ABSTRACT
In this chapter I consider the claims that have been made about the relationship between genes and intelligence in light of the limitations on what human genetic research can show that were pointed out in the last chapters. In the case of studies of heritability, the last chapters provided some general reasons to be suspicious about the usefulness of the concept of broad-sense heritability in thinking about those variations in significant human behaviors and traits. Because of the conceptual limitations to heritability, it was argued that heritability estimates were neither useful for making predictions about changing variations in traits nor for explaining those variations that currently exist in naturally occurring populations without knowing far more about how the purported genes involved interacted with the environment (and other aspects of their contexts). It was further argued that arriving at convincing estimates of the heritability of complex traits in human populations was at best difficult. However, it was noted that none of these problems, well-known as they are, have stopped people from embarking on research designed to generate such estimates, from publishing such estimates, or from using such estimates in arguments about social policy.
