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    It is impossible to apportion the relative causal contrib... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    It is impossible to apportion the relative causal contributions of genes and environment to human traits

    Causation
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Causal relations cannot be inferred from the analysis of variance
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    • 2.The only legitimate exception to this limitation requires perfect or nearly perfect additivity between genotypic and environmental effects, such that differences among genotypes are the same in all environments and differences between environments are the same for all genotypes
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    • 3.Gene-gene and gene-environment interactions are non-additive, meaning this exception does not apply
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Quantitative genetics legitimately partitions population-level variance into heritable and environmental components without requiring individual-level causal claims.
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    • 2.Heritability statistics are descriptive population parameters with well-defined mathematical meaning, not causal claims about gene-environment separability in individuals.
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    • 3.The argument conflates the impossibility of individual causal apportionment with the impossibility of population-level statistical decomposition, which are distinct epistemic targets.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Norm of reaction studies in model organisms demonstrate empirically that genotypic contributions to phenotypic variance can be systematically isolated under controlled environmental manipulation.
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    • 2.The philosophical impossibility claim overgeneralizes from observational human studies to experimental contexts where environmental variables can be rigorously controlled, as Lewontin himself acknowledged.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityCausation

    Connections

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    Truth & Knowledge1 linked

    Related

    Causal relations cannot be inferred from the analysis of varianceGene-gene and gene-environment interactions are non-additive, meaning this excep...Heritability statistics are descriptive population parameters with well-defined ...Norm of reaction studies in model organisms demonstrate empirically that genotyp...
    +4 moreShow less
    Quantitative genetics legitimately partitions population-level variance into her...The argument conflates the impossibility of individual causal apportionment with...The only legitimate exception to this limitation requires perfect or nearly perf...The philosophical impossibility claim overgeneralizes from observational human s...

    Similar

    Apportioning causal contributions requires separability of gene and en...85%Traits cannot be attributed primarily to genes or primarily to environ...85%Non-additivity makes it impossible to assign fixed proportional causal...81%Gene-gene and gene-environment interactions are non-additive, meaning ...76%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: human-genome
    View source passageHide passage
    But notice the waffle words used by Watson and on the cover of Life: “in large measure” and “mostly in your genes.” Everyone is an interactionist these days, in some sense of “interaction.” Genes and environment, or nature and nurture, are recognized both to be necessary for development: by themselves, genes can’t determine or do anything. Yet, theorists still seem to give the nod to one or the other, suggesting that it is mostly genes or mostly the environment, mostly nature or mostly nurture,
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit