Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on She Blinded Me With Science - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Jonathan_Graehl 04 August 2009 07:10PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 August 2009 10:02:15PM 3 points [-]

Because there is no such number. More variance in the environment will mean "less heritability".

Comment author: cousin_it 05 August 2009 08:54:43AM *  0 points [-]

Fix: "...under the strongest environmental interventions known today".

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 05 August 2009 12:46:02PM *  0 points [-]

Have fun trying to define what is accepted as an "environmental intervention" and what isn't.

(Getting your head smashed in with a hammer will end up reducing your body weight rather quickly, so going by your suggestion obesity is 0% heritable.)

Comment author: cousin_it 05 August 2009 12:56:24PM *  0 points [-]

How about "malleability"? Obesity is malleable either way (overeating, liposuction). IQ is highly malleable downwards (hammer to head), not so much upwards (a year of schooling gives +2 points). Eye color, 0% malleable. Maybe take a derivative in effort/time/money to change a trait in the desired direction.

This will be both more useful socially and vastly easier to estimate than "heritability", if we accept Shalizi's proof that "heritability" is almost impossible to measure. By the way, the original post relies upon that proof.