Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29440529›Full record

ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2018

Missing compared to what? Revisiting heritability, genes and culture.

Marcus W Feldman, Sohini Ramachandran

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
25citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

25 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Confounding fuels misinterpretation in human genetics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
  3. Review
  4. Confounding Fuels Misinterpretation in Human Genetics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  5. Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025
    Article
  6. Review
  7. Genes, culture, and scientific racism.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  8. Half a century of quantitative cultural evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Diversity and its causes: Lewontin on racism, biological determinism and the adaptationist programme.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022
    Review
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Genetic nurturing, missing heritability, and causal analysis in genetic statistics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Marcus W FeldmanDepartment of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5020, USA mfeldman@stanford.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-0664-3803
Sohini RamachandranDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Standard models for the determination of phenotypes from genes are grounded in simple assumptions that are inherent in the modern evolutionary synthesis (MES), which was developed in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The MES was framed in the context of Mendelian genetic transmission enhanced by the Fisherian view of the way discretely inherited genes determine continuously quantitative phenotypes. The statistical models that are used to estimate and interpret genetic contributions to human phenotypes-including behavioural traits-are constructed within the framework of the MES. Variance analysis constitutes the main tool and is used under this framework to characterize genetic inheritance, and hence determination of phenotypes. In this essay, we show that cultural inheritance, when incorporated into models for the determination of phenotypes, can sharply reduce estimates of the genetic contribution to these phenotypes. Recognition of the importance of non-genetic transmission of many human traits is becoming ever more necessary to prevent regression to the debates of the 1970s and 1980s concerning policies based on genetic determination of complex human phenotypes.This article is part of the theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution'.

Indexed as

Cultural EvolutionHeredityModels, GeneticHumansModels, StatisticalPhenotypecultural transmissionheritabilitykin correlationsSNPs

Identifiers

PMID29440529
PMCPMC5812976

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.