Good articleBehavioural genetics has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 11, 2017Good article nomineeListed
March 7, 2018Good article reassessmentKept
Current status: Good article

societies and journals[edit]

The following two sections were unsourced. I may put them back in the article once they're sourced.

Journals

Behavioural geneticists are active in a variety of scientific disciplines including biology, medicine, pharmacology, psychiatry, and psychology; thus, behavioural-genetic research is published in a variety of scientific journals, including Nature, Nature Genetics, and Science. Journals that specifically publish research in behavioural genetics include Behavior Genetics, Genes, Brain and Behavior, Journal of Neurogenetics, Molecular Psychiatry, Psychiatric Genetics, and Twin Research and Human Genetics.[citation needed]

Societies

There exist several learned societies in the broader area of behavioural genetics:

Article Reassessment[edit]

Behavioural genetics

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · WatchWatch article reassessment pageMost recent review
Result: Kept per Fish and karate's rational at WP:ANRFC. I see this as a close with the GA status being kept; the primary concerns (a lack of a criticism section; the lack of discussion of animal behaviour in favour of exclusively focusing on human behavioural genetics) have been addressed. If you can carry out all the procedural elements and tell me where to post that as the closing summary I'm happy to do that, or just link to this post. Link here AIRcorn (talk) 00:59, 30 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the article should be reassessed because it lacks a neutral presentation, as indicated by the template banner which has been present since March 2017. Neutrality of course is a requirement for good article status. The article presents behavioral genetics in a largely positive light as if the scientific field was mature and produces robust findings. I am not an expert in behavioral genetics, but I am an expert in statistics and social science, and I find many of the claims of behavioral geneticists totally implausible. There are also serious ethical criticisms of this kind of research. Given the ongoing replication crisis in psychology, which is a neighbor to behavioral genetics and that behavioral genetics is is more a subfield of psychology than of genetics or of biology. I think that to be considered a good article, this article should be written in a less promotional and authoritative tone and should include a section on criticism of behavioral genetics. Sources for that section might include such publications as scientific american [1] Nature, [2] and Logos [3]. Here are some additional good critical articles by Richard Lerner [4] and Gary Greenberg [5].

References

  1. ^ Horgan, John. "My Problem with "Taboo" Behavioral Genetics? The Science Stinks!". Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  2. ^ Check Hayden, Erika (2013-10-03). "Ethics: Taboo genetics". Nature. 502 (7469): 26–28. doi:10.1038/502026a.
  3. ^ "The Twin Research Debate in American Criminology Logos Journal". logosjournal.com. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  4. ^ Lerner, Richard M. (2006). "Another Nine-Inch Nail for Behavioral Genetics!". Human Development. 49 (6): 336–342. doi:10.1159/000096532. ISSN 0018-716X.
  5. ^ Greenberg, Gary (2015-11-01). "The Case Against Behavior Genetics: Review of Panofsky, A. (2014). Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics. Chicago:". Developmental Psychobiology. 57 (7): 854–857. doi:10.1002/dev.21334. ISSN 1098-2302.

--Groceryheist (talk) 08:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Duncan LE, Keller MC (October 2011). "A critical review of the first 10 years of candidate gene-by-environment interaction research in psychiatry". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 168 (10): 1041–9. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.11020191. PMC 3222234. PMID 21890791.
  2. ^ Duncan LE, Keller MC (October 2011). "A critical review of the first 10 years of candidate gene-by-environment interaction research in psychiatry". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 168 (10): 1041–9. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.11020191. PMC 3222234. PMID 21890791.
  3. ^ Plomin R, DeFries JC, Knopik VS, Neiderhiser JM (January 2016). "Top 10 Replicated Findings From Behavioral Genetics". Perspectives on Psychological Science. 11 (1): 3–23. doi:10.1177/1745691615617439. PMID 26817721..

Vrie0006 (talk) 03:39, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that ref 3 is not a review and fails MEDRS. Jytdog (talk) 15:23, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • How is an overview of a field of inquiry in a noted encyclopedia written by two very notable behavior geneticists (Gottesman being one of the most notable behavior geneticists) not a review and how does this fail MEDRS (I admit not being too familiar with MEDRS, so this is a request for explanation). --Randykitty (talk) 16:01, 15 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see how MEDRS is appropriate as a strict standard in this case. MEDRS guidelines are for clinically relevant information, or for information on which individuals might base medical or health decisions. Behavioral genetics seems like a branch of psychology with little current clinical application and this is reflected in the content of the article. I think it would be appropriate to include criticisms that don't reach MEDRS level references because those criticizing another field are not likely to publish their criticisms in peer reviewed journals. Instead they might do so for magazines or in books. That said, the MEDRS guidelines are good practice, and we should follow them when reasonable, especially when it comes to clinical recommmendations. Also, much of ref 3 seems similar to the Plomin et. al article. Groceryheist (talk) 04:30, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Even if MDERS doesn't apply, the critical refs provided above are IMO clearly fringe views, which is why they are not published in leading journals (in psychology or elsewhere) and/or are commentaries. The difference between Groceryheists ref 3 and the Plomin article is that Plomin et al. is a published peer-reviewed review article written by notable behavior geneticists in a leading psychology review journal with impact factor of 10 or so. So the criticisms of twin studies etc. by Jay or Lerner or Lewontin or whomever could go in a criticisms section, but they do not reflect current consensus nor do I think their exclusion precludes GA, unless someone can find a relatively current critique in a mainstream journal. The more interesting criticisms/controversies that could be inserted are the ethical ones perhaps especially wrt to things like genetic engineering and historically divisive issues like eugenics (which is dealt with somewhat in the intro) or specific topics like race and IQ. However, these ethics controversies don't touch on the science so much as the potential implications of BG findings and/or how BG has been misused/abused in the past (eugenics, "gene for this", "gene for that").Vrie0006 (talk) 13:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume you mean the references given above by Groceryheist. I agree that 1 and 3 are marginal. However, Richard M. Lerner (4) and Nature (2) cannot be that easily dismissed. Panofsky's book has unanimously been reviewed very favorably (here are more reviews: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]). I've read it myself and I think that Panofsky has put together a very insightful, impartial analysis of the history of the field and its current status (and you don't have to take my word for it, those reviews are ample evidence, in fact there are so many, that this book easily passes GNG). It is telling that his book was not reviewed in Behavior Genetics, which is, in fact, in line with Panofsky's analysis... Here is another critical appraisal of current (human) BG.[9]

References

  1. ^ Perrin, Andrew J. (June 2016). "Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics By Aaron Panofsky". Social Forces. 94 (4): e111. doi:10.1093/sf/sou136.
  2. ^ Julien Larregue (2018-01-27). "Aaron Panofsky, Misbehaving Science. Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 2014)". Sociologie, Comptes rendus 2017 (in French).
  3. ^ Nelson, Nicole C. (2016-05-26). "Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics. Aaron Panofsky". Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 30 (3). doi:10.1111/maq.12303.
  4. ^ Douglas, Kate (2014-07-09). "Reaping the whirlwind of Nazi eugenics". New Scientist. Retrieved 2018-03-16.
  5. ^ Craciun, Mariana (2015-04-09). "Misbehaving science: controversy and the development of behavior genetics". New Genetics and Society. 36 (1): 91–93. doi:10.1080/14636778.2015.1032406.
  6. ^ Arbel, Tal (2017-06-13). "Aaron Panofsky, Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics". The British Journal for the History of Science. 50 (2): 376–377. doi:10.1017/S0007087417000577.
  7. ^ Stevens, Hallam (2015-03-31). "Book Review". Journal of the History of Biology. 48 (2): 353–355. doi:10.1007/s10739-015-9404-9.
  8. ^ Kleinman, Daniel Lee (2016-06-24). "Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics, by Panofsky Aaron". Contemporary Sociology. 45 (4): 492–493. doi:10.1177/0094306116653953xx.
  9. ^ Crusio, Wim E. (April 2015). "Key issues in contemporary behavioral genetics". Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 2: 89–95. doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.10.002.
  • The Nature article is a "news feature" and not a review, and touches more on ethical controversies in BG, which I agree could be fruitfully added to the article. My take on the Lerner piece is that he is a significant figure in developmental psychology, but not in genetics. This is why I discount his views, which are critical of the scientific methods of BG, as they pertain to the article in question. The Crusio article, on the other hand, looks interesting. But doesn't look overly critical. More of an article on ways to shape up the field on the margins, rather than claiming the whole field is bunk, like Lerner (Lerner however is fairly unreasonable...). Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall... Vrie0006 (talk) 06:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've access to a lot of stuff in the life sciences, including this journal. If you send me an address, I can email you a PDF (and other things too if you need them). As for Lerner, yes, he's professor of psychology, but so are most human behavior geneticists. Lerner's a respected scientist and should not be discounted out of hand. As Panofsky has shown, discounting critics out of hand (the word they use is: "biased") is something that the field of BG has done for decades now (in my personal opinion to their detriment). --Randykitty (talk) 09:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As to the animal studies that relates to the broadness criteria. Broad does not mean comprehensive and in many ways (like a lot of the other criteria) can be subjective. The article mentions animal studies in its own sub section and that is enough for a reviewer in good faith to pass that aspect of the criteria. RandyKitty makes some good points and provides references and examples so this should not be discounted and ideally that section should be expanded. However, passing the Good Criteria is not actually that hard and I am not convinced that the article is undue enough to preclude it in this case. Like it or not most research is geared around humans and it is perfectly acceptable for a Good Article to focus more on the human aspects of a topic. A quick look at reviews on this topic through pubmed show twice as many articles focus on humans rather than animals.[1]
So although it could be improved I think it meets the criteria and should be kept as a good article. AIRcorn (talk) 20:15, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But there is a section in the article critiquing behavioral genetics. AIRcorn (talk) 21:31, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
even that section comes across as apologetic and does in no way represent the substance and scope of the objections to the field's claims and methods.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:37, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly don't know what criticisms should be listed. Surely not every criticism directed at the field. The race and intelligence controversy is apologetic (the other controversies are not) because that controversy has involved people at the fringe of the field who at best marshaled poor evidence for their conclusions. The most notorious case (maybe other than Rushton, who surely was fringe) that panofsky goes into is Glayde Whitney. A good mouse scientist who inexplicably moved to race and intelligence in humans at the end of his career. So there's a tension between listing controversies and ensuring that some of these views are clearly described as being fringe and/or unsubstantiated. I was planning to put in a few sentences about Panofsky's book but, beyond that, this thread has not provided good suggestions for what criticisms and controversies to list. So, what are the "substance and scope of the objections to the field's claims and methods" that should be taken so seriously and listed? Vrie0006 (talk) 14:00, 24 April 2018 (UTC) P.S.: I added to the page the start of a statement on Panofsky. Vrie0006 (talk) 13:48, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Animal research[edit]

Randykitty, please explain here how an article can pass GA review yet require a big orange warning sticker up top, something which if it were truly required means it would fail review. Especially when the issue at hand - animal research - was explicitly addressed at the review. [2] How does this not appear to be an attempt to unilaterally override the GA review, given the opinion expressed there that As far as I am concerned, this should never have been promoted to GA to start with, but my concerns were ignored at that time.?

If the issue you are trying to tag it for were really so important, how did it pass GA review? And as pointed out there, GA is not FA, so standards are lower.

Pinging Aircorn as involved as well. Crossroads -talk- 07:06, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One could for instance put an "expand section" tag where the problem is, in this case in the animal studies section. It isn't clear to me that even this is warranted. Isn't most behavioral genetics research on humans anyway? Crossroads -talk- 07:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You actually dodged most of the issue, again reiterating what your opinion is regarding the article. Please explain how you, one editor, are justified in re-tagging the article when me and Aircorn, two editors, do not see a need for a tag. And how this fits with WP:BRD, when you boldly added the tag (originally the "undue weight" tag), [3] have been reverted a total of three times (over a long period of time) on it, and yet keep putting it back [4][5][6] instead of discussing and getting anyone else to favor a tag.
As for my question about how an article can pass GA yet require article level tags, I guess your answer is just 'I say the reviewers were wrong, so I can tag it'? And if the issue is so important and you are knowledgeable about it, why not just fix the issue? The tag has been here for nearly two years (three if you count the original undue tag).
If you wonder how this could pass GA despite these problems, you'll have to ask the editor who passed the article... Okay. Pinging Montanabw and Fish and karate - could you please weigh in?
Also per WP:APPNOTE, I have asked for more input here.
Lastly, though it is kind of a side issue to whether you re-tagging is proper, my understanding is that just as "psychology" typically refers to the study of human psychology, "behavioral genetics" typically refers to the study of human behavioral genetics. Animal studies of behavior and genetics seem to either just fall under biology or genetics, or be the behavioral genetics of some specific study species. We're obviously not going to tag Psychology for focusing on human and not animal psychology, as that is what the field does. And I did look at the site of the journal Behavior Genetics, and saw that the vast majority of articles were about humans. In any case, it may be helpful to specifically define what you would consider enough coverage of animal studies, in terms of bytes or some other objective measure. Crossroads -talk- 16:42, 7 February 2020 (UTC) updates Crossroads -talk- 17:19, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Have a look here. Genes, Brain and Behavior is currently the leading BG journal. Behavior Genetics is the journal of the Behavior Genetics Association. That group has indeed drifted towards human genetics, excluding most animal BG. It is remarkable that whereas their meetings are nowadays exclusively on human quantitative genetics, their journal still has significant animal content. In contrast, the meetings of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society are dominated by animal BG. It is pertinently wrong to state that "behavioral genetics" by definition focuses on human work. The very first chapter presenting an overview of the field (Hall, C. S., 1951. The genetics of behavior. In S. S. Stevens (Ed.), Handbook of Experimental Psychology, p. 304–329. Wiley) was mostly (or even exclusively, I'd have to check) on animal BG. Fuller and Thompson's iconic book, often seen as the starting point for the field, was for the largest part on animals. An early overview of European BG (The genetics of behaviour, J. H. F. van Abeelen, ed., North Holland, Amsterdam, and Elsevier, New York. 1974) had hardly any human BG in it. Same for the seminal books by Thiessen and Hirsch. In short, ever since the field was founded, animal research has been an integral and important part of behavior genetics. And even nowadays, books are being published with titles like Behavior Genetics of the Mouse or Behavior Genetics of the Fly (see here), so it is also incorrect to say that for animal BG the term "Behavior Genetics" has gone out of vogue. --Randykitty (talk) 17:49, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
very first chapter presenting an overview of the field...iconic book, often seen as the starting point for the field...An early overview of European BG...seminal books by Thiessen and Hirsch... Yes, those are all old sources. WP:RS AGE. And even nowadays, books are being published with titles like Behavior Genetics of the Mouse or Behavior Genetics of the Fly... Yes, and what about books that just say Behavioral Genetics, like this article does? What species are most of them about?
You are more than welcome by me to add material about animal BG, to start an article on animal BG, or what have you. My main point is and was that the tag is incompatible with the GA status. Rather than plopping a tag on a GA for years, just fix the issue. Crossroads -talk- 19:06, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If the tag and the GA status are incompatible, then perhaps then GA status should be withdrawn. I think I have given enough justification for the tag. --Randykitty (talk) 19:12, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
courtesy link Behavioural genetics.
I don't see where the issue is here. If the tag is valid, we should be heading to WP:GAR. If not then be removed. In my eyes, there will be more weight towards humans, due to the amount of sourcing. However, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be more from other side's for a complete picture of the subject.
I know nothing about the subject, so, I can't offer to help with the prose. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 18:18, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For convenience, here is a comparison of the article at the time of the GA review with the present version: [7] The only substantial changes are the addition of the '10 findings' from that review paper, along with an increase in coverage of animals and criticisms. The previous GA review clearly still stands. Crossroads -talk- 18:55, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To make my point clear: The article has only gotten better since the GA review, and since its original listing, so sending it through again seems a waste of time. And, again, GA does not equal "perfect". More content on animals would be fine. Crossroads -talk- 19:21, 7 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So again: if GA does not mean perfect, then it's totally acceptable to indicate with a tag what needs to be improved. --Randykitty (talk) 10:04, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And, again, it's three against one on that matter. The problem is not serious enough to warrant a badge of shame, as determined by it being a GA, despite your having tried to stop that. Crossroads -talk- 13:36, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article fails GA criterion 3. WP:GAR recommends in cases like to this to "(t)ag serious problems that you cannot fix ... if the templates will help other editors find the problems". It also counsels against "tag bombing" an article. Which is all that has happened here. I've identified a problem and put 1 (one) clear template on the article. --Randykitty (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article fails GA criterion 3. Again, this is only your lone opinion. And you're still ignoring the central issue that three other editors disagree with you about the tag. What gives you (1 person), no matter how right you feel you are, the right to overrule 3 others? Not to mention that you have been fighting for this tag at the same time the article has passed two GA reviews, so the idea it needs tagging is frankly ridiculous. Stop edit warring, drop the stick, and note WP:IDHT: Believing that you have a valid point does not confer upon you the right to act as though your point must be accepted by the community when you have been told that it is not accepted. The same behavioral standards do apply to all of us. Follow proper procedure and seek GAR, RM, RFC, or something else if you must. Crossroads -talk- 21:17, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Taken to DRN

I added the heading above so observers can readily see the discussion moved. Thanks, at least, for not reverting again. Crossroads -talk- 19:03, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What was the outcome of the DRN? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Barkeep49, the archived link is here: [8] Crossroads -talk- 18:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How much to say about animal studies

Randykitty, I ask that you quantify on this talk page how long (in bytes, words, whatever) you would like the "Animal studies" section to be before you would consider the tag unnecessary.

This is per WP:TAGGING, which states: Adding tags for non-obvious or perceived problems—without identifying the problem well enough for it to be easily fixed—is frequently referred to as "drive-by tagging," particularly when done by editors who are not involved in the article's development. When it comes to confusing or subjective tags...it is important to explain yourself on the article's talk page or in an edit summary. The goal, of course, is to improve the article such that a tag is no longer needed. Crossroads -talk- 17:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on criticisms[edit]

Re: criticisms section it would be good to update the criticisms to have attribution to who said what. Similarly, some of the criticisms should have a response from behaviour geneticists. E.g. the part about ‘the gay gene’ and other ethical fears are often unfounded given that we know that traits are polygenic (informed by thousands of genes), and only genetic diseases are caused by one or two genes together. There are probably better sourced criticisms that could replace some of them because some of the sources do not relate to behaviour genetics specifically. I will make some small adjustments when I can and other editors can check and comment where required? Sxologist (talk) 08:02, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do we not want to tag lots of categories?[edit]

My edit adding a psychology category to this page was reverted because BG is not subsumed entirely by psychology but overlaps with psychology, behavioral neuroscience, genetics, etc. I would suggest we list all of the above as categories related to this subject. The page would benefit, as would the readers, I would think. Randykitty perhaps you could add those categories you perceive as relevant? Vrie0006 (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Senior Seminar[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2024 and 10 June 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: TAA999.

— Assignment last updated by TAA999 (talk) 17:43, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]