Uku Vainik

@ukuvainik.bsky.social

766 Followers 701 Following

Professor of behavioral genetics with my own twins. I mix behaviour and genetics at Tartu & McGill to understand obesity. I also mix global music as a DJ.

There are exactly two kinds of rebuttal experiments:

Decision‑relevant: If the result goes one way, you’d reject; another way, you’d accept.
Curiosity‑driven: The result is interesting, but it doesn’t change your recommendation.
Only the first category belongs in a rebuttal. Most of what authors are being asked for is the second.

You can test this quickly:

If this experiment totally flops, would a reasonable reviewer still say the core claim is supported?
If yes, it’s curiosity.
If no, you probably had a real hole in the paper.

A compilation of meta-analytic correlations between measures of success and IQ

A genetic SEM plot of food preferences and their groupings

BMI variance parcellation with twin data.
A & B - genetic contribution to BMI variation; C & D family environment contribution to BMI contribition

Big 5 GWAS plots at Essgn

Käitumisgeneetika professor Uku Vainik räägib inauguratsiooniloengul käitumisteaduste ja geneetika põimimisest

Why doesn’t personality psychology have a replication crisis?
Because It’s Boring
“[Personality psychology] has reduced the chances of being wrong but palpably increased the fact of being boring. In making that transition, personality psychology became more accurate but less broadly interesting.” — Roy Baumeister (2016, p. 6)