During the past decade, polygenic scores have become a fast-growing area of research in the behavioural sciences. The ability to directly assess people’s genetic propensities has transformed research by making it possible to add genetic predictors of traits to any study. The value of polygenic scores in the behavioural sciences rests on using inherited DNA differences to predict, from birth, common disorders and complex traits in unrelated individuals in the population. This predictive power of polygenic scores does not require knowing anything about the processes that lie between genes and behaviour. It also does not mandate disentangling the extent to which the prediction is due to assortative mating, genotype–environment correlation, or even population stratification. Although bottom-up explanation from genes to brain to behaviour will remain the long-term goal of the behavioural sciences, prediction is also a worthy achievement because it has immediate practical utility for identifying individuals at risk and is the necessary first step towards explanation. A high priority for research must be to increase the predictive power of polygenic scores to be able to use them as an early warning system to prevent problems.

在过去十年中，多基因评分已成为行为科学中一个快速发展的研究领域。直接评估人们遗传倾向的能力已经改变了研究，因为它可以将性状的遗传预测因子添加到任何研究中。行为科学中多基因评分的价值在于使用遗传的 DNA 差异来预测人群中无关个体的常见疾病和复杂特征。多基因评分的这种预测能力不需要了解基因和行为之间的过程。它也没有要求解开预测在多大程度上是由于各种交配、基因型-环境相关性，甚至是人口分层。尽管从基因到大脑再到行为的自下而上的解释仍将是行为科学的长期目标，但预测也是一项有价值的成就，因为它对于识别处于危险中的个体具有直接的实际用途，并且是迈向解释的必要的第一步。研究的重中之重必须是提高多基因评分的预测能力，以便能够将它们用作预防问题的预警系统。