[HPforGrownups] Genetics and Wizarding Ablilty; was Wizard Contraception

[summers.65 at osu.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 404


>It's fairly standard in fantasy/scifi settings for unusual abilities
>to be something like genetically dominant; the offspring of a wizard
>and a Muggle is nearly always a wizard; the same is true of Jedi
>in "Star Wars" and , IIRC, Anne McCaffrey's Talents.
> In all the above cases, the question is raised; if the abilities are
>genetically dominant, why isn't the majority of the population
>magical/ Force-enabled/ Talented?
>
It could be some form of heterozygote advantage.  <Anthropologist Lori
rears her ugly head>  This is the mechanism by which genes are passed down
through populations where certain conditions (like malaria) are indemnic
(everyone gets them)...only the heterozygotes survive and thus both forms
of the gene are passed down.

If the magical gene, call it M, is dominant, then both heterozygote (mM)
and the homozygote (MM) would be wizards.  It then becomes a question of
wizards seeming to prefer to associate with other wizards and being more
likely to marry and have kids with them, thus funneling all M-carrying
people into one population and removing then from the other.

But I think any magical gene would have to be recessive.  If it weren't, it
would be impossible to get a magical child from two Muggle parents.  If M
is recessive, then both parents could be mM and still be Muggles, but their
child would have a 1-in-4 chance of being MM and therefore a wizard, a
1-in-2 chance of being mM and a carrier themselves, or a 1-in-4 chance of
being mm and neither a wizard nor a carrier.  Since everyone in the
wizarding world would have to be MM, then they'd have all magical children.
This does not explain how wizards could have non-magical children, though.
It ought to be impossible if magic is recessive...however, almost no
traits are coded for by a single gene.

If M were dominant, any parent who was even mM would be a wizard.  Only mm
would be Muggles, and they would have zero chance of having magical
children.

Follow me?
Lori


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Lori   "More Machine Now than Man"  Summers

          "Asia's crowded, Europe's too old
            Africa's too hot and Canada's too cold,
            South America stole our name
            Let's drop the big one, there'll be no one left to blame us..."
                        --Randy Newman

Last movie seen:  "X-Men" (most excellent)
Reigning car-CD:  "Best of Friends" Loggina and Messina
Current book: "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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