PhilGoetz comments on Why Don’t We Apply What We Know About Twins to Everybody Else? - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (26)
A study of fat/skinny twins was only able to recruit 14 such twins from a registry of 2,453 twins. It doesn't say what fraction of those 2453 were fat/skinny ("obesity discordant"). The BMI ratio between those 14 was only 6/5.
They suggested that the obesity difference might be accounted for by mitochondrial DNA copy number. mtDNA copy number is regulated, not simply "genetically innate"; so I don't see that as a "genetic" explanation.
(I put "genetic" in quotes because the things we say have genetic causes are only a small subset of the things which have genes as causes.)