Skip Navigation


IJE Advance Access originally published online on April 27, 2006
International Journal of Epidemiology 2006 35(3):525-527; doi:10.1093/ije/dyl064
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
35/3/525    most recent
dyl064v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Rose, S. P R
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Rose, S. P R
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2006; all rights reserved.

Commentary

Commentary: Heritability estimates—long past their sell-by date

Steven P R Rose

Department of Biological Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK

E-mail: s.p.r.rose@open.ac.uk

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.


   Heritability then
 
It might seem—it probably is—presumptuous for a neuroscientist to comment on a theoretical text in population genetics, especially when the paper in question is by one of the prominent figures in the field. However, it is relevant to recall the context in which Lewontin's 1974 article in The American Journal of Human Genetics1 appeared. Symbolized by the publication, in 1969, of Arthur Jensen's article: How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement?,2 there had been a resurgence of claims as to the heritability of human traits. Jensen had argued that, as IQ scores had a high heritability (~80%), it followed that the consistent difference in IQ scores between black and white citizens of the US was too great to be accounted for by ‘environmental’ factors. Instead, he concluded, the on average lower IQ of . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Heritability now
 

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?