotely news to readers of this blog, but the specific ways this is so are good to pay attention to.
I used to think of Turkheimer as a basically legit critic of hereditarianism. If there's a spectrum of hereditarian views from blank slate at the far left, to Charles Murray at the right; and an Overton window of beliefs that a respectable scientist could hold (given the evidence), then Turkheimer anchored himself to the far left of the window, only letting himself be dragged rightwards by the evidence as little as possible while staying in the window.
And this is fine. Just don't look to Turkheimer for a central estimate of the scientific consensus. Paige Harden (his former PhD student) probably provides that.
But after reading this, I believe Turkheimer is more concerned with dragging the window to the left, and is not above misrepresenting the evidence to do so.
Turkheimer reminds me of big Tobacco’s merchants of doubt. Except he’s doing it for free? Sad.
It is worth noting - although this does not excuse Giangrande & Turkheimer in any way - that modern publishing basically demands the approach they took. It would not be in their interest to expend significant effort as you have suggested they should. They would gain nothing from it, and in fact have gained substantially by not undertaking that work, in multiple ways. First, of course, they save time. Second, they avoid doing labor and learning they may be mistaken. And third, if anyone attempts to correct the record more broadly, they can merely say they were raising what they saw as likely issues, but of course one would have to check to be certain.
Incentives in academia are often very misaligned with truth seeking, as I suspect is not remotely news to readers of this blog, but the specific ways this is so are good to pay attention to.
I used to think of Turkheimer as a basically legit critic of hereditarianism. If there's a spectrum of hereditarian views from blank slate at the far left, to Charles Murray at the right; and an Overton window of beliefs that a respectable scientist could hold (given the evidence), then Turkheimer anchored himself to the far left of the window, only letting himself be dragged rightwards by the evidence as little as possible while staying in the window.
And this is fine. Just don't look to Turkheimer for a central estimate of the scientific consensus. Paige Harden (his former PhD student) probably provides that.
But after reading this, I believe Turkheimer is more concerned with dragging the window to the left, and is not above misrepresenting the evidence to do so.
I like your point of reanalysis of data; just criticizing is rhetoric. “All models are wrong….”
AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine did not use mRNA, but rather a recombinant adenovirus.
Just for curiosity Are you pro-vaxxx of COVID-19?