2/ While it's an important point, I'm not going to go into the TOTAL ABSURDITY of writing news stories based on unpublished, vague research It's ridiculous, but not the main point herepic.twitter.com/ROJuIJfpZw
You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more
2/ While it's an important point, I'm not going to go into the TOTAL ABSURDITY of writing news stories based on unpublished, vague research It's ridiculous, but not the main point herepic.twitter.com/ROJuIJfpZw
3/ I'm also not going to go into the scientific merit of genome-wide correlation studies that attempt to use problematic regression models to predict social factors They're not great, but again not the point
4/ The thing that's interesting here is a simple question: What is heritability?
5/ The common definition of heritability is fairly simple - the amount of variation in a population due to genetics I.e. how much your genes determine your traits, like intelligence
6/ So, for example, if I say that intelligence is 90% heritable, people would generally take this to mean that 90% of a person's intelligence is determined by their genespic.twitter.com/i7WPGkTYFm
7/ Unfortunately, THIS IS WRONG It turns out, your individual phenotype (trait) is much more complex than this interpretation of heritability might suggest
8/ What this actually means is that, in the population THAT YOU HAVE MEASURED, that proportion of variation in traits is genetic
9/ If we discover that IQ is 90% heritable, what it means is that, on average, across a population who are exposed to the same environment, 90% of IQ variance will be due to genes
10/ But we know that other things affect IQ Education, for example. Social factors. Wealth All things being equal, in a group of 100 people, 90% of the difference between their IQs will be genetics. BUT THINGS ARE NEVER EQUAL
11/ A geneticist called Richard Lewontin gave a classic example of how this works 2 populations of plants. One grown with adequate light/nutrients, one without Within EACH GROUP heritability of height is ~100% But one group is smaller than the other. Because of environmentpic.twitter.com/JK4aeCPKdj
12/ Getting back to the Daily Mail story, we can apply the same theory Maybe there are genes that are associated with wealth. It seems far-fetched, but who knows? Environment will still be the biggest predictor of whether you are rich or not
13/ Research has long established that wealth is largely inherited. Not genetically, but through the simple mechanic of parents having lots of money, dying, and giving it to their kidspic.twitter.com/CLam7y6O39
14/ Moreover, it's been well established in genetics that you can't necessarily separate genes from environment Someone who is born with "rich" genes, but who lives in poverty as a child, may be negatively affected in a whole host of ways
15/ Ultimately, it's foolish to worry about genetics. These correlation studies are absurd, but even if they weren't, wealth is more about environment than genes
16/ The best way to improve wealth outcomes (broadly) is redistributive taxation, so if we really care about it we should increase tax and fund services
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.