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What David Reich thinks about Europe

@david-reich · 26 positions · 0 changes of mind

Geneticist at Harvard Medical School, whose laboratory studies human history and biological change through ancient DNA.

David Reich did not write this page.

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3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what David Reich has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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  1. Our readingThe selection signal on the genetics of schooling is not a European artefact: the same variants predict years of school in China, a population disconnected from Europe for the whole period.

    Their wordsSo we just could not see a way this could happen by chance and once we saw that we really felt quite convinced that this was a real signal and that really somehow there has been natural selection to increase the genetic changes that today manifest themselves as more years of school at predicting more years of schooling.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 10th of 26 in this recording

    Chinaeducationevolutionary biology

  3. Our readingEuropeans have been under selection against body fat for 10,000 years because farming made the food supply steadier, not less stable.

    Their wordsAnd so, maybe what you're seeing is that this group of people in Europe and the Middle East over the last 10,000 years has moved into a a period of relatively more stable food, where building up stores of fat are not as advantageous, and there's been selection against this combination of traits.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 13th of 26 in this recording

  5. Our readingA tiny fraction of ancestry can carry the most important thing about a population: Yamnaya is only a few percent of DNA in India and yet it brought the language.

    Their wordsbut it is the tracer dye, right? Like it tracks into European languages and important aspects of Indo-European culture are coming through Yamnaya.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 22nd of 26 in this recording