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Title: Genetics of Psychic Ability - A Pilot Case-Control Exome Sequencing Study
Authors:
Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR1
Dean Radin, PhD1
Garret Yount, PhD1
Michael A. Woodley of Menie, PhD2
Matthew A. Sarraf3
Marcela V. Karpuj, PhD4
Affiliations
1. Research Department, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California 94952
2. Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
3. Independent Researcher, New York
4. Biotechnology Engineering Department, ORT Braude College, Karmiel 21982, Israel
Corresponding Author:
Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR
Institute of Noetic Sciences
101 San Antonio Road
Petaluma, California 94952
hwahbeh@noetic.org
Author Contributions:
Helané Wahbeh - Funding acquisition, project administration, investigation, data curation,
analysis, writing – original draft preparation, review & editing
Dean Radin - Conceptualization, funding acquisition, methodology, data curation, analysis,
writing – original draft preparation, review & editing
Garret Yount - Funding acquisition, writing – original draft preparation, review & editing
Michael A. Woodley of Menie - Formal analysis, writing – original draft preparation, review &
editing
Matthew A. Sarraf - Analysis, writing – original draft preparation, review & editing
Marcela V. Karpuj - Sample and library preparation, whole exome sequencing, analysis, writing
– review & editing
Declarations of interest: none
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Fundação Bial Grant Number 257/14, the
Hittman Family Foundation, and the members of the Institute of Noetic Sciences for their
generous support of this project. We would also like to thank the participants for their
contributions in making this research possible. We would also like to acknowledge Garry Nolan,
whose interest in psychic genomics was instrumental to initiating this project.
Abstract
Introduction: It is commonly believed that psychic ability, like many mental and physical traits,
runs in families. This suggests the presence of a genetic component. If such a component were
found, it would constitute a biological marker of psychic ability and inform environmental or
pharmacologic means of enhancing or suppressing this ability.
Methods: A case-control study design was used to evaluate differences between psychic cases
and non-psychic controls. Over 3,000 candidates globally were screened through two online
surveys to locate people who claimed they and other family members were psychic. Measures
of relevance to the claimed abilities (e.g., absorption, empathy, schizotypy) were collected and
based on those responses, individuals with indications of psychotic or delusional tendencies
were excluded from further consideration. Eligible candidates were then interviewed and
completed additional screening tests. Thirteen individuals were selected as the final “psychic
cases,” and ten age, sex, and ethnicity-matched individuals with no claims of psychic ability
were selected as controls. DNA from the saliva of these 23 participants was subjected to whole-
exome sequencing. Two independent bioinformatics analyses were blindly applied to the
sequenced data, one focusing exclusively on protein-coding sequences and another that also
included some adjacent noncoding sequences.
Results: Sequencing data were obtained for all samples, except for one in the control group that
did not pass the quality controls and was not included in further analyses. After unblinding the
datasets, none of the protein-coding sequences (i.e., exons) showed any variation that
discriminated between cases and controls. However, a difference was observed in the intron
(i.e., non-protein-coding region) adjacent to an exon in the TNRC18 gene (Trinucleotide Repeat-
Containing Gene 18 Protein) on chromosome 7. This variation, an alteration of GG to GA, was
found in 7 of 9 controls and was absent from all psychic cases.
Discussion: The most conservative interpretation of these results is that they result from random
population sampling. However, when the results are considered in relation to other lines of
evidence, the results are more provocative. Further research is justified to replicate and extend
these findings.
Keywords: psychic, exome sequencing, familial traits, extended human capacities, noncoding
DNA, cross-cultural sociogenetics
INTRODUCTION
Many cognitive and perceptual abilities are associated with genetic factors.1 An open question is
whether or not extraordinary “psychic” abilities such as mind-to-mind communication (in the
vernacular, telepathy),2 knowledge of future events before they occur (precognition),3 and
perception of hidden or remote events (clairvoyance)2,4–6 might also be associated with genetic
factors. Evidence for the reality of such extraordinary abilities has been offered by multiple
meta-analyses of experiments conducted over the past century, which demonstrate
independent repeatability and robust statistical significance. These abilities are also more
common than some might realize, possibly because of taboos that prevent people from openly
discussing them. For example, a recent study found that over 85% of 899 respondents,
including 175 scientists and engineers, had personally experienced at least one psychic
phenomenon.7
Anecdotal evidence suggests that extraordinary manifestations of these abilities run in families.
Few formal studies have evaluated the genetics of psychic abilities. Telepathy studies with
identical and non-identical twins have found mixed evidence for greater concordance among
identical versus non-identical twins on telepathy task performance.8,9 Other case studies of
families with data on up to four generations have been conducted.10–14 The pattern of familial
transmission in “second sight” has also been examined. This capacity is defined as “a special
psychic ability believed to be a natural faculty of mind, regarded as an inborn gift by some and
an affliction by others…Second sight implies that there are two forms of sight. One is normal
sight and the other is the ability to have prophetic visions which occur spontaneously and are
rarely directed at will.”14(p389) Second sight is considered hereditary within the Scottish
tradition.15(p129) A formal pedigree analysis of second sight found an autosomal dominant pattern
of inheritance.16 Other studies have evaluated the relationships between psychic abilities and
the temporal lobe.11,17–19 However, to our knowledge, no similar investigations have been
conducted using modern genetics techniques.
The objective of this exploratory case-control study was to evaluate the possible relationships
between genetics and psychic ability by examining differences in DNA samples from psychics
compared to age, sex, and ethnically-matched non-psychic controls. Due to previously noted
anecdotal evidence and pedigree study, we hypothesized that some genetic differences
between the cases and controls would be found, but candidate genes were not predicted
because of this study’s exploratory nature.
METHODS
Participants
Participants recruited for this study were high-functioning psychics and controls. All participants
were English-speaking adults (>18 years old) and in good general health (as noted through self-
report). Exclusions included being unable to understand English, having a chronic or acute
health condition that precluded participation (as determined by the principal investigator), taking
psychoactive medications, having a score greater than 21 on the Dissociative Experiences
Scale-Taxon20 and/or endorsing persecutory ideation or bizarre experiences (items 3, 4, 7, 10,
or 12 on the CAPE-P15 (Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences-Positive scale).21
Candidate cases were vetted for their psychic claims. Matched controls were required not to
claim any psychic abilities or be aware of any family members who claimed such skills.
