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Environmental influences; Epidemiology; Heritability; Heterogeneity; Personalized medicine; Quantitative genetics
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Heterogeneity, Not Randomness, Sets Challenges For Quantitative Genetics And Epidemiology: A Response To Davey Smith’S “Gloomy Prospect”, Peter J. Taylor
Heterogeneity, Not Randomness, Sets Challenges For Quantitative Genetics And Epidemiology: A Response To Davey Smith’S “Gloomy Prospect”, Peter J. Taylor
Working Papers on Science in a Changing World
Social epidemiologist Davey Smith (2011) argues that epidemiologists should accept a gloomy prospect: considerable randomness at the individual level means that they should keep their focus on modifiable causes of disease at the population level. The difficulty epidemiology has had in moving from significant population-level risk factors to improved prediction of cases at an individual level is analogous to the lack of success in the search for systematic aspects of the non-shared environmental influences that human quantitative genetics claims overshadow common environmental influences (e.g., the family’s socioeconomic status which siblings have in common). This article responds to the argument and …