Jonathan Anomaly

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

1/ Today we launch an ambitious paper on the ethics of embryo screening. While the technology is new, our hopes and fears about our future children are as old as the Greek myths, including stories about Hera, goddess of fertility and the namesake of our company @herasight

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@elephant_ben Banning cousin marriage is a clear case of state-sponsored, coercive eugenics. And it is entirely justifiable.

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@dwarkesh_sp @garettjones on his Singapore trilogy, @mungowitz on public choice economics, and @_twolfram on the genetics of cognitive ability and the promise of polygenic prediction

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@CMichaelGibson All of our validation studies, as well as our ethics paper, can be found at https://t.co/hP8ZTSix3h. Here is an overview of our approach to polygenic embryo screening:

https://t.co/fvGp5oT3br

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@anshulkundaje @GeneSmi96946389 @hecubian_devil “Expected” is probably the best way to put it: we definitely cannot say a PRS will boost IQ by x points, any more than we can say a PRS reduces diabetes. We can only alter risks

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@williameijer That’s exactly my thesis:

https://t.co/k0uGifpsF3

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@Porkchop_EXP Nature is not a “master engineer.” This is not how evolution works at all:

https://t.co/oQJKlqTBmz

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@anshulkundaje @shae_mcl Yeah, it’s a politically explosive issue, which is why they focus on it

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@anshulkundaje @shae_mcl I don’t disagree. This is why I don’t like to focus on IQ much. Truth is, not a single one of our customers that I’m aware of has prioritized IQ over serious health conditions when there’s a real tradeoff

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@shae_mcl @anshulkundaje Sure, while I stand behind our predictors (as we’ve validated them within family and across various ancestries) the case being discussed today is a massive outlier, and totally unrepresentative of an average person doing IVF

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@hemabe @herasight It’s a good question, but we haven’t done any original research on this. @russwarne has summarized the research here: https://t.co/D9aLdIqaWy

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@Amekage_1 I think the opposite is true:

https://t.co/riJBlhNyFk

[Alex Strudwick Young @AlexTISYoung]

A lot of people seem to be thinking the 99.99th percentile here means the 99.99th percentile of the IQ distribution.

This is just showing the quantiles of the embryo PGS compared to the reference distribution. When translated into predicted IQ it looks like the below image.

A mean of about 2SDs above average but with substantial uncertainty. Note Herasight's prediction model also takes into account parental phenotypes and regression to the mean, important for getting the mean prediction right but not relevant for predicting differences for a quantitative outcome.

The important point is that this particular case shows there can be really substantial variation in predicted IQ from embryo testing in an individual family, around 1.6SDs.

Most families won't have enough embryos to observe that range, but it's certainly a possible outcome for some.

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@BillDA @gkamstra Feel free to reach out and we’ll show you the methodology that we recently published, as well as take any questions @herasight

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@BillDA @gkamstra https://t.co/VZA3hh6bqF

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@bavardier Not an advertisement: they wanted to share their results with a friend

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@tedfrank @GeneSmi96946389 @ComputerEnemy @kitten_beloved 99th for *their* expected potential embryos, not population as a whole

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@bavardier @herasight Yes: this is a very unusual couple. They are also quite public about what they are doing

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@capitalismandf1 @paulnovosad @KelseyTuoc Fair enough

[Jonathan Anomaly @JonathanAnomaly]

@paulnovosad @KelseyTuoc We show clearly that the genetic correlations between our cognitive ability predictor and health traits are almost entirely positive:

https://t.co/VZA3hh6bqF