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Well, being precise here (sorry, biologist talking)––the whole point of this article is that the "shared environments between closely related persons" is precis
by tony_cannistra 8y ago
Well, being precise here (sorry, biologist talking)––the whole point of this article is that the "shared environments between closely related persons" is precisely not heritability.
The issue at stake here is that genetics play a far lesser role in determining longevity than other non-genetic inheritable factors (like the "shared environment" examples you give); e.g. the heritability of longevity is considerably lower than previously thought.
- saalweachter 8y agoFirstly I will admit that the article was a bit much for me to process as a non-biologist, and that it didn't register that that was the entire point of the article until you said so :-) But to be a little defensive, yeah, I know shared environmental factors aren't really "heritable", I'm just saying that it honestly hadn't occurred to me before reading this article that they would be confused for heritable genetic factors, even though it does kind of seem obvious once it's pointed out.
- tony_cannistra 8y agoYeah, that's the important takeaway regardless of the pedantic terminology of genetics for certain.
- User23 8y agoThe heritability of traits increases as the environment improves. For example historically height wasn't very heritable, it depended mostly on environment, which is to say nutrition. Now in countries where adequate nutrition is widely available, height is much more heritable. Could the same effect apply to longevity? I don't really know, because I don't even know what environmental factors improve longevity, except for the grossly obvious ones.