The heritability fallacy

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• 作者：David S. Moore and David Shenk
• 刊名：Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January-April 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：8
• 期：1-2
• 全文大小：624K
• ISSN：1939-5086

文摘

The term ‘heritability,’ as it is used today in human behavioral genetics, is one of the most misleading in the history of science. Contrary to popular belief, the measurable heritability of a trait does not tell us how ‘genetically inheritable’ that trait is. Further, it does not inform us about what causes a trait, the relative influence of genes in the development of a trait, or the relative influence of the environment in the development of a trait. Because we already know that genetic factors have significant influence on the development of all human traits, measures of heritability are of little value, except in very rare cases. We, therefore, suggest that continued use of the term does enormous damage to the public understanding of how human beings develop their individual traits and identities. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1400. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1400