Study Procedures
Candidates were recruited from members of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (~75,000), our
associated social networks (~5,000,000), and through personal contacts and recommendations
worldwide. All study activities were approved by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (Institutional
Review Board (IRB# WAHH_2016_01).
Candidates completed two online surveys developed for this project on the HIPAA-compliant
site, SurveyMonkey.com. The first survey began with consenting procedures and then collected
demographics and health information, reported psychic skills of participants and family
members, and exclusion questions (medications, dissociative symptoms,20 psychotic
symptoms22). Participants who passed the eligibility criteria were invited to complete a second
survey. The second survey collected information on paranormal beliefs,23,24 New Age beliefs,25
depression and anxiety symptoms,26 personality characteristics,27 absorption,28 empathy,29 and
sensory processing sensitivity.30
Participants who completed the second survey and consented to the remaining study activities
then completed three online tasks designed to evaluate psychic abilities. The psychic
performance tasks were located at the website GotPsi.org, which was designed and hosted by
the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Participants were asked to complete 25 Card Test trials, 5 Long
Remote Viewing trials, and 25 Location Task trials. These tasks evaluated variations of
precognitive ability because the computer randomly selected the targets after the participant
made their response.
Candidate psychic cases were further vetted with an additional Remote Viewing Task (RV Task
#2) where psychic candidates were asked to “Please use psychic skills in whatever way works
for you to (a) Tell me the color of the table I'm using for this experiment, and (b) Describe the
object that is on the center of the table.” The final step in the psychic case vetting was a
structured telephone interview. The study staff reviewed the survey and task data and
responses from the telephone interview. The final psychic cases were based on study staff
consensus primarily based on participant accuracy and responses to a telephone interview.
Selection of controls involved matching age, sex, and ethnicity to the psychic cases (see
Supplemental Materials for details on the questionnaires, tasks, and the vetting interview).
The cases and controls were then sent saliva collection kits by mail (Oragene•DISCOVER
OGR-500, DNA Genotek, Ontario, Canada). Saliva samples were collected, returned to the
Institute of Noetic Sciences, and then forwarded to ORT Braude College in Karmiel, Israel on
dry ice for processing, where the DNA was extracted (see Supplemental Materials for details).
Statistical Analyses of Nongenomic Data
Variables are described with means and standard deviations for continuous variables and the
number of people in each level for categorical variables. The non-parametric Wilcoxon rank-sum
test was used to evaluate differences between cases and controls for continuous variables. A
chi-square test was used to evaluate differences between cases and controls for categorical
variables. Correction for multiple comparisons was performed using the False Discovery Rate
algorithm at the p = 0.05 level.31
Genetic Analyses
Two independent analyses were applied to the DNA data by separate parties, blinded to each
other’s results. The first analysis, conducted at ORT Braude College blindly compared potential
variations in DNA sequences between the psychic and control cases and did not exclude
intronic regions adjacent to exomes. The second analysis compared the 13 psychic samples to
a large-scale public sequencing database and excluded consideration of intronic regions. The
analysis was performed by an independent bioinformatics company (Strand Life Sciences,
Bangalore, India). Significant variant analysis of the 13 psychic samples versus 125,748
controls from the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD; https://gnomad.broadinstitute.org/)
was performed to find variants that are rare in the general population and controls in our study
but are enriched in the psychic cases (see Supplemental materials for details of the genetic
analysis).
RESULTS
The flow of recruitment for the psychic cases is shown in Figure 1. The selection process found
that 0.4% of candidates apparently had psychic talent and were sufficiently motivated to
participate in this study.
Figure 1. Recruitment Flow for Psychic Cases
To age, sex, and ethnicity-match the psychic cases, controls were recruited after the psychic
cases were selected. All of the psychic cases were female, Caucasian, and over the age of 37.
To find suitable controls, from January through April 2017, a total of 628 people completed the
same questionnaires as the psychic candidates. Twenty-two candidates were selected and sent
the invitation to complete the same tasks the candidate psychics took. Of these candidates, 11
completed those tasks and agreed to proceed with the study. They were then sent saliva
sample kits, of which ten were returned. The final participants for this case-control study
included 13 psychic cases and ten controls.
Participant Characteristics
Participant characteristics, mental health and personality scores are listed in Table 1. None
were statistically different between groups after correction for multiple comparisons.
Table 1. Participant characteristics
Measure
Cases (n=13)
Mean (SD) or n
Controls (n=10)
Mean (SD) or n
Z or
X
2
p-value
Age
55.4 (12.1)
59.1 (13.1)
-0.67
0.49
Country
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
France
10
1
1
1
9
1
0
0
1.69
0.64
Education
17.0 (2.7)
17.8 (2.4)
-0.78
0.44
Income
0-$75,000
$76,000-$150,000
>$150,000
6
4
2
6
3
1
0.30
0.86
In Relationship
6
7
1.31
0.25
Childhood Spiritual Affiliation
Christian
Jewish
Spiritual but not religious
None
10
1
1
1
8
0
2
0
2.20
0.53
Current Spiritual Affiliation
Christian
Jewish
Spiritual but not religious
Buddhist
Agnostic
Other
0
2
8
0
0
3
1
0
7
1
1
1
7.81
0.17
Mental Health
Dissociative Symptoms
Psychotic symptoms
Depression
Anxiety
6.3 (5.1)
0.2 (0.1)
1.0 (0.9)
0.6 (0.9)
2.3 (5.2)
0.1 (0.2)
0.7 (0.7)
0.2 (0.4)
2.90
2.54
0.74
1.15
0.004
0.01
0.46
0.25
Personality
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Neuroticism
Openness
3.92 (1.89)
2.38 (0.98)
5.35 (1.43)
2.62 (1.37)
6.31 (0.78)
2.85 (2.08)
2.3 (0.98)
6.78 (0.36)
1.95 (1.19)
5.15 (1.25)
1.58
0.19
-2.72
1.26
2.45
0.13
0.85
0.007
0.21
0.014
Notes: The p-values listed above are unadjusted. None of these comparisons remained significant at the
p = 0.05 level after correction for multiple comparisons.31 z = statistic for Wilcoxon rank-sum non-
parametric test; X2 = statistic for chi-square test for categorical variables.
