Every once in a while, an academic argument turns into a social-media spectacle. A collision over a seemingly innocuous subject — genes and the pursuit of happiness — has attracted a large number of onlookers.
In 2013, a paper concluded that a person's approach to happiness can shape gene expression (B. L.Fredrickson et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 13684–13689; 2013 ). The study and its first author, psychologist Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, received much media attention at the time, but a new report by US and UK researchers claims that the findings were “artifacts of dubious analysis and erroneous methodology”. Stuart Ritchie, a human-intelligence researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK, evidently enjoyed the show, as revealed by his tweet: “This demolition of a 'genetics of wellbeing' paper raised my wellbeing by a considerable amount. See go.nature.com/3ysfdp for more.
Related links
Related links
Related links in Nature Research
Related external links
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Woolston, C. Fresh arguments over old data. Nature 513, 9 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/513009b
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/513009b