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> I find it helpful to remember that lipstick-wearing is highly heritable despite zero genetic determination I don't understand what is being claimed. Are you

> I find it helpful to remember that lipstick-wearing is highly heritable despite zero genetic determination I don't understand what is being claimed. Are you suggesting that twin studies show (or would show) that children inherit lipstick-wearing behavior from their parents, even when raised apart from them? If this behavior is inherited, but is not genetic, what is the claimed mechanism by which it is inherited?

runarberg 4y ago
They are raised in a similar (or even the same) culture. The environment is a pretty powerful driver for inheritance. Genes is not the end all be all of things that are inherited across generations.
- haberman 4y ago
  But heritability is a statistic that is specifically designed to distinguish between genetic and environmental factors. A trait whose variance has no genetic influence would have 0 heritability, unless I am missing something.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Heritability is the ratio of genetically-produced variation to total variation in some population. Overwhelmingly people who wear lipstick have a clear genetic difference from those who don't (XX vs. XY). It's a degenerate example meant to illustrate the point: heritability doesn't answer the question of genetic influence, but rather reframes it.
    - haberman 4y ago
      Ok I think I am with you now. You are saying that lipstick-wearing variation is very strongly influenced by genes (namely XX vs. XY chromosomes), and is thus highly heritable by the definition of heritability, but is somewhat paradoxical in that XX genes do not directly cause a person to put on lipstick in the same way that, say, XX genes make a person capable of bearing a child.
      - sfblah 4y ago
        This heritability redefinition thing is just a bad-faith move by people on the left to avoid the debate in my opinion. The standard historical understanding of the word "heritability" is exactly what you said. It's like redefining gender or sex or the like.
        tptacek 4y ago
        You're just waiting for someone to attempt this argument, and now you have, and so I get to make the simple observation: the research results establishing heritability use the actual scientific definition of heritability, not whatever definition is most intuitive to you. When you reference those results while redefining terms they're using, you invent new, bogus results out of whole cloth. That this happened here is evident from the fact that you've been reduced to arguments like "IQ is genetically determined because my cat can't play chess".
        sfblah 4y ago
        No. This definition of heritability is an obvious wokeism. https://www.etymonline.com/word/heritable#:~:text=%22capable%20of%20being%20inherited%2C%20inheritable,Related%3A%20Heritability https://www.etymonline.com/word/heritable#:~:text=%22capable.... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/heritability https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/heritabi... The Cambridge definition linked just above is particularly on point: "The ability of a disease or characteristic to be passed from a parent or grandparent to a child through the genes" -- Yes, I know it's convenient to redefine terms like gender and heritability to fit what's politically popular. I get it. But, don't gaslight me by telling me I'm redefining the words. As you can see, I could have used this word in 1300s France and been understood as speaking about traits derived from one's parents through being their offspring. -- As for my argument about a cat playing chess, I'm just trying to give you the simplest possible example so you can see that your doctrinaire position on this subject is insane.
        tptacek 4y ago
  - runarberg 4y ago
    > Suppose you buy a bag of seed corn from a hardware store. This is not some sort of fancy cloned corn, but ordinary genetically varied corn of the sort that farmers planted long before there was a science of genetics. Grow one handful of it in a carefully controlled environment in which the seeds get uniform illumination and uniform nutrient solution. The corn plants will vary in height, and because the environment is uniform, the heritability of height will be 100 percent. Now take another handful of corn from the same bag, and grow it in a similarly uniform environment but with a uniformly poor nutrient solution. Again, the plants will vary in height, but all will be stunted. Once more the heritability of height is 100 percent. Despite the 100 percent heritabilities of height within each group, the difference in height between the groups is entirely environmentally caused. So we can have total heritability within groups, substantial variation between groups, but no genetic difference between the groups. https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/230/1/199712003.html https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/230/1/19...

runarberg 4y ago

They are raised in a similar (or even the same) culture. The environment is a pretty powerful driver for inheritance. Genes is not the end all be all of things that are inherited across generations.

haberman 4y ago
But heritability is a statistic that is specifically designed to distinguish between genetic and environmental factors. A trait whose variance has no genetic influence would have 0 heritability, unless I am missing something.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Heritability is the ratio of genetically-produced variation to total variation in some population. Overwhelmingly people who wear lipstick have a clear genetic difference from those who don't (XX vs. XY). It's a degenerate example meant to illustrate the point: heritability doesn't answer the question of genetic influence, but rather reframes it.
  - haberman 4y ago
    Ok I think I am with you now. You are saying that lipstick-wearing variation is very strongly influenced by genes (namely XX vs. XY chromosomes), and is thus highly heritable by the definition of heritability, but is somewhat paradoxical in that XX genes do not directly cause a person to put on lipstick in the same way that, say, XX genes make a person capable of bearing a child.
    - sfblah 4y ago
      This heritability redefinition thing is just a bad-faith move by people on the left to avoid the debate in my opinion. The standard historical understanding of the word "heritability" is exactly what you said. It's like redefining gender or sex or the like.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        You're just waiting for someone to attempt this argument, and now you have, and so I get to make the simple observation: the research results establishing heritability use the actual scientific definition of heritability, not whatever definition is most intuitive to you. When you reference those results while redefining terms they're using, you invent new, bogus results out of whole cloth. That this happened here is evident from the fact that you've been reduced to arguments like "IQ is genetically determined because my cat can't play chess".
        sfblah 4y ago
        No. This definition of heritability is an obvious wokeism. https://www.etymonline.com/word/heritable#:~:text=%22capable%20of%20being%20inherited%2C%20inheritable,Related%3A%20Heritability https://www.etymonline.com/word/heritable#:~:text=%22capable.... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/heritability https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/heritabi... The Cambridge definition linked just above is particularly on point: "The ability of a disease or characteristic to be passed from a parent or grandparent to a child through the genes" -- Yes, I know it's convenient to redefine terms like gender and heritability to fit what's politically popular. I get it. But, don't gaslight me by telling me I'm redefining the words. As you can see, I could have used this word in 1300s France and been understood as speaking about traits derived from one's parents through being their offspring. -- As for my argument about a cat playing chess, I'm just trying to give you the simplest possible example so you can see that your doctrinaire position on this subject is insane.
        tptacek 4y ago
- runarberg 4y ago
  > Suppose you buy a bag of seed corn from a hardware store. This is not some sort of fancy cloned corn, but ordinary genetically varied corn of the sort that farmers planted long before there was a science of genetics. Grow one handful of it in a carefully controlled environment in which the seeds get uniform illumination and uniform nutrient solution. The corn plants will vary in height, and because the environment is uniform, the heritability of height will be 100 percent. Now take another handful of corn from the same bag, and grow it in a similarly uniform environment but with a uniformly poor nutrient solution. Again, the plants will vary in height, but all will be stunted. Once more the heritability of height is 100 percent. Despite the 100 percent heritabilities of height within each group, the difference in height between the groups is entirely environmentally caused. So we can have total heritability within groups, substantial variation between groups, but no genetic difference between the groups. https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/230/1/199712003.html https://web-archive.southampton.ac.uk/cogprints.org/230/1/19...