Psi-Related Questionnaires and Tasks
The psychic cases reported various ages when their abilities began, with “0-10 years old” being
the most commonly reported answer (n=9). The psychic cases endorsed the following abilities
in descending order (number of psychic cases in parentheses after each ability):
claircognizance (psychic “knowing,” n=13), clairempathy (psychic “feeling,” 13), emotional
healing (13), precognition, premonition and precognitive dreams (12), animal communication
(11), clairvoyance (11), mediumship (11), telepathy (11), astral projection (10), aura reading
(10), clairaudience (10), clairsentience (10), lucid dreaming (10), channeling (8), clairalience (8),
nature empath (8), remote viewing (8), physical healing (7), retrocognition (7), psychometry (6),
geomancy (5), psychokinesis (4), automatic writing (3), levitation (1), and psychic surgery (1).
Clairgustance and pyrokinesis were not endorsed. On average, cases endorsed 9.5 ± 8.9
abilities.
Twelve cases listed relatives with similar abilities. Biological mother, father, and siblings were
listed, as were grandfather, grandmother, aunt(s), uncle(s), and first cousin on the mother’s
side. “Other” was also listed as a familial category with no additional information collected. No
relatives on the father’s side were endorsed besides the biological father. Eighty-four percent of
the familial abilities noted were shared by the cases. The psychic cases’ scores on paranormal
beliefs, New Age beliefs, high sensitivity, and absorption were significantly higher than controls
(Table 2).
Table 2. Psi-related questionnaires for psychic cases and controls.
Measure
Cases (n=13)
Controls (n=10)
z
p-value
Paranormal Beliefs
Paranormal Belief Scale
Australian Sheep-Goat
4.3 (0.8)
31.2 (3.8)
3.7 (1)
10 (4.9)
1.41
4.04
0.16
0.0001*
New Age Beliefs
4.9 (0.6)
3.5 (1.4)
2.48
0.013*
Absorption
26 (4.6)
8.4 (4.6)
3.98
0.0001*
Empathy
51.2 (7.5)
45.4 (7.7)
2.15
0.03*
Sensory Processing
Sensitivity
5.2 (0.8)
3.3 (0.8)
3.16
0.002*
Notes: The p-values listed above are unadjusted. Those marked with * are significant at the 0.05 level
after correction for multiple comparisons. z = statistic for Wilcoxon non-parametric test.
The cases’ performance was better than controls on most tasks, although this difference only
reached statistical significance on the Remote Viewing test (Table 3).
Table 3. Online Psi Tasks for psychic cases and controls.
Measure
Cases (n=13)
Controls (n=10)
z
p-value
Card Task
0.20 (0.1)
0.19 (0.1)
0.44
0.66
Remote Viewing
56.4 (9.7)
46.5 (15.7)
2.05
0.04
Location Task
-0.005 (0.2)
-0.133 (0.2)
1.80
0.07
Notes: The p-values listed above are unadjusted. None of the p-values remained significant after
correction for multiple comparisons. z = statistic for Wilcoxon signed-rank non-parametric test; In the
online psi tests, higher scores indicated better performance in the Card task and Remote Viewing task,
and lower scores were better for the Location task.
Through the vetting process, 31 psychic candidates were invited to complete an additional
remote viewing task, of which 25 responded. The remote viewing answers were scored by table
color and object shape, color, and category (score range 0-4). One person received a score of
3, five people received a 2, five people a score of 1, and 15 people received a score of 0.
Finally, these same 25 candidates completed a one-on-one structured phone interview with a
research assistant, which took place between January 10 and 18, 2017.
Comparison of Psychic Cases to Control DNA Data
DNA data were obtained for 13 psychic samples and ten control samples. One control sample
did not pass a quality control test and was not included in the analysis. The Samtools analysis
comparing the psychic cases with the controls found no significant differences when probing
protein-coding sequences. However, probing intronic DNA adjacent to coding regions in exomes
did find one non-coding region with a variation from the wild-type DNA sequence in 7 of the 9
control samples that was identical in all case samples and matched the sequence most
commonly found in humans (i.e., wild-type). The variant was a modification from GG to GA in
the intron region of the TNRC18 gene (Trinucleotide Repeat-Containing Gene 18 Protein) on
chromosome 7 (rs117910193 position 5401412).
Comparison of Psychic Cases to a Large-Scale Public Sequencing Database
No significant results were found when comparing psychic samples with general population
samples obtained from a large-scale public sequencing database. This analysis followed
standard practice and excluded consideration of intronic regions.
DISCUSSION
Vetting Procedures
The process of recruiting and identifying the candidate psychics was designed with multiple
steps to only include those who were motivated, psychologically well-grounded, and claimed
psychic traits that many observed in their family members. Persons making frivolous claims or
those with delusional or psychotic tendencies were filtered through this process. Given the
limitations in resources and our global search process, our multi-step procedure could not be
said to have conclusively established psychic ability in each candidate. However, it did provide
confidence that as a group, the selected cases matched the required personality and subjective
reports of psychic ability and showed enhanced performance on actual psi tasks.
The psychics' performance was better than controls on most psychic tasks, although these
differences did not reach statistical significance after correction for multiple comparisons. The
lack of significance was likely due to the small number of participants. That is, the performance
tests were not powered to detect differences. Despite these constraints, these tasks were useful
in discriminating among the specific talents we were interested in between our cases and
controls.
Despite positive self-report of psychic abilities, many candidate psychics reported that the online
tasks did not adequately capture their particular set of skills. This is a known limitation in
devising scientific tests of psychic abilities. We nevertheless encouraged the candidates to do
the best they could, not only to gather performance data but also to provide a way to assess
their motivation to participate in the study. Future selection studies would benefit from a broader
range of vetting tasks administered in the laboratory and online. Such tasks would ideally be
selected to be more aligned with each candidate’s specific claims. However, developing a
validated suite of such tests would not be a trivial undertaking, nor would it be inexpensive to
administer. Vetting could also include real-world examples of their abilities (e.g., evidential
information from client readings).
Recruiting Controls and Matching Cases
The process of finding matched non-psychic controls proved to be more challenging than
anticipated. It was surprisingly difficult to find women who did not claim any psychic ability in
themselves or their family members. Nevertheless, we could match cases and controls on age,
sex, ethnicity, and other important demographic, mental health, and personality indices. While
there were undoubtedly other variables that we did not assess that may have played a role in
genetic differences, the measures we did assess were successfully matched.
Participants’ Skills and Characteristics
The most commonly endorsed skills were claircognizance (the ability to understand or know
something without any direct evidence or reasoning process), clairempathy (the ability to feel
emotions of another person or non-physical entity), and emotional healing. As a group, this set
of skills falls into a class that might be labeled “exceptional empathy.” Few existing experimental
tasks have attempted to measure such claimed abilities objectively. Perhaps the closest
category is experiments that measure unconscious physiological reactions in one person to the
distant intentions of another person, referred to in the vernacular as the “feeling of being stared
at.”32–34
Due to the study’s exploratory nature, no selection was attempted for specific types of claimed
psychic abilities. It seems unlikely that the same genetic component or networks generate all
psychic abilities, so our small sample’s heterogeneity may have precluded the observation of
more robust genetic differences. Future studies could include comparisons between specific
types of psychic abilities.
In general, people who claim psychic experiences tend to score higher on empathy scales than
controls,35,36 and we observed the same trend in this study. We also observed increased
sensory processing sensitivity levels in our cases, as reported in previous studies.12,13,37
Sensory processing refers to sensitivity to stimuli, deep processing of information, and higher
degrees of emotional and physiological reactivity30 that some believe may have served some
evolutionary benefit for humans.38 Others suppose the opposite because hypersensitivity of the
nervous system can lead to immune system disorders,39 which in the long term could be
detrimental to survival.
The psychic cases scored significantly higher than the controls on paranormal beliefs. This is
also expected, as multiple studies have reported that people who have paranormal experiences
consistently score higher on paranormal beliefs.7,40,41 Likewise, trait absorption was higher in the
psychic cases, again as reported in other studies.12,37,40 Absorption refers to the inclination to
have the totality of one’s attention absorbed in a task or stimulus and has also been associated
with psychic abilities.28,40
Cross-Cultural Sociogenetic Analysis
The variant of interest identified in this pilot study is located in the intronic region adjacent to the
TNRC18 gene. Due to its proximity, it might be involved in regulating that gene’s expression.
TNRC18 is highly expressed throughout the body, including in the brain. Gene ontology
annotations indicate that the gene product has multiple functions, including chromatin binding
and transcription regulatory region sequence-specific DNA binding.
The variant is generally quite common in the populations sampled by the 1000 genomes
(www.1000genomes.org) and genome aggregation consortium
(https://gnomad.broadinstitute.org/variant/7-5401412-G-A?d). The common wild-type allele,
found in all of our psychic cases, is present in >90% of the individuals comprising these
populations. The alternate allele found in the controls is relatively rarer. It was found to be
present in approximately 10% of the European/Ashkenazi Jewish population. Thus, this finding
may simply be an artifact of the small cohort size. On the other hand, if validated, these
preliminary data would be highly provocative. Indeed, evaluating cross-population variability in
the wild-type to alternate allele ratios may determine the presence of cross-cultural sociogenetic
factors that could predict this variation in line with the hypothesized impact of these alleles on
psychic functioning.42
For example, one cross-cultural sociogenetic hypothesis that potentially explains the observed
variation is that the rise, spread, and prevalence of Christianity in the Early to Middle Ages may
have contributed to the reduction of the wild-type variant across populations. Christianity has
been historically associated with an extraordinary degree of cross-cultural success, both in
terms of the extent of its spread and temporal persistence across populations, relative to other
religious creeds. The historical spread of “Western Church” Christianity, or Roman Catholicism,
measured using an indicator of historical Church exposure, was found to be responsible for
psycho-cultural variation among contemporary Western populations, including low rates of
consanguineous mating, high rates of monogamous marriage, and individualism.43 This would
be consistent with the action of culture-gene co-evolutionary selection pressures stemming from
the historical (and contemporary) tendency for Christianity to favor these sorts of behavioral and
reproductive patterns. Christianity also strongly proscribes mystical and psychic experiences,
such as mediumship, outside of a limited range of contexts (e.g., monasticism in some cases).
Thus, as part of this broader psycho-cultural “syndrome,” Christian cultural values, once
established, may have historically attenuated the fitness of those prone to these and other sorts
of psychic experiences (i.e., wild-type carriers). Conversely, the alternate allele carriers’ fitness
(controls) may have been enhanced.
Another hypothesis is that relaxed negative selection against deleterious (loss of function)
mutations, stemming primarily from modernization and its sequelae, may have promoted the
alternate allele among economically and technologically advanced populations. This might have
reduced the expression of psychic ability in these populations since mutation accumulation can
be expected to result in a gradual loss of both mental and physical adaptations.44
We tested the potential validity of these two hypotheses using genome consortium data to yield
information on cross-country population variant frequency differences. The information was
hierarchically regressed against cross-country population measures of both relaxed negative
selection (selection against deleterious alleles) and also the duration of contact with Christianity.
The interaction between these two variables was also estimated. The current percentage of
Christians in each country was used as a weighting term in this regression.
Relaxation of negative selection. A variable measuring the intensity of relaxation of negative
selection was obtained in the form of the Biological State Index (BSI).45,46 This variable
measures the opportunity for negative mortality selection to act as the probability that a
randomly selected individual from a population will not survive through the entirety of their
reproductively relevant years (i.e., up to age 50). A higher BSI value indicates a greater
probability of survival, and thus a lower opportunity for negative mortality selection to act, as
more people survive long enough to have the opportunity to fully participate in reproduction.
Countries with high BSI values usually have greater levels of modernization, including lower
rates of infant and child mortality and fertility, higher levels of access to health care, and greater
industrialization. All of these features would have contributed to increased survival and
opportunity for reproductive participation because deleterious variants would historically have
proven to be more lethal without these scientific and social advances (e.g., mutations that
predispose towards diabetes would have been lethal prior to the advent of insulin therapy).
