4 ms·

I'm very well aware of how "heritability" is studied. It is defined to be a correlation, so twin studies do not estimate heritability. They attempt to estimate

I'm very well aware of how "heritability" is studied. It is defined to be a correlation, so twin studies do not estimate heritability. They attempt to estimate how much heritability is explained by gene expression being the cause of the relevant behaviour. Twin studies assume a model of environmental variation which cannot be evidenced, because the relevant target of study (a human being in its environment) cannot be experimented on to evidence anything. Twin studies are not RCTs (which are themselves the minimum an experiment needs to be to count as science). Indeed, the assumed model of the interaction between genes and the environment is *plainly false* (namely, that "equality" between environments exists and that it has linear non-feedback, non-cyclical effects). Twin studies on star signs would likewise produce as compelling evidence that star signs cause personality. (Can you see why that would be?) Science requires such experiments take place. No amount of post-hoc analysis of correlation can produce a causal explanation. One must control causes to do so. Hence, much of this abuse of statistics is unreporducible pseudoscience; it is well known to be outside these fields by anyone with any credible understanding of statistics. Every chemist will defend physics; and every chemist, biology. And every biologist neuroscience. Can you cite me anythihg other than the abject horror of real scientists outside these fields on reading their reports? I'm sorry to break the news: this is peudoscience in the tradiiton of pseudoscience which was invented by psychology's repurposing of statistics for post-hoc analysis of correlation on human data (ie., the most complex systems known to exist) which fails even basic tests of scientific credibility. Complex systems resist study by the use of the scientific method, and require the best minds in modelling and statistics to even produce "rule of thumb" models (eg., consider the climate). What we have in heritability, psychometric, etc. research is loons studying the climate (ie., analogously, humans) by putting thermometer readings into GUI stats software and publishing the results. They're fools. Neo-homeopaths, whose lab coat is "statistics"/.

concordDance 4y ago
That post cements that you do not understand the fundamentals of the scientific method or how we do scientific analysis. E.g. that we assume "that "equality" between environments exists" You're very confused about how a lot of things work on fairly fundamental levels which would take hours to disentangle, so all I can do is recommend learning more on philosophy of science and read some more papers on heritability. Maybe this one picked not entirely at random: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Holland-2/publication/313227507_Estimating_and_interpreting_heritability_for_plant_breeding_Anupdate/links/5c1a4d41299bf12be38b26cc/Estimating-and-interpreting-heritability-for-plant-breeding-Anupdate.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Holland-2/publica...
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Sure, and likewise: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012896802713 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012896802713 . I am presently researching a PhD in the philosophy of science and causal analysis; I have two degrees in physics, and I have spend the last nearly 10 years with major lead researchers and data scientists across many industries. My opinions here are a summary of a talk I recently delivered at a conference on issues applying "ordinary statistical methods" to complex systems, esp. those with profound hysteresis, such as people. But likewise, my opinions arent rare amongst people with similar experience to me: psychmetrics, psychology, heritability research, and so on -- are widely regarded amongst my peers as pseudoscience. It's unlikely I've made a basic mistake.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Very refreshing to see someone actually providing a link for further reading. This raises the level of discourse on HN. His argument as I understand it, is that the MZ twins have a different environment in ways such as being treated as more similar by their parents. This means that high similarity in one respect (such as appearance or temperament) can contaminate the natural experiment by making people assume they are more similar in another respect (such as intelligence or learning style) and treating them the same where that second trait is relevant, thus making the second trait more highly correlated than they would be by genes alone (e.g. you assume they're equally intelligent and thus give them the same education). This has some merit but is quite far from a knock-down argument. My previous talks with a professor studying genetics in Oxford has given me the impression that heritability is settled science and theres a huge volume of papers in the area, so I'm not going to change my mind based on an anonymous comment and a paper by a non-academic with an axe to grind without first going back and consulting with her. Given your statements here I am quite confused as to how you can have a degree in physics while dismissing science where you can't make interventions... did you study astronomy at all in your degree? I'm also confused as to how you state that genes do not cause intelligence, do you think a mouse is less intelligent than a human due to its lack of soul or something? [1] https://geneillusions.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/twin_2002_pdf.15583400.pdf https://geneillusions.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/twin_2002_...

concordDance 4y ago

That post cements that you do not understand the fundamentals of the scientific method or how we do scientific analysis. E.g. that we assume "that "equality" between environments exists" You're very confused about how a lot of things work on fairly fundamental levels which would take hours to disentangle, so all I can do is recommend learning more on philosophy of science and read some more papers on heritability. Maybe this one picked not entirely at random: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Holland-2/publication/313227507_Estimating_and_interpreting_heritability_for_plant_breeding_Anupdate/links/5c1a4d41299bf12be38b26cc/Estimating-and-interpreting-heritability-for-plant-breeding-Anupdate.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Holland-2/publica...

mjburgess 4y ago
Sure, and likewise: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012896802713 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012896802713 . I am presently researching a PhD in the philosophy of science and causal analysis; I have two degrees in physics, and I have spend the last nearly 10 years with major lead researchers and data scientists across many industries. My opinions here are a summary of a talk I recently delivered at a conference on issues applying "ordinary statistical methods" to complex systems, esp. those with profound hysteresis, such as people. But likewise, my opinions arent rare amongst people with similar experience to me: psychmetrics, psychology, heritability research, and so on -- are widely regarded amongst my peers as pseudoscience. It's unlikely I've made a basic mistake.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Very refreshing to see someone actually providing a link for further reading. This raises the level of discourse on HN. His argument as I understand it, is that the MZ twins have a different environment in ways such as being treated as more similar by their parents. This means that high similarity in one respect (such as appearance or temperament) can contaminate the natural experiment by making people assume they are more similar in another respect (such as intelligence or learning style) and treating them the same where that second trait is relevant, thus making the second trait more highly correlated than they would be by genes alone (e.g. you assume they're equally intelligent and thus give them the same education). This has some merit but is quite far from a knock-down argument. My previous talks with a professor studying genetics in Oxford has given me the impression that heritability is settled science and theres a huge volume of papers in the area, so I'm not going to change my mind based on an anonymous comment and a paper by a non-academic with an axe to grind without first going back and consulting with her. Given your statements here I am quite confused as to how you can have a degree in physics while dismissing science where you can't make interventions... did you study astronomy at all in your degree? I'm also confused as to how you state that genes do not cause intelligence, do you think a mouse is less intelligent than a human due to its lack of soul or something? [1] https://geneillusions.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/twin_2002_pdf.15583400.pdf https://geneillusions.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/twin_2002_...