On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 lweiger at umich.edu wrote:
> But it doesn't follow that questions of the form "Is the variation Xs
> exhibit trait Y primarily attributable to genetic or environmental
> differences?" are never real (i.e. meaningful, interesting, and
> important). Wanna know why Americans are taller today than they were a
> century ago? Look at the respective environments. Wanna know why I'm
> five inches taller than my sister?
> Look at our genes (and maybe prenatal exposure to certain hormones).
This notion that characteristics can be primarily attributed to genes or the environment is exactly the mistake I'm talking about! I agree with Lewontin and Gould: the effects of genes always emerge in an environment, and individual development always occurs in an environment, so both environment and genetics must always interact to produce any specific traits. --Note that Luke parenthetically realizes this in the last bit of the post above (his "maybe" should be extended to pages of nongenetic factors!).
Miles