Heritability of life span is about 50% when heritability is redefined

2 points by csours a month ago · 2 comments

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csoursOP a month ago

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Pertinent quote from this article:

Everyone seems to be interpreting this paper as follows:

    Aha! We thought the heritability of lifespan was 23-35%. But it turns out that it’s around 50%. Now we know!

I understand this. Clearly, when the editors at Science chose the title for this paper, their goal was to lead you to that conclusion. But this is not what the paper says. What it says is this:

    We built a mathematical model of alternate universe in which nobody died from accidents, murder, drug overdoses, or infectious disease. In that model, heritability was about 50%.

csoursOP a month ago

Pertinent comment from an unrelated post:
1. (Big one) For virtually EVERY study, and especially human science studies like psychology, sociology, health; The Headline of the Press Release will imply things that the study does not claim, and especially that the study does not provide evidence for.
...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46890108

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Heritability of life span is about 50% when heritability is redefined

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