Comment

Comment by jernfrost

I think there is an enormous danger in abuse of this knowledge. People simply don't understand the concepts and statistics very well.

The part about how heritability varies between countries is very important observation. A country successful at creating great opportunities for the majority of the population will measure very high heritability values because naturally most differences seen will be genetic if the environment is mostly optimal.

This hides the significance of the environment. E.g. height has a heritability of 90%, yet that is easy to misinterpret. Height in various populations have varied dramatically over time and that can primarily be explained by changes in the environment: health care and nutrition.

parent jernfrost 8 years ago

No comments yet

Be the first to share your thoughts.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton