Well, certainly the behavior genetics is a scientific area well-founded. It has problems like all scientific areas have, however it has a solid base of research and accumulated scientific knowledge (http://www.bga.org/)

Yes we know perfectly the Behavior Genetics Association, but they did not give a very clear answer to our question. If so let me know about it.

Sorry Courgeau, now I´ve seen your paper...unfortunatelly, I am from the group specialized in laboratory experiments, but it still was a great reading for me. Thank you!

Thank you very much for your clear answer: I am happy to hear that the reading our paper was of great interest for you.

There is no doubt that behavioural genetics has a place in social research. Twin studies show that for every human trait there is heritability (which is usually calculated from twin studies.). For intelligence, education, occupational status and earnings there is surprising large heritability and smaller than expected environmental components. Furthermore, heritability appears to be increasing.

I have reviewed this in my recent book,

Marks, G. N. (2014). Education, Social Background and Cognitive Ability: The Decline of the Social. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

http://www.amazon.com/Education-Social-Background-Cognitive-Ability/dp/0415842468

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415842464/

Gary,

Yes, I know very well that behaviour genetics is trying to have a place in social science research.

However, your answer to my question clearly shows that you have not fully read the joined paper, written with a geneticist, on: Demographic behaviour and behaviour genetics. This paper examines thoroughly the hypotheses lying behind such an approach and found them inadequate for scientific purpose in social science.

You will also find here enclosed a part of another paper I will present to the Chaire Quetelet 2013, with other researchers, on: Are the four Baconian idols still alive in demography? in which we present other proofs of its inadequacy. These parts are on (1) the idols of the tribe and (3) the idols of the market.

I hope that this will give you a more detailed view of the concept of heredity you seem to use for intelligence, and of some of the political ideas lying behind behaviour genetics.

Daniel,

You can't dismiss the importance of genetics in socioeconomic outcomes by bringing in eugenics. It is not logical to argue that since some very nasty people have linked eugenics to behavioral genetics in the past, therefore behavioral genetics is an invalid discipline. There is no getting away from the fact that the cognitive ability, education and socioeconomic attainments of identical twins, even when raised apart, is much more highly correlated than in comparison groups e.g. fraternal twins and adoptees. Other procedures produce similar results. There are literally dozens of studies all concluding high heritability and much lower environmental components. Also it is not a valid argument to say that since genes for intelligence cannot be unambiguously identified there is no such thing as intelligence. There may be 100s perhaps 1000s of genes involved. Since we can’t identify a specific gene for autism and other conditions, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Gary N Marks

Gary,

I think that there are two points to be discussed here (1) the claim that there is a genetic component in behavioural traits, and (2) that the contribution of this component to the variance of the traits in the population can be measured.

The answer to the first point is evidently ‘yes’, as it would be for any human characteristic. So that I entirely agree with you about the importance of genetics in socio economic outcomes. However this question can be said to be pointless. To answer the second point, we have to see if it is possible to split up an observed behaviour into a genetic component and an environmental one.

I am not arguing that ‘since some very nasty people have linked eugenics to behavioral genetics in the past, therefore behavioral genetics is an invalid discipline’, as you say. We are giving in our papers an analysis of the hypotheses lying behind such an approach and we conclude, with Gottlieb (2001), that:

‘It is know known that both genes and environment are involved in all traits and that it is not possible to specify their respective weighting or quantitative influence on any trait. … this has been a hard-won scientific insight that had not yet percolated to the mass of humanity’.

Evidently, if I asked this question it is because many researchers are still using behaviour genetics and I wanted to know if they have enough arguments to give to explain their choice.

