Heritability is a poor, if not unhelpful, measure of complex human behavioral processes

Abstract

Heritability is not a measure of the relative contribution of nature vis-à-vis nurture, nor is it the phenotypic variance explained by or because of genetic variance. Heritability is a correlative value. The evolutionary and developmental processes associated with human culture challenge the use of “heritability” for understanding human behavior.

Eurythmics or Xenakis? Cultural Tastes (Are Not Made of Genes): Comment on Jæger and Møllegaard, “Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences”

“…The genetic side too is riddled with problems and limitations. Many criticisms have long been raised about the concept of heritability itself, its misinterpretations, and its arduous estimation in twin studies (e.g., Fuentes and Bird 2022;Larregue 2018;Lewontin 1974;Robette, Génin, and Clerget-Darpoux 2022;Robette and Reeve 2022;Turkheimer 1998). For the sake of simplicity, we have summarized the main criticisms in the online supplement, where we also describe the mathematical model from which this measure is derived.…”