Critically, it is assumed that the opportunity for negative mortality selection serves as a proxy
measure of negative selection, although such an association does not necessarily obtain. These
data were sourced from supplementary material published as part of You and Henneberg
(2018).47
Cross-country population differences. Using data from both the 1000 Genomes consortium and
Gnomad,48 we computed the wild-type to alternate allele ratios for 16 country populations. Data
on the amount of time since the first introduction of Christianity in these countries was compiled
from various sources, including A World History of Christianity.49 This variable was scaled in
terms of years before present to first recorded contact with Christianity (yielding a negative
value). Christianity’s current prevalence in these countries was also included as a weighting
term in the regression model because the duration of contact with Christianity is not in and of
itself sufficient to capture the success of this religion. For example, in some countries (e.g.,
China), there is a long Christian mission history but very little success in terms of spread. These
data were sourced from The CIA World Factbook.50
A weighted least-squares (Type 1 Sum of Squares) regression analysis was then conducted
using the population percentage of derived variant carriers as the dependent variable. The
years since initial contact with Christianity was entered first, followed by the BSI variable,
followed by the interaction between the two. All variables were normalized (i.e., z-transformed
by setting the mean for each variable at 0 and the standard deviation at 1) prior to entry into the
regression, allowing for the recovery of one additional model degree of freedom (intercept-free
regression; see Supplemental Materials for analysis details). The results of this model are
presented in Table 4.
Table 4. Results of weighted least-squares regression (Type 1 Sum of Squares).
Parameter
Type 1 SS
Df
Β
Mean
Square
F
p
Christianity YBP
92.99
1
-0.057
92.99
4.89
0.046
Log-transformed BSI
111.36
1
0.612
111.36
5.86
0.031
Interaction YBP*lnBSI
0.077
1
0.027
0.08
0.044
0.950
Error
247.16
13
19.01
Total
451.58
16
Notes: Duration of contact with Christianity (scaled as years before present [YBP] which was natural log
transformed due to potential non-normality), biological state index (BSI), and the interaction between the
two are regressed hierarchically against the population/country level percent variant alleles (expressed as
a percentage of the whole allele population). Percentage of Christians is used as the weighting term.
N=16 countries. Model: Type 1 SS = 204.422, df = 3, Mean square = 68.141, F=3.584, Adjusted R2 =
.326, p=0.044
The regression indicates that the duration of contact with Christianity is a weak predictor of the
prevalence of the alternate allele. Net of this, the BSI is a stronger predictor of the prevalence of
the alternate allele (controls), suggesting that the alternate form is most prevalent where
negative selection has weakened to the greatest degree. There is no interaction between the
two predictors, so they have independent effects on the percentage of derived alleles. Variance
inflation factors (a standard test for multicollinearity) were below 10 for each predictor indicating
acceptable levels of multicollinearity.51
The finding of cross-cultural sociogenetic correlates of the TNRC18 gene allele is suggestive of
selection pressure, possibly mediated by culture-gene co-evolution and modernization. That
countries with a longer duration of contact with Christianity and weaker negative selection have
greater prevalence of the alternate-allele (controls) is consistent with the expectation that
Christianity might have enhanced the fitness of alternate-allele carriers (controls) compared to
wild-type carriers (cases). Of course, this cannot be taken as evidence that the wild-type
determines psychic ability.
More broadly, the finding that the wild-type allele is generally much more common than the
alternate allele has certain implications, if indeed this variant is associated with expressions of
psychic ability of one sort or another. This distribution of alleles suggests that the prevalence of
“low grade” psychic ability might be quite widespread. This would be consistent with self-report
data on anomalous experiences among non-clinical populations, suggesting that experiences
potentially consistent with the operation of psychic abilities might be “typical” of many people’s
everyday lived experience (e.g., purported premonitions, instances of telepathy).52 The idea that
most people have psychic abilities at some unconscious or low conscious level has been
proposed by others.53,54 These preliminary findings could be interpreted as lending support to
this notion. Among those with psychic abilities, only extreme psychic talent is likely to be quite
rare. The total absence of psychic ability might, in fact, be a relatively rare phenotype, given that
the alternate allele is found in so few people worldwide yet is present in 7 of the 9 controls.
These cross-cultural sociogenetic relationships, while tentative, provide grounds for further
exploration of the wild-type candidate allele in future research.
Future Directions
A case-control design was deemed an appropriate basis for detecting potential genetic variants
for psychic ability, given that prior familial studies of manifestations of psychic ability, such as
“second sight,” suggest a predominantly non-additive, specifically Mendelian autosomal
dominant mode of genetic transmission.16
The structure of individual differences in certain other psychic abilities exhibits a pattern that is
also consistent with a non-additive genetic architecture. Specifically, Varvoglis and Bancel
(2016) found that two individuals had large individual effect sizes and contributed over 80% of
the total high-low deviation in a sample of 91 individuals in a large-scale study of micro-
psychokinesis (i.e., the mental influence of small-scale physical systems).57 This suggests that
while low-level psychic ability may be common, exceptional or specific types of psychic ability
might be an “extreme” phenotype, with a possible genetic basis in unusual “emergenic” (i.e.,
larger than the sum of their parts) combinations of non-additively interacting genetic variants.
The possibility that certain manifestations of psychic ability might act in a more graded fashion
must also be kept in mind. In these cases, the genetic trait architecture may be more dependent
upon genes with additive (i.e., individually small, cumulatively large) effects.
To further explore the genetic contribution to psychic abilities, a large genome-wide association
study could be performed to look for the effects of additive genetic variants. With a sufficiently
well-powered study, coupled with an improved measurement model that examines both
parametric and non-parametric variation in psychic abilities, and enough genetic resolution, it
might be possible to screen for both rare variants (i.e., mutations with minor allele frequencies of
<.01) and non-additive variants with smaller effects. It may be possible to identify a range of
genomic loci associated with psychic abilities using methods developed for elucidating the
genetic contribution of other central-nervous-system-associated traits (e.g., depression, bipolar
disorder, and anxiety). It is intriguing to speculate that, like recently described polygenic risk
scores for various phenotypes,58 it may eventually be possible to calculate a similar “psychic
predisposition” or “risk” score, depending on the future results of genome-wide association
studies.
Identifying those with extraordinary psychic talent for genotyping purposes would be another
important avenue of research. Such individuals might yield a much clearer contrast relative to
controls than we could obtain using the current case-control study design.
Finally, the possibility of historically recent declines in the frequency of extreme manifestations
of “psychic” ability, as has been noted by some researchers,55,56 being linked to genetic changes
in human populations, could be explored via comparisons involving historical and modern
genomes.