For example for heritability, even if many researchers said that it leads to a dead end (see for example the very clear chapter of Sarkar on The obsession with heritability, in his book on Genetics and reductionism, Cambridge University Press, 1998) why do you continue to use it for the study of intelligence? Also in our paper on Demographic behaviour and behaviour genetics (2003) I wrote with Atam Vetta, after showing that it is based on incorrect assumptions:

‘Behaviour genetics research spanning the last 30 years does not provide any support to heritability analysis. Nor has such analysis advanced our understanding of how to “improve” a behavioural trait. After more than 30 years of research on IQ, all that behaviour geneticists can say is that its narrow heritability h² has changed from 0.6 to 0.36 (Devlin et al., 1997, McGue, 1997). Behaviour geneticists who make such a claim show profound ignorance of evolutionary genetics. A change of this magnitude in h² would occur only if there were a drastic change either in human genotype or environment. Neither seems to have occurred.

The simple explanation for the claim of a decrease is that it is ‘politically’ motivated. When Jensen (1969) wanted to argue against the money allocated to the Head Start programme for black children in the USA, he produced estimates of 0.6 and 0.8 for h² and H² of IQ. He claimed that as IQ has a high genetic component and is highly correlated with educational achievement, the programme would not result in higher achievement by black children and money was being wasted. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) in their widely publicized book The Bell Curve, argued that given assortative mating and these high heritabilities, a cognitive elite (a sort of western Brahmin class) would emerge. The reason is that the distribution of IQ will eventually become bimodal: high IQ genotypes on one side and low IQ genotypes on the other, with a small sprinkling of other genotypes in between. The emergence of a cognitive elite is likely to frighten liberals in the West. Devlin et al. (1997) produced lower estimates for h² and H² of IQ at 0.36 and 0.48 and McGue (1997) triumphantly informed us that “Devlin and colleagues’ findings will lead to a reconsideration of the dire conclusions from The Bell Curve”. He is wrong. Actually, if IQ were a genetic trait, the lower estimate would only delay the ‘dire’ event. We need not, however, fear the arrival of the cognitive elite. We noted in the last section that IQ genes are doomed if their genetic correlation with fertility is negative.

The fact, however, is that average IQ has been increasing. It is called the Flynn effect (from Flynn, 1984). Herrnstein and Murray (1994, p. 308) in The Bell Curve acknowledge this effect: “In some countries the upward drift since World War II has been as much as 1 point a year for some span of years. The national averages have in fact changed by amounts that are comparable to the 15 or so IQ points separating whites and blacks in America”. Here a word of caution is necessary. A polygenic trait is normally distributed. An important property of this distribution is that the mean and variance are independent. An increase in the mean IQ does not necessarily imply a change in its variance.’

Even Fisher said in 1951: ‘… co-efficient of heritability, which I regard as one of those unfortunate short-cuts, which have often emerged in biometry for a lack of a more thorough analysis of the data’. Regrettably, the use of heritability by behaviour geneticists shows that his fears were justified.

I will be very interested if you can give me sound arguments for the use of behaviour genetics rather than saying me ‘that thee are literally dozens of studies concluding high heritability and much lower environmental component’, which I know perfectly.

Eugenic is well alive:

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-massive-genetic-engineering-program

At BGI Shenzhen, scientists have collected DNA samples from 2,000 of the world’s smartest people, and are sequencing their entire genomes in an attempt to identify the alleles that determine human intelligence. Apparently they’re not far from finding them, and when they do, embryo screening will allow parents to pick their brightest zygote and bump up every generation's intelligence by five to 15 IQ points.

Louis,

Yes I entirely agree with you that eugenics is still alive.

In the paper on Are the four Baconian idols still alive in demography (2013), I wrote with Jakub Bijak, Robert Franck and Eric Silverman, we said that eugenicists before World War II achieved their objectives after it through different new organizations. For example Osborn, the well-known promoter of eugenics in the previous pre-war period, co-founded the Population Council with Rockefeller in 1953, and was his president during the period 1957- 1959. He wrote in 1968 in The future of human heredity: Eugenics goals are most likely to be attained under a name other than Eugenics. Margaret Sanger, who was leading a revival of the Neo-Malthusian leagues in the pre-war period, was the first president of the IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) in 1952. And so on... The movement also, to reach its political goals, used the methodology of heritability analysis, in particular for research on IQ.

