Evidence receipt / uncertainty
Published · transcript-backedDavid Reich: uncertainty
8 May 2026 Dwarkesh Podcast David Reich – Why the Bronze Age was an inflection point in human evolution
“We’re getting about 7,200 positions in the DNA that have 50% confidence of being real. Only half of those are real—we don’t know which ones—so 3,600 of them are real.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- David Reich
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- uncertainty
- Recorded
- 8 May 2026
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
Transcript context
…So you found these locations that seem to be under selection. I have another clarifying question. You say you found 3,800 locations which you’re 50% confident have been under selection in the last 10,000 years. It’s 7,200 where we’re 50% confident. We’re getting about 7,200 positions in the DNA that have 50% confidence of being real. Only half of those are real—we don’t know which ones—so 3,600 of them are real. Does that also mean that outside of those 7,200, you’re confident the other locations in the genome are not under selection?…
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