glass_icarus | academic mic-drop, say what!

Having updated some of my tags and icons, I've also edited access/subscriptions, which I've been neglecting for... years, oops. >.> This was mostly an exercise in dropping subscriptions to those who seem to have abandoned their journals or whom I haven't interacted with in years, but I thought I'd post an FYI, in case you're one of the people who suddenly got an add notification and were wondering why.

Today has been a day where academic readings have actually been entertaining, and since an open access file seems to be available, I thought I'd post a link: Burt & Simons, 2014- Pulling back the curtain on heritability studies: Biosocial criminology in the post-genomic era. As I said elsenet, this is a comprehensive academic rant on behavioral genetics that I'm too incoherent to make myself. It also includes probably the most entertaining conclusion paragraph that I've read to date:

We have argued that there is compelling evidence that heritability studies are methodologically flawed, especially for complex social behaviors such as crime. We have argued also that heritability studies are based on an oversimplified and incorrect model of gene function and that the goal of partitioning genetic versus environmental influences on variance in phenotypes is biologically unsound. We therefore recommend an end to heritability studies in criminology. Moreover, given the many flaws in heritability studies, we also call for an end to the use of the oft-repeated version of the phrase: “We know from a wealth of behavioral genetic studies that the heritability of [insert crime or related phenotype] is roughly 50 percent.” Based on the arguments and research discussed in this article, it is apparent that we unequivocally do not know this to be the case. Furthermore, no amount of quantitative genetic research can establish the validity of such heritability estimates or their putative support for the irrelevance of shared environmental factors. Technically flawed and conceptually unsound models—no matter how often published or repeated—do not by virtue of their numbers make for sound evidence.

(Burn much? *g*)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Technically flawed and conceptually unsound models—no matter how often published or repeated—do not by virtue of their numbers make for sound evidence.
Hear hear!