Implications
The identification of genes involved in psychic abilities has the potential to yield clues about
their distribution within the general population and also their evolutionary origins. Such a finding
may also have clinical value because it may help inform the development of pharmacological or
environmental interventions to enhance or suppress such abilities, and clinical and performance
applications could be used. Enhancing these abilities could augment decision-making in many
contexts, stimulate creativity in art and science, and improve diagnosis of disease, insofar as
these faculties and activities may be partly dependent on, or enhanced by, psychic ability.59 For
example, perhaps telepathic communication could be developed for individuals living with
communication disabilities, such as aphasia or cerebral palsy. On the other hand, suppressing
these abilities might alleviate psychotic symptoms in some individuals diagnosed with
schizophrenia, insofar as “disordered” psychic manifestations may be a risk factor in these
individuals.60
Ethical considerations are of the utmost importance when considering possible applications of
these results. Paramount is the potential risk associated with gene therapies, particularly when
engineering genes may affect future generations.61 Fortunately, recent advances in gene-
therapy technologies provide strategies to mitigate these hazards. For example, gene-therapy
methods have been developed that deliver a time-limited effect on gene expression, such as
RNA, plasmid, or naked DNA-based technologies, that do not integrate into the chromosomes.62
Conclusions
In summary, this case-control study did not yield significant results when probing coding
sequences in DNA. However, the study did identify a noncoding variant that was largely
restricted to non-psychic controls. A cross-cultural sociogenetic exploration of the variant
revealed a significant relationship between the relaxation of negative selection and the spread
of Christianity, consistent with the idea that these factors have influenced allele distribution
between populations in ways possibly consistent with the alleles having effects on the target
phenotype. The critical next step is to replicate and extend the results of this study.
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Supplemental Materials
Psychic Experiences
Animal Communication - The empathic ability (beyond the physical senses) to hear, feel and
communicate with animals.
Astral Projection (or astral travel) - An out-of-body experience in which the "astral body"
separates from the physical body and is capable of travelling outside it.
Aura Reading - Perception of energy fields surrounding people, places and things.
Automatic Writing or Psychography - Writing produced without conscious thought, produced by
or under the influence of a spirit.
Channel - Communication of information to or through a human from a non-physical source.
Clairalience - Clear smelling, to smell a fragrance/odor of substance or food which is not in
one's surroundings.
Clairaudience - Clear audio/hearing, to hear from sources broadcast from spiritual or ethereal
realm using the “inner ear.”
Claircognizance or Knowing - the empathic ability to feel what needs to be done in any given
circumstance, often accompanied by a feeling of peace and calm, even in the midst of a crisis.
Having the ability to understand or know something without any direct evidence or reasoning
process.
Clairempathy - Clear emotion to feel emotions of another person or non-physical entity (also
known as empath).
Clairgustance - Clear tasting, to taste without putting anything in one's mouth.
Clairsentience - Clear sensation or feeling within the whole body without any outer stimuli
related to the feeling or information.
Clairvoyance or Extrasensory perception (ESP) - Clear vision, to visually perceive using the
“mind's eye.”
Emotional Healing - The empathic ability to feel another person's emotions (and often the ability
to heal, transform or transmute them).
Geomancy - The empathic ability to read the energy of places and of the land such as Ley lines.
Levitation- to float in the air, defying gravity.
Lucid dreamer - Ability to have awareness while dreaming. Knowing that you are dreaming
while asleep.
Mediumship - To mediate communication between spirits of the dead and living; the empathic
ability to feel the presence and energies of spirits.
Nature empath- The empathic ability to read, feel and communicate with nature and with plants.
Physical Healing - The empathic ability to feel other people's physical symptoms in your own
body (and often the ability to heal, transform or transmute them).
Precognition, premonition and precognitive dreams - A form of clairvoyance when the objects of
perception are distant in time; Perception of events before they happen; the empathic ability to
feel when something important is about to happen (often this can be a feeling of inexplicable
dread or doom).
Psychic Surgery- Removal of diseased body tissue via an incision that heals immediately
afterwards.
Psychokinesis or telekinesis - The ability to manipulate objects by the power of thought.
Psychometry or psychoscopy or clairtangency- Clear touching; Obtaining information by
touching or concentrating on an object; the empathic ability to receive energy, information and
impressions from objects, photographs or places.
Pyrokinesis - The ability to create and/or manipulate fire through the concentration of mind.
Remote Viewing - The practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target.
Retrocognition or post-cognition - Knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned
or inferred by normal means.
Telepathy - Communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known senses, mind-
to-mind communication; the ability to read people's thoughts.
Saliva Collection and DNA Extraction
The cases and controls were then sent saliva collection kits by mail (Oragene•DISCOVER
OGR-500, DNA Genotek, Ontario, Canada). Saliva samples were collected by participants in
their homes. They mailed the postage-prepaid kits back to the Institute of Noetic Sciences
where they were stored at 4oC. After all samples were received, they were shipped to ORT
Braude College in Karmiel, Israel on dry ice for processing.
Genomic DNA (gDNA) was extracted from 0.5 ml of saliva using silica-based purification
columns (DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit, Qiagen, Redwood City, CA, USA) including a 3-hour
Proteinase K treatment. The gDNA was eluted twice and 200 ng was sheared by adaptive
focused acoustics (Covaris S220 system, Covaris, Woburn, MA, USA) to 150-200 bp fragments.
Library preparation was performed using the SureSelectXT Library Prep Kit (Agilent
Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA; Part #G7530-90000, Version C1, 2017). This library
preparation process also pulls down intronic regions that are part of exome regions.
Quantification of gDNA at each stage of processing was achieved using a Qubit fluorometer
(Qubit® dsDNA HS Assay Kit; Thermo Fisher Scientific, MA, USA). Whole-exome sequencing
was performed using the HiSeq 4000 D system (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA).
Measures
Self-Report Questionnaires for Cases and Controls
Demographics and Health. Items included age, gender, ethnicity, education, occupation,
relationship status, childhood and current spiritual affiliation and importance, and if they were
taking psychoactive or psychotropic medications.
Psychic Ability. Participants reported whether they had experienced one or more of 27 types of
psychic experiences (see Wahbeh et al. 2018 Table 2 and Supplemental Data for experience
definitions).1 Participants also provided information concerning at which age the abilities started
(if applicable) and if they were a twin. In order to be eligible, psychic candidates had to endorse
at least one psychic ability and control candidates could not endorse any.
