Dynomight responds to PendingKetchup's comment suggesting his article on heritability might be promoting eugenics.
He states his goal was purely to explain the technical meaning of heritability, not to advance any social or political views.
He explains why he avoids explicit disclaimers about the fraught nature of heritability: they can appear condescending, alienate readers with different views, and ironically invite more objections.
He argues that the heritability of a trait depends on societal factors, using the example of crabs injecting growth hormone to illustrate how environment can affect heritability.
He challenges PendingKetchup's assumption that neutrality implies a hidden agenda, and questions whether the commenter is trying to enforce a norm of constant support for particular social views.
He emphasizes the importance of separating facts from social views for both intellectual honesty and effective communication.
Heritability is a flexible concept; redefining traits can change heritability estimates dramatically, e.g., hair color or IQ under hypothetical conditions.
The paper simulates lifespan heritability in a world without non-aging deaths (accidents, etc.), finding it rises from 23-35% (twin studies) to 46-57% in simulation.
The model uses an 'extrinsic mortality' parameter to adjust for external causes of death; lower extrinsic mortality increases heritability.
The paper’s unclear writing in Science makes it hard to reproduce, but the modeling is clever for estimating heritability under reduced environmental randomness.
Actual modern heritability may be around 40% (not 50%) when extrinsic mortality is set to current levels, per the simulation data.
The author criticizes Science’s style for lacking clarity and scientific rigor in statistics-based papers.