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estearumyesterday at 10:58 PM2 repliesview on HN

Those were some of the leading candidates until twin studies and controls for familial wealth invalidated them and left us only with shminshmellishence :/


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tptacektoday at 3:48 AM

Wait, flesh this thought out? Twin studies were the dominant methodology of the 1970s-1990s, until molecular genomics --- and genetic studies with controls for family relations demolished their heritability estimates. You just wrote a sentence that implies a straight line of progress on understanding this (weirdly, giving a 70s-vintage point in one direction along with a 2010s-vintage point in the other), but it's the opposite (there's a whole thing about this, the "missing heritability problem").

"Go look up twin studies" is a very strange thing to tell someone on a message board in 2026. It's like saying "go look up phlogiston".

LPisGoodtoday at 1:33 AM

“Controls” for familial wealth have mostly been debunked by any kind of basic statistical analysis.

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