Where do I begin?

The point of educational policies during the post-war years was to ensure that talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds did not face social hurdles and are able to reach their full potential. Therefore it is important to know the impact of the environment vis-à-vis genetic potential. Behavioral genetics is one of several approaches to address this research question. I can never accept arguments that both are involved so we shouldn’t try and quantify the magnitudes of the effects.

Similarly, much of educational theory and policymaking currently focuses on either the home or school environments which results in wrong-headed and misleading theories, and policies that cost much money without discernible benefits.

Re: “After more than 30 years of research on IQ, all that behaviour geneticists can say is that its narrow heritability h² has changed from 0.6 to 0.36”. The literature says the opposite, that heritability is higher in younger cohorts. And there is much published research since the mid-1990s. The analogy behavioral genetics gives is a set of withered stunted plants grown with poor soil (with little variation) compared to healthy plants with much variation when grown in healthy soils.

One reason for the increase in IQ (the Flynn effect) is improvements in pre- and peri-natal care and infant (and preschool) health and nutrition as well as aspects of modernization. This is a good thing.

It should be kept in mind that at the individual level IQ is very stable with high correlations between childhood and adult measures of cognitive ability. Even at old-age there is sizable (>0.7) correlation with childhood intelligence.

As for eugenics I make several points:

• Identifying genes for intelligence is a long way off and there is likely to be complex interactions. Behavioural genetics has been good at identifying single-gene abnormalities but polygenetic phenomena (e.g. height) are far more difficult.

• Rarely one allele can account for 1% of the variance in intelligence and then later studies don’t reproduce the finding.

• Whenever a candidate gene (allele) is identified they find exceptions: high IQ people without the allele and low IQ with the allele.

• To my knowledge it is very unlikely that high IQ embryos will be unambiguously identified in the petri dish and next to impossible in the womb.

• Eugenics is much more of a danger in totalitarian societies and they might not even bother with behavioural genetics. They would just shoot people they think are undesirable.

• The more real danger of eugenics is aborting female foetuses and wrongly aborting healthy foetuses that have a higher probability of an abnormality. This is a very difficult and real issue for society and for some parents.

Re:” IQ has a high genetic component and is highly correlated with educational achievement.” But this is true! Just because such findings COULD have undesirable policy implications does not mean they are wrong.

I think we can agree that the Bell Curve’s arguments for the formation of a cognitive elite and bimodal distribution are wrong. The correlations for assortative mating (about 0.5) and parent-child IQ (again 0.5 for one parent up to 0.7 for two parents) are simply not strong enough to create a cognitive elite and a bimodal distribution for ability.

I suggest (to Daniel) that he gets my book from his library and then argue the points from there. I came to area of social stratification as a sociologist believing that it is was all about social background. But the evidence from a number of research fields is that socioeconomic background is not nearly as important as theorists and policymakers assume and that genetics (including both cognitive and non-cognitive attributes) play some (but far from a deterministic) role in educational and socioeconomic attainments.

Book again:

Marks, G. N. (2014). Education, Social Background and Cognitive Ability: The Decline of the Social. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

http://www.amazon.com/Education-Social-Background-Cognitive-Ability/dp/0415842468

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415842464/

Gary,

Thank you for your more detailed comments on some points raised in my previous answer. Unfortunately your arguments are far from convincing.

First, for the heritability of IQ you seem to be very sure about what a chosen literature says about it but ignore what another says. Let me recall you the long and sordid story around it, with for example the books of Kamin (The science and politics of IQ, 1974), Fancher (The intelligence men: Makers of the IQ controversy, 1985), Tucker (The science and politics of racial research, 1994), Gould (The mismeasure of man, 1996), and so on. Criticisms include accusations of various forms of racism as well as claims of outright fraud from one of the most prominent IQ researchers: Cyril Burt. Even if some of their arguments are not entirely convincing, they need to be considered.

