[HPforGrownups] Re: Potterverse: Social Psychology - Wizarding Genetics

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 34591

  Greetings!

> jrober4211 wrote to us:

j> Having worked with spinal cord injury/head injury
j> patients, I know a little about the "high- risk taker "
j> personalities. They are usually of lower socioeconomic
j> status, male,late teens/early twenties,have poor impulse
j> control, and have average to below average IQ.

  Well, I have slightly different views on this one. Having
worked with military history I can name quite a lot of
people who were risk takers - cold-blooded, measured,
evaluated risk-takers. And they were damn smart, or highest
socioeconomic status and often in late 40'ies or 50'ies.
  Isiroku Yamamoto is the prime example of the species. For
those who don't know who he is, I'll remind: this is the guy
who planned and organized the Pearl-Harbour operation.

  But I agree with you on this one. Wizards seem to take
risks not because they calculate the results, but because
they are used "not to care". Lack of responsibility, or
cautioness, or most likely both.

j> Therefore you are probably correct in your assumption
j> that war is an integral part of wizarding society. War
j> also seems to be an integral part of our society/muggle,
j> so how do you explain that?

  Perhaps I spoke myself wrongly. Though the war is indeed
an integral part of muggle society, *permanent* war usually
is not. Talking about Wizarding World, I was talking about
"Cold Hot War" like the one described in "1984" - military
actions are performed constantly with variable degree of
success and with no positive result in the future (perhaps
the best explanation is given by Dumbledore in PS/SS - he
says that *maybe*, if Voldemort will be opposed again and
again, he will not be able to recover again - but he does
not even think that Voldemort can be finally defeated).
  Thus my thesis is as follows: Wizarding society is in
constant search of an inner enemy. This enemy is always
labelled "Evil" (no matter who is at power). In short,
Wizarding World is an anarchic society with certain elements
of totalitarian social system (inner enemy and common
paranoia about it).
  Though rare, there are examples of muggle societies with
similar "permanent war sindrome". Afghanistan before 11.09.
Georgia and Abhasia (ex-USSR republics in constant war since
USSR disintegration). Ex-Yugoslavia until now. Chechnya.

j> Same question could be asked for other talents such as
j> art and music, so far, no specific gene or combination of
j> genes for inheritance have been identified for particular
j> "talents".

  Yes, true, but "musician dinasties" existed and exist
until now - musical talent is often inherited. Can say
nothing for art, though my friend is an artist, and his
father is an artist, and AFAIK his grandpa was also an
artist. Wow.

>>   Second, magical talent is controlled not by a single pair
>> of chromosomes (like gender), but by a set of them. This
>> conclusion we draw from the facts that: a) wizards sometimes
>> appear in completely non-magical families, and b) single
>> dominant gene would manifest itself in one of the parents at
>> least.

j> Not true . Your theory is that the magic gene is
j> dominant. In order to have a wizard with muggle parents,
j> the magic gene would have to be recessive, as the
j> presence of the magic trait in the parents does not give
j> them magic ability, therefore is recessive. I think what
j> you might be alluding to is a "carrier gene" like that
j> for color blindness.

  Here you misunderstood me. I meant a *set* of dominant
genes, appearance of magical talent being the result of
*whole* set or certain sub-set appearing in the child
chromosome.

  Here we come:

1st Parent: MM, OO
2nd Parent: OO, MM
  (none of the Parents has *both* dominant magical genes, so
   no magical talent manifests in either of them)

Children (all): MO, MO
  (both genes have dominant alleles, so *all* children have
   magical talent: The Creavey Case).

  Of course I don't mean this is exactly the case with
genetic structure. But it seems pretty probable to me that
magical talent is controlled by *more* that just one
chromosome. Different genes being responsible for:
  a) ability to absorb magical energy
  b) ability to shape magical energy
  c) ability to focus magical energy
  d) etc, etc... many possibilities exist.

j> We don't know this for sure, as it seems that most squibs
j> leave the wizarding community i.e. the weasley cousin who
j> is an accountant. The only squib we see at Hogwarts is
j> Flinch. So I think it is safe to say that we really don't
j> know the percentage of the squib population, unless I
j> missed something in canon. Feel free to set me straight
j> on this.

  I can't present any evidence, it's just the general
impression that squibs are quite a rarity. See Ron's
reaction when he knows Filch is a squib. Also the fact that
"squib" acts like a weak/moderate insult - if squibs were a
considerable percent of population I don't think anybody
would consider that an insult - rather a diasgnosis. But I'm
not hard on this one.

j> >>>> Hoping like hell I remembered all my genetic theory
j> correctly that I learned in midwifery school<<<<<

  IMHO you remember it correctly. I myself was studying
genetics some 9-10 years ago, but since then I had refreshed
my knowledge due to my studies in genetic algorithms...
  But what I remember for sure is that it's quite common for
some phenotype feature to be controlled by more than one
chromosome. Hair colour, for example.

j> I hate to bust your bubble on this one, but in psych
j> nursing , the research suggests that brain structure,
j> which is inherited, determines brain wave activity, thus
j> it is inherited. In the last 15- 20 years, they have come
j> up with the genetic theory of mental illness, as
j> sociopaths and schizophrenics have abnormal brain wave
j> responses to the external world. upon examination of
j> their brain structure through cat scan , mri, along with
j> eeg's, they found distinct differences between normal
j> brains and the brain structure of the two types of mental
j> illness i just mentioned, and the brain wave activity in
j> response to incoming information from the external world.

  Yep, thanks, will keep in mind. Which returns us to our
first theory.
  Comparing wizards with "sociopaths and schizophrenics" is
perhaps the most soothing thing for me! :)

j> Jo Ellen

Sincerely yours,
Alexander Lomski,
(Gryffindor/Slytherin crossbreed),
who is extremely excited to get the first reply to his
"theories"...

>--- Eloise wrote: -----------------------------------------

>> One must be a complete paranoic to search for the
>> hedgehog at the top of a fir tree.
>>     Pavel Shumilov.

> Haven't seen one yet, but I'm still looking!

H.P.F.G.U. (Hedgehogs Prefer Firs - Great and Useful)