The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely • Hacker News Board

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#151

Post by toasterlovin » Sun, Jul 07, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #148

toasterlovin wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of the article is that fertility is heritable, which means an evolutionary process is taking place that will overcome the demographic transition.

> The premise of the article is that fertility is heritable (...) Actually, that was the conclusion, and is exactly the thing that is being disputed.

The person I’m responding to is disputing that people in developed economies are evolving to become more fertile by pointing to the fertility rates of recent immigrants, which fall within a couple of generations. I am pointing out that these recent immigrants have not gone through multiple generations of selection for fertility in a developed economy, so the fact that their fertility rates drop upon arrival does not invalidate the hypothesis.

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#152

Post by _liww » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #150

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did mean the "genetic heritability" part of intelligence, if all other factors stay the same (i.e. assuming a scenario as described in the paper, where no environmental factors change) and everyone gets the same level of support in education etc. Hope that helps to clarify.

Since the discussion in the thread here seems to have stopped, I'll skip to the conclusion: Both fertility and intelligence are not as simple as the color of someones eyes. Lots of genes play a role, so the combination of two favorable gene-sets does not necessarily lead to a still favorable gene-set. Therefore, there always seems to be a "regression toward the mean", so don't worry, one or two generations cancel out…

Intelligence and fertility are known as complex traits. The fact they are complex doesn't mean they are not acted on by genetics: they are just highly polygenic. Almost all attempts to measure the heritability of intelligence have reached estimates between 50 and 80%.

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#153

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 7:57 AM UTC

_liww wrote: post #152

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the discussion in the thread here seems to have stopped, I'll skip to the conclusion: Both fertility and intelligence are not as simple as the color of someones eyes. Lots of genes play a role, so the combination of two favorable gene-sets does not necessarily lead to a still favorable gene-set. Therefore, there always seems to be a "regression toward the mean", so don't worry, one or two generations cancel out…

Intelligence and fertility are known as complex traits. The fact they are complex doesn't mean they are not acted on by genetics: they are just highly polygenic. Almost all attempts to measure the heritability of intelligence have reached estimates between 50 and 80%.

Did you really read my post?

Anyway, I often hear that claim of 50-80% but I can never find the publications backing up that claim. Can you list some, please?

Re: The heritability of fertility makes world population stabilization unlikely

#154

Post by j_wtf_all_taken » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 8:03 AM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #151

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The premise of the article is that fertility is heritable (...) Actually, that was the conclusion, and is exactly the thing that is being disputed.

The person I’m responding to is disputing that people in developed economies are evolving to become more fertile by pointing to the fertility rates of recent immigrants, which fall within a couple of generations. I am pointing out that these recent immigrants have not gone through multiple generations of selection for fertility in a developed economy, so the fact that their fertility rates drop upon arrival does not…

And I was responding to your claim about the premise of the article? How is the original post relevant in that respect?

Anyway, the point is still: if someone makes a claim, they should be able to back that up. That is not done in the paper, and also I cannot find a post by you explaining the reasoning for your hypothesis.