Second, for eugenics you say that ‘Eugenics is much more a danger in totalitarian countries and they might not even bother with behavioural genetics’. I already showed, in my yesterday answer to Louis Brassard about eugenics, that under other names eugenicists achieved their objectives in our non-totalitarian countries through different very powerful organizations. Also that behavioural genetics is tightly linked to hereditarianism, as they call eugenics now.

Last and more obviously, your answer that you ‘can never accept arguments that both (environment vis-à-vis genetic potential) are involved so we shouldn’t try and quantify the magnitude of the effects’, is more an act of faith than a scientific answer to numerous books and papers showing with scientific arguments that it is not possible to specify the relative weighting or quantitative influence of genes and environment on any trait. Therefore, it is hard not to suspect that the continued pursuit of heritability is guided, at least to some extent, by non-scientific especially political factors.

Gary,

I did not read the litterature about IQ but I never beleive in the possibility in principle to measure intelligence of a human being with a number called IQ. We can measure simple thing like weight, voltage, etc with a single number. IQ is supposed to provide a prediction of success in school and the IQ tests are constantly modified so that they can be a correlationg between high success in school and hight IQ. Success in school being used as a measuring apparatus and what it measures is called IQ. Then some people believing this mythology try to find a correlation between this IQ number is some aspect of genetic material!!!!! We are getting deep into mythology here. Manufacturing good such as a car have a potential of performance based on their design (their genetic material). For higher animals, biological evolution has not stored into genes the way individual organisms should behave because higher organisms are design to adapt to so complex environments that it would be impossible to fix this type of information into genes. So biological evolution moves away from fixed design towards highly adaptive design. In the case of human being, biological evolution has made us very culturally programmable so our success as individual is mostly a question of cultural support and impossible to predict in principle individual choices. If you clone Einstein, it is very unlikely that this individual will be outstanding because that individual will not be in the exceptional cultural situation that Einstein end up to be given also a number of individual choices he did in his childhood.

Daniel,

I am not an expert in none of these topics so if I said totally wrong things please correct me.

Louis,

Yes, I totally agree with you on this point. The relation between IQ and what may be intuitively called general cognitive ability is less than certain. Recent work on intelligence and cognitive ability has tended to be less focused on IQ, but also less reliant on heritability analysis. See for example the book edited by Sternberg and Grigorenko in 1997 on Intelligence, heredity and the environment. Sternberg wrote later that ‘the IQ tests are convenient partial operationalizations of the construct of intelligence, and nothing more. They do not provide the kind of measurement that tape measures provide of height’ (The theory of successful intelligence, Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 2005).

Let's be clear about some things:

1. Mainstream Psychology accepts the concept and its measurement. Examples are Gottfredson’s (1997a) “Mainstream Science on Intelligence” response outlining “conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence” was co-signed with 52 prominent signatories from academia. Similarly, Neisser et al.’s (1996: 79) “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns”, published in the American Psychologist, had 11 co-authors. Subsequent research generally reiterates the conclusions and summary statements contained in these two publications (see Deary 2012; Gottfredson 2008; Jensen 1998: 105–36). It is not mythology.

2. Measures of cognitive ability are not constantly modified so they correlate with school success. Their construction is independent of the (senior) school curriculum. There are also measures that are designed to be culture free, the most well-known is Raven's Progressive Matrices which shows even stronger associations.

3. Sternberg is famous for his 3 level hierarchical theory of cognitive ability. He cannot be viewed as someone who rejects the concept and its measurement.

4. Gould's "mismeasure of man" is largely a critique of factor analysis. He basically misunderstands the concept of intelligence and factor analysis. Generally, if you have a set of test items, a latent factor can be isolated and this latent factor (g) is highly correlated with 'g's isolated from other sets of test items. 'g', however obtained, is correlated later (sometimes much later) educational (especially) and labour market outcomes. For a critique of Gould see Carroll, J. B. (1995) ‘Reflections on Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. 1981): A Retrospective Review’, Intelligence, 21(2), 121–34.