Family History of Psychic Ability. Participants reported if any family members had psychic
abilities or experiences. Psychic candidates had to endorse at least one family member and
controls could not endorse any.
Dissociative Experiences Scale-Taxon (DES-T). This is an eight-item subscale (Cronbach ɑ =
0.75) of the full-scale DES2 that is significantly correlated to the larger DES scale (r = 0.79).3
Respondents selected a percentage (e.g., 0% to 100%) indicating the frequency that they
experienced the dissociative symptom. The overall score is calculated as the mean of the eight
items (range 0-100). A cutoff score of 20 captures nearly 90% of cases of pathological
dissociation.The DES-T has been shown to differentiate between psychiatric presentations that
contain dissociative symptoms and those that do not.4
Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences- Positive Scale (CAPE-P15).5 This is a self-
screening questionnaire for subclinical positive psychotic symptoms (persecutory ideation,
bizarre experiences and perceptual abnormalities) in community contexts. It is valid (Cronbach
ɑ = 0.85 and 0.86 for frequency and distress dimensions respectively),6 reliable, and is highly
predictive of generalized distress (r = .52).7
Revised Paranormal Belief Scale.8 This instrument presents 26 statements rated on a 7-point
Likert Scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. It results in seven subscales of belief. The
Australian Sheep-Goat Scale9 was also provided; it has 18 statements rated as True, Uncertain
or False and results in a single score with a higher score indicating a greater belief in the
paranormal.
New Age Belief - New Age Orientation Scale.10 This has 22 items rated on a 6-point Likert scale
from strongly disagree to strongly agree and results in a total score and subscores for various
new age beliefs. Higher scores equate to greater belief.
Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4).11,12 This is a 4-item inventory rated on a 4-point Likert-
type scale that is a very brief and accurate evaluation of depression and anxiety with
established internal reliability, construct validity, and factorial validity (Cronbach ɑ = 0.85).
Big Five Inventory-10 (BFI-10). This is a 10-item scale with personality dimensions of
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. The items within
each category are averaged to derive category scores (Cronbach α’s range from 0.74 - 0.89).13
Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire Absorption Scale.14,15 This is one of the 11
component scales of the larger Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. It has 34 true/false
self-report items that assess an individual’s openness to experience, emotional, and cognitive
alterations across a variety of situations. Items are summed for a total score (True = 1, False =
0, range 0 to 34). Higher scores indicate stronger trait absorption. Tellegen reported high levels
of internal reliability (r = 0.88) and high levels of test–retest reliability (r = 0.85).16
Toronto Empathy Questionnaire17. This is a 16-item questionnaire that was developed to
evaluate empathy. Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale from never to always. It results in
a single score with higher values representing a greater capacity for empathy.
Highly Sensitive Person Scale. This is a 6-item self-report questionnaire that evaluates
sensitivities to the environment and emotions.18 A sample items is: “Are you easily
overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics or sirens close by?”A 7-
item Likert scale is used, with 1 anchored by “Not at All” and 7 by “Extremely”. Items are
averaged for a total score. The unidimensional scale has Cronbach α’s of 0.65–0.85 across
numerous populations and high test–retest reliability.
Psychic Tasks for Cases and Controls
The psychic performance tasks were located at the website GotPsi.org, which was designed
and hosted by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. On that site, participants were asked to complete
25 Card Test trials, 5 Long Remote Viewing trials, and 25 Location Task trials (as described
below). All of these tasks tested for variations of precognitive ability because the targets were
randomly selected by the computer after the participant made their response.
Card Task. Participants guessed which one of five “cards” displayed in the browser window
would be randomly selected after they chose one. The score was the number of correct trials
divided by the total number of trials.
Long Remote Viewing. Participants were asked to imagine a color photograph that they would
see later. They then rated the presence of various shapes, and features from their mental
impression on a 5-point Likert scale anchored by None and Prominent. Then they rated the type
of scene (artificial--natural), movement (still--dynamic), and location (indoors--outdoors), each of
which was a 5-point Likert scale. Finally, they could enter free text to describe their impressions.
After the participant clicked a “submit” button, the computer selected one of 99 possible images
uniformly at random and displayed it.
A score was then calculated in two steps: First, a difference value was calculated based on how
the participant filled out 15 descriptors versus how independent judges who viewed the same
photograph filled out the same 15 descriptors. Second, that difference value was recalculated
for all of the photos in the target pool. The final score reflected how well the difference-value for
the actual photo compared to all possible values that the user could have obtained if he or she
had obtained one of the other targets. A high score indicated that the user’s impressions
provided a better description of the actual target photo as compared to the other possible
targets, and vice versa for a low score.
Location Task. The participant was asked to click inside a blank square where they imagined
the target was located. After their selection, the computer randomly selected a location and
displayed it in that square. The linear distance between the user’s x,y selection and the
computer’s randomly selected target x,y selection on a 300 x 300 target space was then
determined and compared to similar distances calculated to all other locations where the target
might have been randomly placed. A performance score for each trial was then formed based
on the rank of the observed distance versus all other distances. The score reported is a z-score
average.
Additional Vetting for Psychic Cases
Remote Viewing Task #2. Candidates were asked to “Please use psychic skills in whatever way
works for you to (a) Tell me the color of the table I'm using for this experiment, and (b) Describe
the object that is on the center of the table.”
Interview. A structured telephone interview asked the following questions:
1. What do you consider your strongest, most accurate and frequent psychic abilities?
2. What terms or words do you use to best describe your abilities?
3. How do these abilities primarily manifest?
4. How often do you experience these abilities?
5. How would you describe the accuracy or the reliability of your abilities?
6. Are these abilities used only in your personal life or do you make a living using it?
7. Are there others in your immediate or extended families who have the same or similar
abilities?
8. Is there anything you would like to add? Anything we haven’t covered you think is
important for us to know?
Genetic Analyses
Two independent analyses were applied to the DNA data by separate parties, blinded to each
other’s results. The first analysis blindly compared potential variations in DNA sequences
between the psychic and control cases, and did not exclude intronic regions adjacent to
exomes. The second analysis compared the 13 psychic samples to a large-scale public
sequencing database and excluded consideration of intronic regions.
