This comment reads as if it were dropped into a generic "genetics of lifespan" thread,. The Dynomight article is already making a much more sophisticated version of some of these same points. The article's central argument is precisely that heritability is a contingent observational statistic, not a Platonic form. This particular article isn't conflating heritability with genetic mechanism at all. It's interrogating a simulation model and its assumptions. The warning about "unqualified instruments" and "retrospective observational data" feels off as this paper isn't a straightforward observational study. it's a parametric simulation fitted to twin registry data.
This comment might be very useful in a Reddit thread full of people saying "50% of lifespan is in your DNA," but it's a bit off-target as a response to this particular article.
Agreed, the Dynomight article is on-the-mark. I work in this field and was really puzzled when I read this paper. Yes, it is obvious that excluding extrinsic causes of death will increase heritability estimates. But is death from influenza genetic or extrinsic?
The typo on the first page of the Science article is on the authors, not the editors.
I think the comment is speaking to the thread, not responding to the author.