5. In response to the many criticisms about the conceptualization and measurement of cognitive ability, Gottfredson (2008: 554) points out that no other concept in the social and behavioural sciences is as well established in terms of construct and predictive validity.

6. If IQ tests were only "a partial operationalization" of the concept, then logically its effects on educational and subsequent outcomes would be even stronger than observed in longitudinal and birth cohort studies.

7. There is much research training to establish that cognitive ability is purely of social factors, mainly socioeconomic background. But this position is not credible given the immense amount of literature of the subject. Measures of socioeconomic background at the very best account for 25% of the variation in test scores (but usually very much less) and the effect of socioeconomic background often disappears after controlling for (biological) parent's ability.

8. Obviously IQ is not an exact measure like a tape measure of height. But all concepts in the social sciences are not 100% reliable.

9. Cyril Burt rigged his data. But that does measure the concept of intelligence and its measurement are also fraudulent.

10. I know that the study of intelligence has been accused of racism due to different mean values by race (and nationality). It is important to keep in mind that, although there are IQ differences between class, race and ethnic groups, the within-group variation is always very much greater than the between-group variation. Thus, there are substantial proportions of high scoring individuals from low socioeconomic status or minority groups and low-scoring individuals from mainstream and privileged groups.

11. If the test items were measuring different things for different social groups then there would be substantial social-group differences in the ranking of test items in terms of item difficulty (the percentage of correct answers), the ranking of the correlations between individual items and total test score, and the underlying factor structure. Such statistical characteristics of the test data are almost identical for different social groups (Jensen 1998: 362–5; also see Gordon and Rudert 1979: 177–82). Also if IQ tests just reflected white-middle class culture then they would have no predictive validity for minority groups. Their predictive validity is the same or better than that for mainstream groups.

12. The bottom line is that there is something that exists that people know as human intelligence, which is well (not perfectly) measured by test scores, is basically uni-dimensional, is stable over the life course, has a strong (but undetermined) genetic component and has important consequences for education and later socioeconomic attainments. It quite logical that educational institutions select and grade mainly on ability (not ignoring other factors) and we know that education is the strongest predictor of socioeconomic outcomes (occupation and earnings). Whether this is desirable or not is quite another debate.

Gary,

Thank you for your last answer to my previous comments. I am very pleased and interested to see how our exchanges will permit to show two quite different approaches to social science and may raise the debate at a higher level. I will first develop quickly my own approach, which I think Louis is also partly following according to his previous questions, before trying to see on what bases you are working.

In the 70’s I was working simultaneously on the field of IQ and on population genetics.

Our Institute (Ined) organized in 1965 a very huge survey on 100,000 children in order to show the relationships between their IQ and a great number of characteristics of their parental life. I wrote a paper on the foreign born children, unfortunately published only in French in 1972, which showed different interesting results: the children’s IQ were related to their duration of stay and their age at arrival in France, the profession of their parents, and for those present for more than five years in France to their nationality, their variance being also dependent of their nationality. These results lead me to some scepticism about what we are measuring with IQ: it may be in a large measure modified, and the fact that it correlates with school success was not a proof of its validity (are not they measuring the same thing?). So that why to use such a measure in order to confirm scholar results? Is it not in order put forwards some concept which permits to strengthen the educational system used in the country? These questions lead me to abandon this research direction but to remain however informed about its results.

For population genetics I worked with Albert Jacquard and wrote the chapter on Migration in his well known book on The genetic structures of population (1974). But again this approach, even if it is much more scientifically based than IQ measurement, did not convince me to continue to work on it, as for example the use of behaviour genetics was beginning to get strength at this time. As for Jacquard, I thought that the use of population genetics was not to permit modelling normality but to praise human differences. His paper on Heritability, one word three concepts in Biometrics 1973, and on Race, gènes et QI in La Recherche 1997, convinced me that my choice was the good one. This led me later to work with the geneticist Atam Vetta, who ventured to doubt about Fisher’s axioms, from 2003 and to continue in the way traced by Jacquard. Evidently, these two failures in my young career did not prevent me to make more important research in various demographic fields such as migration study, event history analysis and multilevel analysis.

