"Perplexed in Peoria"  wrote
>
> Dr. Hoelzer,
> You may wish to Google for /bovine frozen embryos/ both for your own
> knowlege and to correct the misinformation you have fed poor Hendricks474.
> I mention this in this context because I doubt that the huge international
> commerce in embryos is motivated by a desire to get the poor little things
> to the optimal prenatal environment.  Instead it takes place because
> agricultural interests with a lot of money invested have come to believe
> that genetics is important, particularly over multiple generations,
whereas
> any almost womb will do the job.
>
What matters is what accounts for the variation. Measures of heritability
are actually quite complicated and it is necessary to distinguish broad
sense and narrow sense heritability.

Usually we are interested in normal environments - obviously if you feed an
cow on almost nothing it won't produce any milk, whilst it might be possible
to raise production with an expensive and totally uneconomic diet. What the
farmer wants to know is how much milk he will get given the pasture and
forage he has available. If all the cows are fed in the same way, virtually
all the variation will be genetic. In fact, however, the usual practise is
to give the best milkers extra feed, so the difference is enhanced.

What we are really interested in is human intellectual achievements. I read
an article by an university teacher of many years standing in which he said
that for students in the normal range all that really mattered was the
quality of teaching they received. A handful of the very brightest students
had real talent, and there were a few poor achievers who normally didn't
make university and where the problem was innate.
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