[joshink1]

Abstracting is often more effective than de-coupling for these kinds of discussions. The act of changing concrete variables about a "case" requires that one keeps everything else (and their value-laden implications) the same. It is also much easier to mentally manipulate symbols when they are free of moral/emotional weight.

In the example given in the article, the question of IQ heritability can be "safely" abstracted into a population study question without referencing specific groups or populations. Of course, a serious biologist would use higher-resolution concepts like "breeding population" with defensible boundaries.

It seems disingenuous (or maybe naive?)to expect discussions about American racial groupings to remain neutral and freely "de-couplable".

It's like honestly expecting people to adhere to "is !== ought". There is a political implication to any conclusions derived about race, as it is mostly a sociological concept. Discussing it is especially difficult because the people who discuss racial differences (as opposed to other groupings like: family, class, height, religion, etc...) generally employ it in a political context (eugenics, affirmative action, etc...)

[mjburgess]

Gentle reminder: heritability isnt what "most people think it is".

It's just covarience with genes -- this might seem like it means "X is genetic" -- but it *doesnt*. Consider accents (eg., the scottish accent) this is highly heritable: typically only people with the genetic profiles of those localised to scotland have it.

Consider using heritability to determine genetic vs. envrionmental causation (largely: you just cant use it to do this). Eg., even in the case of height: it would seem that the genes of people in poor-nutrition countries were the cause of their low height.

The movement from "heritability" to "genetic causation" *asssumes* (and always, by assertion *assume*) that the trait studied is already genetically caused. IF we know this, THEN hertiability is a somewhat reliable measure of "to what degree".

But in almost all cases we have no grounds whatsoever to independently assume this. Rending most heritability studies basically useless.

[joshink1]

Thanks for that info.

A quick aside:

I'm curious why it's gene vs environment (either/or), and not gene + environment (emergent)? If the latter, then I'd think heritability would necessarily factor both genes and environment -- as genes don't express in a vacuum.

For example, the heritability of "general skin cancer risk" is both genetic (melanin) and environmental (latitude, sun irradiance...). Due to differences in UV exposure, the genetic influence is probably greater at lower latitudes than higher.

[yakshaving_jgt]

> as it is mostly a sociological concept

If one were to challenge this statement, it would be a good example of the challenges involved in choosing when to discourse-decouple.