Editing Microcephalin (section)

==Controversy==
The research results{{clarify |date=April 2019 |reason=which research results?}} began to attract considerable controversy{{when|date=January 2020}} in the science world. [[John Derbyshire]] wrote that as a result of the findings, "our cherished national dream of a well-mixed and harmonious meritocracy [...] may be unattainable."<ref name = "AutoR3-13"/> [[Richard Lewontin]] considers the two published papers as "egregious examples of going well beyond the data to try to make a splash." [[Bruce Lahn]] maintains that the science of the studies is sound, and freely admits that a direct link between these particular genes and either cognition or intelligence has not been clearly established. Lahn is now engaging himself with other areas of study.<ref name = "AutoR3-14"/><ref name = "AutoR3-15"/> Later studies have not found those gene variants to be associated with mental ability or cognition.<ref name="AutoR3-16"/><ref name="AutoR3-11"/><ref name="AutoR3-6"/>

Later [[Genome-wide association study|genetic association studies]] by Mekel-Bobrov et al. and Evans et al. also reported that the genotype for MCPH1 was under positive selection. An analysis by Timpson ''et al.'', found "no meaningful associations with brain size and various cognitive measures".<ref name = "AutoR3-16"/> A later 2010 study by Rimol et al.<ref name="Rimol_2010"/> demonstrated a link between brain size and structure and two microcephaly genes, ''MCPH1'' (only in females) and ''[[CDK5RAP2]]'' (only in males). In contrast to previous studies, which only considered small numbers of exonic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and did not investigate sex-specific effects, this study used microarray technology to genotype a range of SNPs associated with all four MCPH genes, including [[Upstream and downstream (DNA)|upstream and downstream]] [[regulatory elements]], and allowed for separate effects for males and females.