GWAS of 126,559 individuals identifies genetic variants associated with educational attainment

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment was conducted in a discovery sample of 101,069 individuals and a replication sample of 25,490. Three independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are genome-wide significant (rs9320913, rs11584700, rs4851266), and all three replicate. Estimated effects sizes are small (coefficient of determination R(2) approximately 0.02%), approximately 1 month of schooling per allele. A linear polygenic score from all measured SNPs accounts for approximately 2% of the variance in both educational attainment and cognitive function. Genes in the region of the loci have previously been associated with health, cognitive, and central nervous system phenotypes, and bioinformatics analyses suggest the involvement of the anterior caudate nucleus. These findings provide promising candidate SNPs for follow-up work, and our effect size estimates can anchor power analyses in social-science genetics.

Audience members (including Max Rieser?); Second International Congress of the International Union for the Philosophy of Science; Zurich Portraits Groups Men

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Understanding the effectiveness of ICT professional learning through the TPACK Conceptual Framework: A case study

With a significant investment in digital technologies in Australian schools, the effective integration of such technology into teaching and learning is paramount. A growing body of evidence indicates that ICT professional learning is integral to the transformation of pedagogy that will improve student learning outcomes. The question arises as to how professional learning is planned and delivered within schools to ensure that all needs are being met. The purpose of this paper is to report on the research findings of a study into professional learning and ICT integration. The TPACK conceptual framework underpins the analyses of the data and brings forth the importance of technological and pedagogical knowledge. Six key categories will be discussed and the implication for practice will be considered.

Popper or Kuhn: Truth and the progress of science

The questions of whether science pursues truth as correspondence to reality and whether science in fact progresses towards attaining a truthful understanding of physical reality are fundamental and contested in the philosophy of science. On one side of the debate stands Popper, who argues that science is objective, necessarily assumes a correspondence theory of truth, and inevitably progresses toward truth as physical theories develop, gaining a more truthful understanding of reality through progressively more sophisticated empirical analysis. Conversely Kuhn, influenced by postmodern philosophy, argues that ultimate truth cannot be attained since no objective metaphysical reality exists and it cannot be known, and consequently the notion of scientific objectivity and "progress" is a myth, marred by philosophical and ideological value judgments. Ultimately, Kuhn reduces so-called scientific progress through the adoption of successive paradigms to leaps of "faith". This paper seeks a reconciliation of the two extremes, arguing that Popper is correct in the sense that science assumes a correspondence theory of truth and may progress toward truth as physical theories develop, while simultaneously acknowledging with Kuhn that science is not purely objective and free of value judgments. The notion of faith is also critical, for it was the acknowledgement of God's existence as the creator and instituter of observable natural laws which allowed the development of science and the scientific method in the first place. Therefore, accepting and synthesising the contentions that science is to some extent founded on faith, assumes and progresses toward truth, and is subject to value judgments is necessary for the progress of science.

Composition of aqueous solutions in equilibrium with sulfides and oxides of iron at 3500°C

Solutions of potassium chloride (pH-buffered and 1-molat) equilibrated at 350°C with pyrrhotite, pyrite, and magnetite contained approximately 1 millimole of reduced sulfur and less than 0.1 millimole of oxidized sulfur per kilogram. Similar solutions equilibrated with pyrite, magnetite, and hematite contained approximately 1 millimole of reduced sulfur, but 3 to 6 millimoles of oxidized sulfur per kilogram. Both types of solutions contained less than 0.1 millimole of iron per kilogram at pH ≥ 6 and approximately 100 millimoles per kilogram at pH 2.

Formal methods in the foundations of science

The intent of this study is to provide formal apparatus which facilitates the investigation of problems in the methodology of science. The introduction contains several examples of such problems and motivates the subsequent formalism.

A general definition of a formal language is presented, and this definition is used to characterize an individual’s view of the world around him. A notion of empirical observation is developed which is independent of language. The interplay of formal language and observation is taken as the central theme. The process of science is conceived as the finding of that formal language that best expresses the available experimental evidence.

To characterize the manner in which a formal language imposes structure on its universe of discourse, the fundamental concepts of elements and states of a formal language are introduced. Using these, the notion of a basis for a formal language is developed as a collection of minimal states distinguishable within the language. The relation of these concepts to those of model theory is discussed.

An a priori probability defined on sets of observations is postulated as a reflection of an individual’s ontology. This probability, in conjunction with a formal language and a basis for that language, induces a subjective probability describing an individual’s conceptual view of admissible configurations of the universe. As a function of this subjective probability, and consequently of language, a measure of the informativeness of empirical observations is introduced and is shown to be intuitively plausible – particularly in the case of scientific experimentation.

The developed formalism is then systematically applied to the general problems presented in the introduction. The relationship of scientific theories to empirical observations is discussed and the need for certain tacit, unstatable knowledge is shown to be necessary to fully comprehend the meaning of realistic theories. The idea that many common concepts can be specified only by drawing on knowledge obtained from an infinite number of observations is presented, and the problems of reductionism are examined in this context.

A definition of when one formal language can be considered to be more expressive than another is presented, and the change in the informativeness of an observation as language changes is investigated. In this regard it is shown that the information inherent in an observation may decrease for a more expressive language.

The general problem of induction and its relation to the scientific method are discussed. Two hypotheses concerning an individual’s selection of an optimal language for a particular domain of discourse are presented and specific examples from the introduction are examined.

Fishes of Ceylon: a catalogue, key and bibliography

A knowledge of the specific composition of Ceylon fish fauna is essential to any programme of development of commercial fisheries, or the study of Ceylon's ichthyology and the need for cataloguing it has been keenly felt for many years. The need for cataloguing the whole of Ceylon's flora and fauna was stressed by the Natural Science Section of the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science during its 1952 annual sessions and it was then that the writer agreed to help satisfy this need by compiling an up-to-date check list of species of two families of fishes, the Clupeidae and the Carangidae, which are important in the beach seine fishery which he was studying at that time. In the course of this work it was decided to expand the check-list to make it comprehensive of all species of fish that have been recorded from Ceylon to date and to supply keys for their identification. This has involved a screening of the pioneer works of Bennet (1834) and Day (1878-1889) and the many subsequent references to Ceylon fish scattered through various scientific journals and other publications, some of them long out and now almost unobtainable.