Archived Columns

This page is to make an easy to use (and easy to share) central repository for my posts on the science of behavioral genetics. This is fundamental reading for anyone interested in HBD – indeed for anyone interested in the human sciences in general.

All Human Behavioral Traits Are Heritable – This post introduces readers to the world of behavioral genetics and the concept of heritability. Introduces the “Three Laws” of behavioral genetics (the title of post being the First Law verbatim). Explains the usefulness of twin and adoption studies to partition the sources of human trait variation – that is, disentangle nature from “nurture.” Shows that the source of human differences can be broken into three basic parts, heredity, the shared (or common) environment, and the unique (or non-shared/unshared) environment. Details that all human traits show heritable contribution (hence the First Law). Also details the lack of impact from the shared environment for almost every human trait, which rules out nurture (as its commonly thought) and parenting of having a significant impact on life outcomes. Notes the huge impact the First Law has for human group differences. (Indeed, while not quoted in the post, by as John Derbyshire put it, “if dimensions of the individual human personality are heritable, then society is just a vector sum of a lot of individual personalities.”)

Environmental Hereditarianism – Following up my preceding posts on the matter, this one delves into the matter of the “environment” in more detail. Specifically, this touches on commonly claimed “environmental” influences and explains why they are mostly bunk. As well, this analyzes the “unique environment” and explains why it’s not really environment at all – but more accurately, the unexplained variance. Discusses some of the limitations of behavioral genetic tests that cause them to overestimate the effect of the environment and underestimate the effects of heredity – most significant among them being measurement error. Details the concept of developmental noise, noting how some of the variation between people (as seen in the differences between “identical” twins raised together) can be due to subtle disturbances during development (fingerprints being a simple example).

The Son Becomes The Father – Features the work of Gregory Clark, who (through surname analysis) shows that we evidence for heritability going back many centuries. I take the opportunity to detail larger, newer behavioral genetic studies that show high heritability for all human behavioral traits – including intelligence, personality, political views. As well, I detail evidence showing high heritability for major life outcomes, including criminality, marital stability, drug use, lifetime income, and life satisfaction. More importantly, I detail the lack of shared environment effects for all of these traits. This is key to silencing critics who would like to place “nurture” in an important role in shapi

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read full article at source: http://www.unz.com/jman/the-behavioral-genetics-page/