The analysis comparing potential variations in DNA sequences between the psychic and control
cases was conducted at ORT Braude College (Israel) and began with pre- and post-alignment
quality control analysis. Genome alignment to the human genome hg19 database was
performed with Star2.5.2b with the guidance of Gencode v24, part of the Partek® Flow (Partek,
St. Louis, MO) pipeline. Trimmed reads were generated by Illumina’s cloud tool Basespace®,
prior to the alignment processing. Initial filtering on minimum variant quality of 30 (indicating that
the quality of the DNA was very high). Read depth indicated that 90% of the sequenced data
had a 20X coverage, which is the proper coverage for this type of whole exome sequencing
study. Annotation of the different regions within the sequenced DNA allowed distinctions to be
drawn between the different parts of the DNA and to determine the summarized cohort mutation
(i.e., identifying which potential variants were valid and determining where in the genome these
variants were located). Because the library preparation process includes library amplification,
duplicate reads were filtered out to eliminate redundant data. Traditionally, the filtering of DNA
regions is aligned to known exomes. Because of the exploratory nature of this study, the
standard step of filtering out potential variants located in regions not aligned to exomes was not
included. Utilizing SAMtools, the example variant effect and summarized cohort mutations
pipeline were implemented to see which samples contained variant call mutations.
The analysis comparing psychic cases to a large-scale public sequencing database as control
data was conducted by an independent bioinformatics company (Strand Life Sciences,
Bangalore, India). Significant variant analysis of the 13 psychic samples versus 125,748
controls from the Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD; https://gnomad.broadinstitute.org/)
was performed using a germline pipeline program (DRAGEN, Illumina, San Diego, CA). This
analysis sought to find variants that are rare in the general population and controls in our study
but are enriched in the psychic cases. The filtering and processing steps in this analysis were
to: 1) merge the datasets containing the variants from all psychic and control samples, 2)
eliminate potential variants not identified by the significant variant analysis using the DRAGEN
program, 3) eliminate potential variants with less than 10 reads at the variant location or less
than 30% supporting reads, 4) perform a one-sided Fisher’s Exact test on the psychic samples
count and control samples count of each variant and retain the variants with p-values less than
0.05, 5) further filter out potential variants located in regions not aligned to exomes, and those
with a minor allele frequency (MAF) greater than 0.1 in the gnomAD database, 5) manually
inspect remaining potential variants to eliminate those with poor mapping quality in the genome
browser, and 6) eliminate any potential variants that were likely to be false positives due to
sequencing artifacts in low complexity regions.
SocioGenomic Analysis
Cross-country population differences. Using data from both the 1000 Genomes consortium
(www.1000genomes.org) and Gnomad,19 we computed the wild-type to alternate allele ratios for
16 separate country populations. In some cases (such as Nigeria, Kenya, and India) two
different sub-populations are listed. In these cases, we took a sample size weighted average of
the ratio of the wild-type intron sequence found in the psychic cases to the alternate allele found
in the controls in each subpopulation in order to create a ‘country level’ estimate. Excluded were
diaspora people (such as Jews), displaced people (such as Afro-Carribeans) and populations
with heavy admixture in the New World (such as Mexicans). Thus, our analysis was restricted to
Old World populations only. We were able to obtain “country level” estimates of the wild-type to
alternate allele ratio for the following countries: Estonia, Bangladesh, China, Nigeria, Finland,
the United Kingdom, India, the Gambia, Spain, Japan, Vietnam, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Pakistan,
Sri Lanka, and Italy.
Duration of contact with Christianity. Data on the amount of time since the first introduction of
Christianity in these countries was compiled from a variety of sources (including A World History
of Christianity).20 This variable was scaled in terms of years before present since first recorded
contact with Christianity (yielding a negative value). Also obtained were data on the current
prevalence of Christianity in these countries (the success of Christianity within these populations
being just as significant as the duration of exposure to Christianity). These data were sourced
from The CIA World Factbook21 and used as a weighting term in the regression model.
Relaxation of negative selection. A final variable measuring the intensity of relaxation of
negative selection (i.e., selection acting against mutant alleles) was obtained in the form of the
Biological State Index (BSI).22,23 This variable estimates the opportunity for negative selection to
act, as captured by the likelihood that a randomly selected individual within a country can go on
to reproductively contribute to the next generation. The higher this value, the lower the
opportunity for negative selection, as more people can contribute to the future population.
Countries with high BSI values are typified by greater levels of modernization, as proxied by low
rates of infant and child mortality and replacement fertility, high levels of access to health care,
and historically high rates of industrialization. All of these features would have contributed to
increased survival and opportunity for reproductive participation because those whose genomes
carry deleterious variants would historically have proven to be more lethal without these
scientific and social advances (i.e. mutations that predispose towards diabetes would have been
lethal prior to the advent of insulin therapy). These data were sourced from supplementary
material published as part of You and Henneberg (2018).24
A weighted least-squares (Type 1 Sum of Squares) regression analysis was then conducted
using the population percentage of derived variant carriers as the dependent variable. The
years since initial contact with Christianity was entered first, followed by the BSI variable,
followed by the interaction between the two. All variables were then normalized (i.e. z-
transformed by setting the mean for each variable at 0 and the standard deviation at 1) prior to
entry into the regression, allowing for the recovery of one additional model degree of freedom.
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Supplemental Cross-Cultural Sociogenetic Dataset
Population
% G->A with ag-
gregates
Christian history
(ybp)
% Christian
BSI
Estonian
9.649122807
-770
45
0.98914898
Bangladeshi
12.35955056
-470
0.4
0.920698299
Chinese
0.347251206
-1360
3.15
0.96889093
Nigerians
2.723464424
-570
49
0.782234559
Finland
13.76564278
-770
70.7
0.990882332
British
16.68611435
-1840
59.3
0.989882467
Indians
13.90011159
-470
2.3
0.898263498
Gambian
3.199174407
-570
4.2
0.848684102
Spainish
5.93220339
-1963
71.5
0.991649103
Japan
0
-471
2.3
0.993244417
Vietnam
0
-470
8.2
0.965838559
Kenya
0.502512563
-570
85.1
0.871652279
Sierra Leone
1.83299389
-510
15.45
0.727886294
Punjabi, Pakistan
10.98779134
-423
1.6
0.876554278
Sri Lanka
12.10762332
-1948
7.5
0.968771239
Italy
9.170305677
-1970
83
0.992006133
Note: All data sources are noted in the main text
