3 ms·
The heritability of fertility is about 50%, I believe. So about half of the variance in number of offspring is genetic. The remainder is other stuff: culture, c
by toasterlovin 7y ago
The heritability of fertility is about 50%, I believe. So about half of the variance in number of offspring is genetic. The remainder is other stuff: culture, chance, etc. I would imagine that the genetic component is multi faceted. Some of it might be a desire to have children. Some of it might be a resistance to certain ideas or lifestyles that result in fewer offspring (if that seems far fetched, consider first that political orientation is also about 50% heritable).
- philwelch 7y agoBut also consider that it’s hard to experimentally separate cultural and genetic influences because most children are raised and hence inculturated by at least one of their genetic parents.
- toasterlovin 7y agoThere are natural occurring experiments which overcome this called twins. Studies of twins are what’s usually involved in figuring out the genetic component of a characteristic or behavior.
- philwelch 7y agoSpecifically twins separated at birth. Do you know of any twin studies on fertility in particular?