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Some Unintuitive Properties Of Polygenic Disorders

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E. Fuller Torrey recently published a journal article trying to cast doubt on the commonly-accepted claim that schizophrenia is mostly genetic. Most of his points were the usual “if we can’t name all of the exact genes, it must not be genetic at all” - but two arguments stood out: Even though twin studies say schizophrenia is about 80% genetic, surveys of twin pairs show that if one identical twin has schizophrenia, the other one only has a 15% to 50% chance of having it. The Nazis ran a eugenics program that killed most of the schizophrenics in Germany, eliminating their genes from the gene pool. But the next generation of Germans had a totally normal schizophrenia rate, comparable to pre-Nazi Germany or any other country. I used to find arguments like these surprising and hard to answer. But after learning more about genetics, they no longer have such a hold on me. I’m going to try to communicate my reasoning with a very simple simulation, then give links to people who do the much mo

Some Unintuitive Properties Of Polygenic Disorders ... Scott Alexander Jan 24, 2024 229 187 15 Share E. Fuller Torrey recently published a journal article trying to cast doubt on the commonly-accepted claim that schizophrenia is mostly genetic. Most of his points were the usual “if we can’t name all of the exact genes, it must not be genetic at all” - but two arguments stood out: Even though twin studies say schizophrenia is about 80% genetic, surveys of twin pairs show that if one identical twin has schizophrenia, the other one only has a 15% to 50% chance of having it. The Nazis ran a eugeni

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