Daniel J. Benjamin
Selected Media
Op-Eds, Blog Posts, Etc.
"How to secure and manage grants" in Thriving in Economics: Assistant Professor and Beyond (pp. 93-96), 2023.
"Measuring the Essence of a Good Life." Finance & Development (International Monetary Fund), Winter 2021.
"Genetic Scoring Presents Opportunity, Peril." Reply to Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Charles Murray, Medium, Feb. 3, 2020. (A shorter version of the reply published in the Wall Street Journal on February 3, 2020.)
"Genetics and Academic Achievement." The Academic Minute, May 21, 2019.
"Happiness and satisfaction are not everything: Toward wellbeing indices based on stated preference." VoxEU.org, January 2, 2015
Interviews
"Interview with Dan Benjamin." Interviewed by Merle van den Akker for the Money on the Mind blog, August 22, 2022.
"Genomic Prediction’s Elizabeth Carr: 'Scoring embryos.'” Interviewed by Danny Fortson for The Times of London's Danny in the Valley podcast, December 3, 2021.
"Debunking One of the Most Famous Psychology Experiments Ever." Interviewed by Warren Olney for UCLA Anderson's How the World Works podcast, April 21, 2021.
“Predicting Illness.” Interview by Daniela Hernandez, Wall Street Journal, Apr. 26, 2020.
"What does happiness data mean? Daniel Benjamin and Ori Heffetz." Interviewed for the Institute for Futures Studies, March 6, 2020.
"Why the Dismal Science Cares About Happiness." Interviewed for the Institute for New Economic Thinking, July 31, 2019.
"G: Unnatural Selection." Podcast produced by Simon Adler, Radiolab, July 25, 2019.
"Journey from Psychology to Genomics." Interviewed for the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group, June 25, 2014.
Media Mentions
"How-To Guide for Happiness Surveys, Which Increasingly Drive Public Policy" by Dee Gill, UCLA Anderson Review, March 13, 2024.
"How Far Would You Go for an Ivy League Kid?" by Dee Gill, UCLA Anderson Review, March 1, 2023.
"The Unhappy Quest for a Happiness Index" by Dee Gill, UCLA Anderson Review, September 14, 2022.
"One statistical analysis must not rule them all" by Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Balazs Aczel. Nature 605, 423-425. May 17, 2022.
"The next baby boom: start-ups screen embryos to create 'designer children'" by Danny Fortson, Times of London, October 17, 2021.
"Picking Embryos With Best Health Odds Sparks New DNA Debate" by Carey Goldberg, Bloomberg Technology, September 17, 2021.
"Embryo Selection, Polygenic Scoring and Unrealistic Expectations" by Dee Gill, UCLA Anderson Review, August 11, 2021.
"A New Kind of Embryo Genetics Screening Makes Big Promises on Little Evidence" by Kyle W. Davis, Slate, July 23, 2021.
"A New Era of Designer Babies May Be Based on Overhyped Science" by Laura Hercher, Scientific American, July 12, 2021.
"Don't Use a Polygenic Risk Score to Choose Your IVF Embryo" by F. Perry Wilson, Impact Factor, July 8, 2021.
"Researchers raise concerns about using genetic risk scores to pick ‘healthier’ embryos" by Claudia López Lloreda, Stat News, July 1, 2021.
"Gene-Based Embryo Selection: Are 'Designer Babies' on the Horizon?" by Dennis Thompson, U.S. News & World Report, July 1, 2021.
"New Study Disavows Marshmallow Test’s Predictive Powers" by Dee Gill, UCLA Anderson Review, February 24, 2021.
"What Your DNA Can't Tell You" by Diana Kwon, The Scientist Magazine, Oct. 2, 2019.
"The Significant Problem of P Values" by Lydia Denworth, Scientific American, Oct., 2019.
"Years of Education Influenced by Genetic Makeup, Enormous Study Finds" by Carl Zimmer, New York Times, July 23, 2018.
"The 'Geno-Economists' Say DNA Can Predict Our Chance of Success" by Jacob Ward, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 16, 2018.
"Now alpha is point oh oh five" by John Schmidt, Medium, Aug 8, 2017.
"Will Lowering P-Value Thresholds Help Fix Science?" by Nick Thieme, Slate, Aug. 2, 2017.
"Big names in statistics want to shake up much-maligned P value" by Dalmeet Singh Chawla, Nature, July 26, 2017.
"It will be much harder to call new findings 'significant' if this team gets away with it" by Kelly Servick, Nature, July 25, 2017.
"Gene variants linked to education prove divisive" by Erika Check Hayden, Nature, May 12, 2016.
"Massive Study Finds Genetic Links To Happiness And Depression" by David DiSalvo, Forbes, April 22, 2016.
"The Genetics of Staying in School" by Ed Yong, The Atlantic, May 11 , 2016.
"A Height Gene? One for Smarts? Don't Bet On It" by Robert M. Sapolsky, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31, 2014.
"Herit-Ability." Article by Jonathan Flint and Marcus Munafò, Science, June 21, 2013.
"There Is No Gene for Finishing College" by Paul Voosen, The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2013
"In search of the money gene" by Leon Neyfakh, Boston Globe, May 13, 2013.