[HPforGrownups] Magical Genes and Wands

[cimorene21 at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 24164

Heya!  I'm a newbie... *hides*   This is really an amazing list-- a 
giant volume, and nearly all of it's intelligent conversation!  
Thrilling!  

So.  

(Actually, according to my psych professor at any rate, humans use ALL 
of their brains, but we've only figured out about 10% of which areas 
correspond to which function).   

On the genetic thing-- it would make sense that the ability to perform 
magic is genetic, but-- there's something about it that just doesn't 
work.  I've spent a lot of time puzzling it out-- and what with the 
information Rowling gives us, magic doesn't fit into Mendelian 
genetics:  let's say there IS a gene for magic.  Is it recessive or 
dominant?  Given the phenomenon of "mudbloods"-- children with a trait 
that neither of their parents have-- it would HAVE to be a recessive 
gene, or it would have expressed itself in one or both parents.   
Assuming that it's a recessive gene, though, squibs shouldn't exist-- 
 if it's recessive, then in order for the trait to manifest isself in 
the person't phenotype, they'd have to be homozygous-- which means 
that they wouldn't be able to transfer the dominant (nonmagical) gene 
to their kids.  Oh the other hand, it might not be so simple as 
straight genetics:  I think being a squib might be analogous to being 
a hermaphrodite.  Hermaphroditity doesn't result from too few or many 
X/Y chromosomes:  hermaphrodites are genetically male or female, but 
something went wrong during development that didn't allow the genes to 
manifest properly.  This would be in perfect accord with the idea of 
witches/wizards having different brain chemistry.... yeah.  Heh.