For you in the contrary, you follow the main current of social science and accept the concept and measurement of IQ by Mainstream Psychology and the current use of behaviour genetics by the powerful Behavior Genetics Association established in 1970, without any doubt about their value. You are on the right side of official science and it seems difficult to go against this current.

However, with this question in Research gate and with some other papers I wrote recently, I thought that it may be possible to challenge the validity of some official concepts such as behaviour genetics, postmodern theory, hereditarianism, modern hermeneutics, IQ theory, etc. I am now looking for the results of such a quest …

Gary,

This is also my contribution to Albert Jacquard book?

Gary,

Thank you for all the information. I have a question: If such thing as general intelligence exists and can even be measured relatively easily with simple test then should we conclude that it would have been straightforward for the natural process of evolution by natural selection to keep on increasing this character indefinitely?

Louis,

You probably know more about human evolution that I do. Obviously, there was some selection for intelligence at some time in the past and whether this happened before, after (or at the same time) as the development of language.

What I understand is there a number of different arguments.

1. There was direct selection for ability. More intelligent "pre-humans" probably homo erectus were more likely to survive and reproduce. Since humans aren't that god at running or fighting, smartness was something they had over other species in sub-Sahara Africa.

2. Intelligence was indirectly selected for because of its association with traits that were highly adaptive for survival, i.e. language.

3. That intelligence was part of sexual selection, smarter individuals were more attractive to the opposite sex.

We really don't what life was life between 800,000 and 10,000 BC.

Gary,

Physically we are particularly good long distance runner, better than most animals. This is a physical advantage in a savana. We are very good thrower, better than any other animal. We are extremely good at manipulating objects with our hands. Our primate ancestors have one neural map per hand and we have one neural map controlling each of our fingers. But what define us the most is our incredible ability to cooperate as a group which bring me to intelligence and the emotions favoring it.

BIOLOGY OF LOVE

By Humberto Maturana Romesin and Gerda Verden-Zoller, Opp, G.: Peterander,

F. (Hrsg.): Focus Heilpadagogik, Ernst Reinhardt, Munchen/Basel 1996.

http://www.lifesnaturalsolutions.com.au/documents/biology-of-love.pdf

''that we humans are all essentially equally intelligent, and the differences in intelligence that seem to exist between humans are not due to differences in their capacity for consensuality, but in their emotioning. In fact, due to the nature of intelligence as a relational biological phenomenon, different emotions affect it differently. Thus, ambition, competitiveness, anger, envy, aggression and fear,

reduce intelligence, because they restrict the domain of openness for consensuality. This is acknowledged in daily life with popular expressions such as: he or she is blinded by anger or ambition. Only love expands intelligence, because love as the domain of those behaviors through which the other arises as a legimiate other in coexistence with oneself, opens us to see and to enter in collaboration. To live in love, in the biology of love, in the conservation of collaboration, in the acceptance of the other and in the acceptance of the conditions of existence as a source and not as an opposition, restriction or limitation, has been the fundament for the evolutionary trend of conservation of the continuous expansion of intelligence in our lineage.''

Louis,

Thank you very much for your lesson of humility and love all researchers might have. Yes we would have to look at the wrong political use of our results and, more, to be aware of the ideas lying beyond some very powerful domains of thought, which may be destructive for many human beings, as hereditarianism. You will find here the whole paper I wrote with other scientific researchers and a philosopher on the four Baconian idols. This concept coming back from the Novum Organum of Bacon in 1620 seems to be always accurate in our 21st century. It will be interesting to complete it with similar idols in natural, biological and social science …

To reemphasize a previous there has been many massacres of people based on ethnicity and their supposed inferiority. The romans wiped out the whole population of Carthage and there are other examples in ancient history. In the last 100 years there have also been many: Rwanda, the holocaust, the Balkans war to name a few and none of these can be attributed to the study of behavioural genetics.

