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Notes -
If you read a review article on behavioral genetics, i'd recommend this, iirc one of the things it initially emphasizes is that heritability is entirely a contextual thing. The heritability of a trait just tries to measure the extent that it, in a specific population under the myriad conditions and complex causation within it, a trait is caused by genes, in the sense that individuals with shared genes are, ceteris paribus, all else equal, more likely to share the trait. But this could entirely depend on environment - 'arm count' is much less heritable in an environment where people get their arms cut off at random and .1% of the population has a gene that sometimes causes arm malformation, vs an environment where nobodys arms get cut off and 50% of the population has a gene that reliably causes arms to not develop in utero. Despite the genes involved being the same!
Similarly, the HBD argument is - in the past, environment was dominant, and IQ had a much lower "heritability" if one could measure it - malaria? mauled by tiger? intestinal parasites? bad weather causes crops to fail? All random factors lowering IQ. Sure, a smarter person can avoid those a bit better, but not enough. But now modern society is very good at eliminating all of those - industrial food production, modern medicine, society, hygiene, education, travel, internet - and most of the variation left is genetic. HBD generally claims that within america, genetics is dominant - but not for instance between africa and america, or historical america and america.
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