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Making Sense of Heritability In this book, Neven Sesardic defends the view that it is both possible and useful to measure the separate contributions of heredity and environ- ment to the explanation of human psychological differences. He critically examines the view – very widely accepted by scientists, social scientists and philosophers of science – that heritability estimates have no causal implications and are devoid of any interest. In a series of clearly writ- ten chapters he introduces the reader to the problems and subjects the arguments to close philosophical scrutiny. His conclusion is that anti- heritability arguments are based on conceptual confusions and misun- derstandings of behavior genetics. His book is a fresh, original, and com- pelling intervention in a very contentious debate. neven sesardic is Associate Professor in the Department of Philoso- phy at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. His areas of specialization are philosophy of biology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. cambridge studies in philosophy and biology General Editor Michael Ruse Florida State University Advisory Board Michael Donoghue Yale University Jean Gayon University of Paris Jonathan Hodge University of Leeds Jane Maienschein Arizona State University Jesus ´ Moster´ın Instituto de Filosof´ıa (Spanish Research Council) Elliott Sober University of Wisconsin Alfred I. Tauber The Immune Self: Theory or Metaphor? Elliott Sober From a Biological Point of View Robert Brandon Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology Peter Godfrey-Smith Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature William A. Rottschaefer The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency Sahotra Sarkar Genetics and Reductionism Jean Gayon Darwinism’s Struggle for Survival Jane Maienschein and Michael Ruse (eds.) Biology and the Foundation of Ethics Jack Wilson Biological Individuality Richard Creath and Jane Maienschein (eds.) Biology and Epistemology Alexander Rosenberg Darwinism in Philosophy, Social Science, and Policy Peter Beurton, Raphael Falk, and Hans-Jorg ¨ Rheinberger (eds.) The Concept of the Gene in Development and Evolution David Hull Science and Selection James G. Lennox Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology Marc Ereshefsky The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy Kim Sterelny The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays William S. Cooper The Evolution of Reason Peter McLaughlin What Functions Explain Steven Hecht Orzack and Elliott Sober (eds.) Adaptationism and Optimality Bryan G. Norton Searching for Sustainability Sandra D. Mitchell Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism Greg Cooper The Science of the Struggle for Existence Joseph LaPorte Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change Jason Scott Robert Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution William F. Harms Information and Meaning in Evolutionary Processes Marcel Weber Philosophy of Experimental Biology Markku Oksanen and Juhani Pietorinen Philosophy and Biodiversity Richard Burian The Epistemology of Development, Evolution, and Genetics Ron Amondson The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought Sahotra Sarkar Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy Making Sense of Heritability NEVEN SESARDIC Lingnan University, Hong Kong cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521828185 © Neven Sesardic 2005 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2005 isbn-13 978-0-511-13274-2 eBook (NetLibrary) isbn-10 0-511-13274-3 eBook (NetLibrary) isbn-13 978-0-521-82818-5 hardback isbn-10 0-521-82818-x hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. The denial of genetically based psychological differences is the kind of sophisti- cated error normally accessible only to persons having Ph.D. degrees. David Lykken Contents List of figures page xi Acknowledgments xii Introduction1 1 The nature–nurture debate: a premature burial? 11 1.1 A convenient jingle of words 11 1.2 No fair hearing for Francis Galton 16 1.3 Heritability 101 18 1.4 Can monomorphic traits be heritable? 28 1.5 Philosophers at work: caveat lector! 33 2 A tangle of interactions: separating genetic and environmental influences 48 2.1 Two concepts of interaction 48 2.2 The rectangle analogy 51 2.3 Lewontin against ANOVA 56 2.4 Non-additivity 60 2.5 Locality 75 2.6 Causal irrelevance 81 2.7 The second look at interactions 86 3 Lost in correlations? Direct and indirect genetic causes 89 3.1 The conceptual route: a Pickwickian notion? 