Gary,

As we said in our paper on the Baconian idols, eugenics was replaced by hereditarianism which used behaviour genetics as a support for political decisions. But they are only new forms of racism, which existed long ago and lead to the numerous massacres of people based on ethnicity and their supposed inferiority, as you clearly said. How do you explain that Osborn a well known promoter of eugenics cofounded with Rockefeller the Population Council and that Margaret Sanger was the first president of the IPPF, which worked with Osborn and won broad support for the goal of introducing ‘family planning’ to ‘those who need it most’? This formulation elided the question whether the need was felt by the individuals themselves or by those who knew better – that is, the critical question of who would actually do the planning in ‘family planning’, as said Connelly in 2006. The objective is exactly the same as for the massacres you present, but the goal is most likely to be attained under another denomination and in order to assist ‘society’ towards the elimination of the unfit.

No, these massacres are not the same as Sanger. No way.

The argument that humans are all equally intellligent, the only differences is "emotions" is so very wrong.

Gary,

Evidently these massacres are not the same as Sanger’s, and you are entirely free to think that she was not a eugenicist. However let me recall you that she was member of both the English Eugenics Society and the American Eugenics Society, and that she wrote in Birth Control Review (1919) a paper on “Birth control and racial betterment” with the following sentences: “Before eugenicists and other who are laboring for racial betterment can succeed, they must first clear the way for birth control. Like the advocates for birth control, the eugenicists, for instance, are seeking to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit. Both are seeking a single end but they lay emphasis upon different methods…” The question is: the unfit for whom?

This is a very interesting question with lots of possible answers.

Milestones in the history of behavioral genetics are set forth in

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228622372_Milestones_in_the_History_of_Behavioral_Genetics_Participant_Observer

Perhaps the followers of this thread will be interested in the following article on behavior genetics of nest cleaning in honey bees:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248589135_Rothenbuhler_WC_Behaviour_genetics_of_nest_cleaning_in_honey_bees_I_Responses_of_4_inbred_lines_to_disease-killed_brood_Anim_Behav_12_578-583

The following journal publishes studies of ecologically oriented studies of behaviour genetics and physiology:

https://www.researchgate.net/journal/1600-0633_Ecology_of_Freshwater_Fish

From this, it would seem that behaviour genetics is an active research area and a  fledgling science.

Article Milestones in the History of Behavioral Genetics: Participant Observer

Article Behaviour genetics of nest cleaning in honey bees. I. Respon...

Dear James,

Thank you for your interesting answer to my question.

Yes, breeders tried to verify some of Fisher’s assumptions in their tightly controlled animal and plants experiment, where subjects with different genotypes may be provided with a near uniform environment, which permitted to predict the responses to selection (Crusio 1990; Visscher et al. 2008). However, given the complexity of the underlying gene action, such analysis had been at the level of the black box (Hill, 2010), and the non verification of other Fisher’s assumptions may lead to incorrect results.

If for plants and animals it was possible to accommodate genetic/environmental interaction with the use of breeding strategies for humans, as I showed with Atam Vetta, they can no more be applied. Even when using recent discoveries in genetics and in epigenetics, Charney (2012) said that their cumulative evidence “calls into question the validity of two classes of methodologies that are central to the discipline: twin, family and adoption studies, which are used to derive heritability estimates, and gene association studies, which include both genome wide and candidate gene association studies”. You will see in the forthcoming paper I wrote on: “Can the use of behavior genetics improve historical demography”, more details on this topic.

References

Charney, E. (2012). Behavior genetics and postgenomics with discussion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35, 331-410.

Crusio, W. (1990). Estimating heritabilities in quantitative behavior genetics: A station passed, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 127-128.

Hill W. (2010). Understanding and using quantitative genetics, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 73-85.

Visscher P., Hill W., Wray N. (2008). Heritability in the genomic era-concepts and misconceptions, Nature Reviews Genetics, 9, 255-266.