Episode 99.5: Candidate genes
From Science Fictions by Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
April 21, 2026 · 1h 13m
About this episode
The episode discusses the misguided belief in candidate genes and the implications of scientific errors in psychology.
Here’s another one for the annals of “entire scientific field becomes totally misguided for decades”. How could it have been possible that so many scientists fell for the idea of candidate genes—that there were individual gene variants that explained huge chunks of variation in depression, aggression, intelligence, and many more psychological traits? How could they have written literally hundreds of peer-reviewed papers based on completely false “results”? Well, they did. Here’s the story. ( Why 99.5? We’re putting off doing Episode 100, just so we can mark the occasion with an even better topic ). The Science Fictions podcast is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine , the journal of underrated ideas for making the world a better place. Today we talked about the new article on why Japan’s railways are so good and what other countries can learn from them. Read all their articles, for absolutely zero cost, at worksinprogress.co . Show notes * The first study on 5HTTLPR and depression, from 1996 * Caspi et al.’s seminal 2003 Science paper on gene-environment interaction with 5HTTLPR and depression * “Orchid genes” in The Atlantic ; Wired ; The New York Times * Caspi et al’s…
People in this episode
Hosts: Tom Chivers, Stuart Ritchie
Topics covered
- candidate genes
- psychological traits
- scientific misconceptions
- gene-environment interaction
- replication crisis
Keywords
- candidate genes
- depression
- aggression
- intelligence
- 5HTTLPR
- MAOA
- replication crisis
- scientific papers
Sponsors
Works in Progress
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: 5HTTLPR, Caspi et al.'s seminal 2003 Science paper, Orchid genes, Caspi et al's 2002 paper on MAOA, Scott Alexander’s classic 2019 article on candidate genes
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