90 3.2 The methodological route: tracing the paths of causality 105 3.3 The sociologist’s fallacy 121 4 From individuals to groups: genetics and race 127 4.1 The “master argument” 128 ix Contents 4.2 VE theories 138 4.3 X-factor theories 140 4.4 Unfair to facts 142 4.5 The hereditarian strikes back 148 5 Genes and malleability 153 5.1 Genetic and environmental causation 153 5.2 PKU 157 5.3 Local modifiability and modifiability “in principle” 162 5.4 Comparing apples and oranges 169 5.5 A clumsy attempt to appease the critics 177 5.6 Limits to egalitarianism 178 6 Science and sensitivity 183 6.1 Mistaken because politically motivated 184 6.2 Politically motivated because mistaken 186 6.3 Consequential fallacy 193 6.4 Double standards 201 6.5 From “is” to “ought,” non-fallaciously 208 6.6 Looking into the abyss 212 6.7 From groups to individuals 217 6.8 Fair, therefore biased? 224 7 Conclusion 229 References 235 Index 259 x Figures 1.1 A simple illustration of heritability page 19 1.2a A monomorphic trait (genetic) 31 1.2b A monomorphic trait (environmental) 31 2.1 Common sense interaction – yes, statistical interaction – no 50 2.2 Statistical interaction: no main effects 52 2.3 Rectangle area, length and width 54 2.4 Bricks and mortar 59 2.5 A “not atypical case”? 64 2.6 G–E interaction in rats 66 2.7 Testing for interactions 72 3.1a Attractiveness and IQ 118 3.1b Heritability without G–E correlation 119 3.1c G–E correlation with zero heritability 120 5.1a Is PKU 100% heritable? Not any more. 159 5.1b Is PKU 100% heritable? Yes, it still is. 160 5.2 Confusion about range 170 5.3 Whose heritability, whose plasticity? 173 6.1 The taxicab problem and Bayes’ theorem 219 6.2a A terrorist suspect (Group A) 221 6.2b A terrorist suspect (Group B) 221 xi Acknowledgments While working on this book, I presented drafts of some chapters on differ- ent occasions and received useful feedback. I gave talks at Lingnan Uni- versity, Konrad Lorenz Institute, the University of Rijeka, the University of Braunschweig, the University of Pittsburgh, Duke University, the Uni- versity of Hannover, the University of Munich, the meeting of the British Society for Philosophy of Science in Glasgow (July 2002), the eighteenth biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in Milwaukee (November 2002), and the annual conference of the Australasian Associ- ation for Philosophy in Adelaide (July 2003). I also presented some of the material in Alex Rosenberg’s graduate seminar in philosophy of biology at Duke University in April 2004, which was a valuable opportunity to test my ideas and have very stimulating discussions. I am very grateful to my colleagues at Lingnan University for approving my request for a free semester at the crucial, final stage of my writing. My research assistant Mr. Chin Po San helped a lot with literature searches and with preparing the bibliography. The work on this book was sup- ported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, China (Project No. LU3005/01H), by an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research grant, and by two Lingnan research grants (DA03A5 and DR04B6). I am grateful to the University of Chicago Press for permission to use the material from my two papers published in Philosophy of Science (c 2000 and 2003 by the Philosophy of Science Association). I would like to thank Michael Ruse, the editor of the series Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology, for his support for the project. I ben- efited a lot from comments on earlier drafts that I received from the xii Acknowledgments following colleagues: Thomas J. Bouchard, Arthur Jensen, Noretta Koertge, Stefan Linquist, Paisley Livingston, John Loehlin, David Lubin- ski, Samir Okasha, Katie Pleasance, Robert Plomin, Nils Roll-Hansen, and Terry Sullivan. It should not be assumed that any of these people agree with the basic claims defended in this book. xiii Introduction What is heritability? The heritability of a trait in a given population tells us what proportion of differences in that trait is due to genetic differ- ences. It provides an answer to the main question in the nature–nurture controversy. Heritability can be calculated both for physical and psychological char- acteristics but it generates controversy mainly in the context of human behavioral traits like intelligence, personality differences, criminality, etc. For this reason I will focus here only on discussions of heritability in psy- chology (i.e., human behavior genetics). Criticisms of heritability claims in this area are frequently based on a curious mixture of methodologi- cal objections and warnings about political motives and/or implications of this research. A systematic study that would try to disentangle all the argu- mentative threads that are often run together in this contentious debate was long overdue. So this book was simply waiting to be written.
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