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Genes vs environment: a false dichotomy

By dgmacarthur on March 25, 2009.

Neuroscientists Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt have a guest post on Olivia Judson's NY Times blog discussing the complex interplay between genes and environment in the determination of personality traits. A taste:

So some of the effects that we call "genetic" (or "nature") are the
indirect result of people being drawn to particular environments
because of their personality. Or to put it another way, some
"environmental" (or "nurture") effects are actually attributable to
genetic tendencies.

It's worth noting that similar effects can occur for other traits: for instance, a genetic variant that increased sugar cravings or decreased motivation to exercise could have an effect on obesity risk; a variant that increased susceptibility to a specific virus might increase the risk of auto-immune diseases triggered by viral infection. In each case, the genetic variant increases disease risk indirectly by altering exposure to an environmental risk factor.

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Tags
gene-environment interactions
genetics of normal variation
genetics of personality

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you gotta be kidding me... doesn't anyone read Fisher anymore??
ok.. even g.c.williams/
or, if you're a behaviorist, at least go back to jerry.hirsch.

nah. lets stick with Fisher.
P=G+E
after one breaks down (G) into additive (A), dominance (D) and epistasis (I) ... G*E and r(GE), are, mostly, minor components....

btw -- twin studies inheritantly overstimate all of these components (even with some of the newer statistical models), but are superb for elucidating environmental influences...
:)