The quantitative genetics of disease: ambiguities.

Here I review briefly some terms appropriate to the formal discussion of the genetics of disease. The motive for writing is that at least three kinds of participating experts are involved: pathologists, geneticists, and statisticians. Not only may some of the terms used in one field be unfamiliar to experts from another, the same term may be used in diverse ways among, or even within, fields. Such ambiguity may create illusory understanding or even frank confusion.