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Clarity comments on Towards cause priotisation estimates for child abuse - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (16)
The 1st and third quote blocks merely reference other sources without summarising them. This leads to a wealth of insubstantiated evidence and holds back efficient evaluation of its truth value.
The second claims something is heritable, but every human trait is heritable by definition. The wording implies the divorce is attributable to the status of having an identical twin that is divorced, which is underdetermined and moreover, twin studies aren't interpreted so simply. So, I expect that the author is a poor biostatistician and wouldn't take their word on the 1st and 3rd claims from these exerpts alone.
The book has summaries in the content (these were just footnotes). So I'd maybe recommend you just read that chapter from the actual book.
Arguing "By Definition"
Is living in Africa heritable? I'm sure if you try, you can understand what is the author is trying to say without picking on his words.
How sure are you that the answer is no?
I mean, obviously it "should" be no. But suppose you attempt to answer that question using the same machinery generally used to estimate heritability. What answer will come out? Bear in mind, e.g., that it is rather rare for identical twins to live on different continents. (C.f. Cosma Shalizi here and here. The former is long and discusses many other things; search for the heading "Cultural transmission".)
(I agree that "every human trait is heritable by definition" is a pretty silly thing to say.)
I didn't mean to suggest this question has a valid answer, but rather to point out that the phrasing is ambiguous.
The quote I gave above from the book says:
So I think the criticism from the article you linked doesn't apply.