Why did blue eyes evolve?

The most interesting articles that came to our attention this week

A real-world test of artificial intelligence infiltration of a university examinations system: A “Turing Test” case study. Peter Scarfe and colleagues examine how AI-written submissions are treated by examiners for the degree of psychology at a UK university. They find that 94% of the AI-written submissions went undetected, and that they were awarded grades half a grade-boundary higher than those awarded to real students.

A 30-nation investigation of lay heritability beliefs. Laura Ferris and colleagues examine laypeople’s beliefs about heritability in 30 countries. They find that respondents slightly overestimated the heritability of intelligence and personality, and substantially underestimated the heritability of criminality. They also find that there is surprisingly little variation in average heritability estimates across countries.

Average heritability estimate for each trait, by country. Horizontal lines show overall averages.

The Subnational Corruption Database: Grand and petty corruption in 1,473 regions of 178 countries, 1995–2022. Lamar Crombach and Jeroen Smits present a new database of corruption at the subnational level for the period 1995–2022. The database is based on 807 surveys about people’s experiences and perceptions of corruption. At the national level, the subnational corruption index correlates strongly with existing measures of corruption.