Talk:Human behaviour genetics

message: Is it just me or does this article not make explicit that current research programs in bx genetics are based on finding probabilities of trait expression?  I know there have been increasing numbers of studies where complete genomes are compared, but given that recent research is dabbling with the potential that even monozygotic twins don't have exactly the same genome (e.g., http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080215121214.htm), it might be prudent for this article to mention more explicitly that bx genetics focuses on the rates of heritability within populations, and not specific individuals.Briholt (talk) 03:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Probability

message: A google test for "behavioral genetics" (as a phrase) yields 230,000 hits, whereas a test for "behavioural genetics" (as a phrase) yields 50,000 hits. ("Behavior genetics" yields 180,000 hits, and "Behaviour genetics" yields 23,000 hits).This article should be moved to the most common term.--Nectar T 10:12, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, see wikipedia:spelling. Dunc|☺ 12:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(common_names) states: "Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things."  That page gives reasons for the convention.--Nectar T 21:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Aye, but we're not debating whether to use the common name 'widget' or 'dongle'.  We're debating how to spell the same word.  The wikipedia:spelling guide is the appropriate guide, not Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(common_names).  My personal opinion on whether it is more appropriate to use US or English spelling differ from that in the spelling guide, but I think it is appropiate to follow it, by retaining 'Behaviour' in this case. Pete.Hurd 00:14, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:spelling doesn't appear to discuss the US/British spelling issue very much, but I think you're referring to the policy that pages should simply choose a spelling and stick with it.  I appreciate the complexities of the spelling issue, but it seems like the policy in naming conventions of using the most common version applies to spelling when one version has such greater usage ("We want to maximize the likelihood of being listed in external search engines, thereby attracting more people to Wikipedia").  The ior ending has 5.5x the internet usage as the iour ending if we combine hits for Behavioral genetics and Behavior genetics (410,000), and combine hits for Behavioural genetics and Behaviour genetics (73,000).--Nectar T 00:42, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand why redirects with alternate spellings aren't adequate.  I personally would feel less enthusiastic about participating if US spelling were to be declared the official spelling of wikipedia.  I'm not trying to paint you as the John Bolton of spelling, I do see your point, but I find it ironic when US spelling is advanced as a standard.  Benjamin Frankin wanted to have a new language for his new country, A US English incomprehensible to non US English speakers.  And launched his spelling reform as a start.  Now, I have no fear of 'lite beer', 'drive thru' etc leading us to a tower of babel, but there is a sense in which US spelling was designed to be divisive.  I may be a lone nut on this issue, and I would not advance it as a proposal, but if it were entirely up to me, I'd have so-called British spelling throughout, with US spelling redirects. Pete.Hurd 07:08, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

text: My stance is only concerned with utility.  Since this appears to be a larger policy issue, I've asked for advice at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(spelling)--Nectar T 08:14, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology

message: Currently the first paragraph states "Classically, behavioural geneticists have studied the heritability of behavioural traits". Actually, this is not correct. For many years, behaviour geneticists studied the inheritance of behaviour, which is certainly not the same thing. Selection, strain differences, and such were the things they looked at, as well as the offspring of crosses between lines and strains. In the latter, they studied the genetic architecture, a concept vastly more developed than "heritability". Only when human quantitative genetics started to gain prominence did some behaviour geneticists develop a focus on heritability.
Crusio 18:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of Behavior Genetics 

message: 70.68.179.142, it would be nice if you could sign your edits with something else than just an IP address.
--Crusio 21:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anonymous edits 

message: This article is about behavioural genetics surely? Why does it only discuss human behaviour and concentrate on eugenicist ideas? When I studies genetics at university, I studies animal behaviour and not human behaviour, because most behavioural research is done on laboratory animals. This article seriously needs the attention of an expert. Alun (talk) 06:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: What's this article about

message: This article is completely centered on quantitative human behavioral genetics, ignoring animal BG completely. I think it is most logical to move this article to Quantitative human behavioural genetics. The current article will then remain as a redirect until such time as someone writes an article on the field as a whole. --Crusio (talk) 17:26, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: agree. Pete.Hurd (talk) 19:40, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

text: *Perhaps time to revive this move proposal. Instead of leaving this as a redirect, it could be retained as a stub until it gets expanded to something closer to reality. If there are no objections, I'll go ahead a week from now. --Crusio (talk) 07:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  move proposal 

message: I see from the the talk page history that this article started out as Behavioural genetics, but neglected animal studies, and then was moved to the name that is the current name as I type this, namely Quantitative human behavioural genetics. Noting the lack of a Wikipedia article today called Human behavior genetics, would it be all right to retitle (move) this article to that name? I'm planning to do an orderly article expansion of this article, and also expansions of the current article titled Behavioural genetics (yes, there is a new article with that name) and of some related related articles on either broader or narrower topics. Before I begin, I thought I should check with editors who have been working on this article longer than I have to see if there is consensus behind the idea of leaving out the word "quantitative" from the title of this article, and renewing this article with an up-to-date focus on behavior genetics of human beings in general. Feel free to let me know what you think. Thanks. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that this article is currently an orphan article (in other words, other Wikipedia articles don't link back here). That's one of the reason I wonder about the division of labor among Wikipedia articles on genetics. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  As I hear no objections, I will do the move now, and then start a big article expansion of this article so that it can serve as the human issues subarticle for a greatly expanded Behavioural genetics article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 18:03, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revisiting move proposal 

message: Wikipedia has a lot of interesting articles based on the ongoing research in behavior genetics, both in humans and in nonhuman animals. I've been reading university textbooks on genetics "for fun" since the 1980s, and for even longer I've been visiting my state flagship university's vast BioMedical Library to look up topics on human medicine and health care policy. That university has long been a center of research on human behavior genetics, being the site of a major study of monozygotic twins reared apart. On the hypothesis that better sources build better articles as all of us here collaborate  to build an encyclopedia, I thought I would suggest some sources for updating the articles on behavior genetics and related topics. The  Wikipedia guidelines on reliable sources in medicine provide a helpful framework for evaluating sources. 
The guidelines on reliable sources for medicine remind editors that "it is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." 
The guidelines, consistent with the  general Wikipedia guidelines on reliable sources, remind us that all "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources" (emphasis in original). They helpfully define a primary source in medicine as one in which the authors directly participated in the research or documented their personal experiences. By contrast, a secondary source summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources, usually to provide an overview of the current understanding of a medical topic. The general Wikipedia guidelines let us know that "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a review article, monograph, or textbook is better than a primary research paper. When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised: Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves."
Other Wikipedians who watch the article Behavioural genetics did all of us a great favor on the article talk page by suggesting helpful sources. In particular, User:Pete.Hurd suggested an authoritative textbook on behavior genetics, covering both the human and the animal research, and following up on his suggestion led me to several other helpful sources with similar subject cataloging in libraries. 
Noting that this article, currently titled Quantitative human behavioural genetics, is listed as a start-class, high-importance article by the WikiProject Genetics, I will start a workpage of an article update draft in my user space, relying on the sources recommended on the article talk page and on others listed here (in approximate order of date of publication, which is also almost but not exactly the order in which I have read them over the last few years): 
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There are many useful review articles and overview news stories from peer-reviewed scientific journals that meet the WP:MEDRS guidelines and are very useful sources for updating articles about behavior genetics (and I encourage Wikipedians to suggest others besides those listed here).  
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Some more general reference books about genetics or behavior also touch on behavior genetics issues through book chapters. 
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Best wishes for much enjoyable reading in the new year. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:31, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useful sources for updating this and related articles 

message: I think that this page should be redirected and merged to Behavioural genetics, as most of that article is about human BG already anyway, and this page (Human behaviour genetics) seems to be an unnecessary content fork. Every morning (there's a halo...) 21:20, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, I agree with you. These can (and should be merged). Smasongarrison (talk) 23:43, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

text: *It would be better to make the behavioural genetics article more balanced by including more animal research, rather than making it even more one-sided by merging this article into that one. --Randykitty (talk) 10:03, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's an even better suggestion! Mason (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge discussion