The Good News Bible of Educational Attainment

In an effort to keep the "Educational Attainment" study relevant, we get yet more mileage from this polygenic risk score in another study.  It's a Plomin study, so you know where it's going, of course.  What strikes me most about this study is the absolute optimism and failure to consider than any of the findings can be anything other than proof of the genetics of "educational attainment," an absurd notion if you really turn off your filters for a second.  So let's go through it, a bit, shall we? 
Let's start with the opening sentence, which I think sets the scene for all of the rest that follows:

Ever increasing sample sizes and methodological advances in polygenic methods have made it possible to powerfully predict complex traits such as cognitive abilities without knowing anything about the causal chain between genes and behaviour. 

The question, of course, here, is what you are actually predicting? 

More Risk-Taking genetics

I will make a quick point related to this study:
Genetics of self-reported risk-taking behaviour, trans-ethnic consistency and relevance to brain gene expression (Strawbridge, et al.).

The study notes 8 novel loci for this so-called "risk-taking behavior" (diagnosed by asking people one question: “Would you describe yourself as someone who takes risks?”), as well as noting "...two replicated previous findings."  My quick point is that the 2 "replicated" SNP's were from a previous study by the same author using the same UK Biobank dataset (which has expanded since the last study from a few months ago).  Obviously, you would expect some "replication" when using overlapping datasets.

In short, no independently replicated SNP's from previous studies of this ilk, and some of the SNP's, even bolstered by using some of the same data, were not replicated.  Moreover, no independent analysis of the new data, which was simply folded into the old study in a meta-analysis type of format.  Again, in an attempt to bolster N, the study did not look at the new data independently.  

I might add to this critique when I've had more time to examine it in detail.