Over the past several years, I have spent time taking on studies related to the genetics of mental illness, IQ, personality traits, etc. I have done so for a few reasons, but largely to counter what I think is, effectively, a reductionist mindset that pervades the scientific community and, by extension, society at large, leading to a kind of eugenic attitude towards society's problems. I believe that this is quite harmful. My general approach has been to attack the studies directly, which have historically been relatively easy to pick apart, even for someone who does not work directly in such research. It was my view, and still is, that the "findings" in these studies are not what is generally being suggested (genes for the traits noted above).
Up until recently, these studies repeatedly failed to replicate at all, and the mantra from scientists was that they just needed bigger databases. I had hoped this would not be the case, but I can see now that as the databases are getting into the millions, it appears that they are starting to get some associations that are relatively consistent (at least within specific groups). (Update: Please see Addendum 2 below. it is still unclear to me to what extent there is replication).
What these associations mean, of course, is open for debate and speculation. I am of the view that they don't really have anything to do with the actual traits and are probably some form of population stratification, but even if that is the case, it does allow for a bit of statistical predictive capability. In my opinion, this minor predictive success will soon become asymptotic, but that alone is enough to fuel years of these studies, striving for better and better predictability. Nevertheless, this puts me in a rather difficult position.
