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Kostas Kampourakis

@kampourakisk.bsky.social

1.9K followers 140 following 300 posts

Author and editor of books intended to help non-experts understand science. Interested in anything about evolution, development, heredity and nature of science.

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Philosophy 29%

Biology 23%

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Reposted by Kostas Kampourakis

The Ramsey Lab @theramseylab.bsky.social · 8d

New Cambridge Element in the Philosophy of Biology series—fully #openaccess! @thomasreydon.bsky.social explores how evolutionary theory crosses over from biology into other fields, showing how these crossovers embody a broader style of reasoning: 'evolutionary thinking' bit.ly/48z3h36 #HPbio #evosky

Book cover of “The Scope of Evolutionary Thinking” by Thomas A. C. Reydon, in the Cambridge Elements: The Philosophy of Biology series. Against a black background, the title is surrounded by Ernst Haeckel’s illustrations of marine organisms—radial, symmetrical forms in vivid blues, oranges, reds, and greens.

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · 9d

Here is the Greek edition of my book Ancestry Reimagined. If you happen to be in Athens, Greece, on November 3, there will be a book discussion at the publisher's main bookstore. More info to come.

cup.gr/book/ethniki...

Reposted by Kostas Kampourakis

Reposted by Kostas Kampourakis, Nikki Fairchild, Elizabeth Ewan

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 21d

“The big perspective change from ancient DNA study is that people living today are almost never the descendants of the people in the same place thousands of years before”

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Pure bloodlines? Ancestral homelands? DNA science says no. — Harvard Gazette

Geneticist explains recent analyses made possible by tech advances show human history to be one of mixing, movement, displacement.

news.harvard.edu

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Reposted by Kostas Kampourakis

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · 25d

Why studies about reconstructing the past based on contemporary DNA makes me think of the streetlight effect

open.substack.com/pub/kostaska...

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Sep 8

Interesting! (To say the least).

Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Sep 8

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

History of Molecular Biology Collection

This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

www.sciencehistory.org

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Reposted by Jonathan A. Eisen, Steven French, Kostas Kampourakis , and 3 more Jonathan A. Eisen, Steven French, Kostas Kampourakis, Stuart Elden, Alan Richardson, S. J. Holmes

Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · Sep 8

History of Molecular Biology Collection

This unparalleled collection includes Rosalind Franklin's historic 'Photo 51,' which revealed the double-helix structure of DNA.

www.sciencehistory.org

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Sep 6

Check out my latest book Trusting Science, using the attached 30% discount code, and let me know what you think!

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Sep 1

Excited to participate in this very interesting conference: zasb.unibas.ch/de/veranstal...

Reposted by Kostas Kampourakis

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 21

Some scientists also think that historians do not know enough about the science to write about its history, which of course is not the case for good historians. Same for philosophers.

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

For an individual on average, or the average individual perhaps, but not for any two specific individuals. It is one thing to made a mathematical calculation and another to make sense of it.

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

Indeed.

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

My point was that I do not think we can make any legitimate inferences for individuals. Anyway, this may be of interest: plato.stanford.edu/entries/heri...

Heritability (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

plato.stanford.edu

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

The statistic refers to a particular population as a whole.

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

90% heritability for height means that 90% of the variance in height across individuals in that specific population, place, and time is statistically associated with genetic differences. What it does not mean is that your height, or my height, or any individual's height is 90% genetic.

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Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

Worse, "heritability" is often taken by non-experts to mean, or to at least imply, "inheritability", that is, how much "inherited" a trait is...

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

Here is a substack post about heritability, related to my comment below:
kostaskampourakis.substack.com/p/today-esti...

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

"Today, estimates from twin studies attribute up to 90% of an individual’s height to their genetic makeup."

This is not corrrect! What heritability studies show is that at the population level 90% of the differences in height are due to genetic differences.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The genetic basis of human height - Nature Reviews Genetics

Genetic factors that influence human height encompass rare monogenic variants as well as common and rare polygenic variants. In this Review, Bicknell et al. summarize our current understanding of the ...

www.nature.com

Kostas Kampourakis @kampourakisk.bsky.social · Aug 18

Glad my point is clear. I have no doubt that you and these authors know what you are talking about. I am rather concerned about how such poor expressions (such as the one in that article) may be misunderstood by laypeople, or - worse - be quoted while used for ideological purposes.