Magical genetics

[David Burgess]

No: HPFGUIDX 54593

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "manawydan" <manawydan at n...> wrote:

Excuse the interruption.  I'm going to name each of these approaches
(hopefully) for clarity.

>> Catlady wrote:
>>
>> But I also suggest that there is also a Magic that keeps the
>> total number of wizarding people constant. When a wizard or
>> witch dies, their magic goes to the next suitable child born in
>> their area.
>

Magical Hinduism.

> Ffred replied:
>> The only point that I'd wonder about is whether the mechanism you
>> suggest would keep wizardly _numbers_ constant or the wizard:muggle
>> _ratio_ constant.
>

Magical eeny-meeny-miney-mo distribution.

>> Finwitch:
>> I think that this magic keeps not the number of magical people, nor the
>> ratio constant, but the amount of magic, much like the total
>> amount of energy is constant.

Magical Entropy.

>>
>> The strength of an individual may depend on *when* magic enters. Say,
>> if it enters when the individual is still one single cell (rare
>> event) the individual has magic everywhere in the body. Entering a
>> single cell and dividing where that cell divides...
>>

Been watching Star Wars Episode 1 again, have we? :-)

There are problems with all of these approaches.  The problem with Magical
Entropy is that, sooner or later, you end up with everyone being a little
magic.  Now, there are people that would argue that this has already
happened in the Real World, but I digress.  The magic by karma method is
simply too random and can't sufficiently explain the Weasleys or the
Malfoys.  The magical distribution model actually argues for a genetic
marker.

If we approach the question as one of genetics, then clearly magical
ability falls into the same category as hair color, or better yet, ability
to play the guitar.  It would be a recessive gene that would run in
families, but would pop up in occasional people, and digress in others.

Before anyone jumps on the guitar example - yes, I believe that musical
ability is part genetic.  My major instrument in college was classical
guitar (performance) and I have seen plenty of examples of people that
wanted desperately to learn to play and never really did.  After college,
I taught music for a while, and I'm here to tell you that there is no
other explanation for why one child can pick up an oboe and play it like a
pro in a couple of years, and another child can hit the bass drum on 1
after 1 measure.

Back to the debate: Take the Lily/Petunia situation:  If we assume the
Evans were a non-magical family, then Lily would have been the combination
of two minimally magical lines coming together to form a magic person. 
This would explain Lily's ability and Petunia's lack of ability.  If, on
the other hand, the Evans were a magical family and Petunia was a squib,
the effect is still the same.  If Mrs. Evans was a witch, and Mr. Evans a
Muggle, then the split would be made even more sensible.  All of the
approaches above would work OK with the small sample (Lily/Petunia).

On to the pseudo-math:  if we assume that Hogwarts is the only British
SWaW, and Hogwarts is the home of the entire magical person population for
Britain ages 11 to 17, we find that, within their age group, about 1000
students form a seven year segment of the population.  We know (from
canon) that Witches and Wizards live longer than muggles (about twice as
long is the rumor), so 1000 wizards is about 5% of the wizard population
in Britain.  That implies a wizard population of about 20,000 wizards, out
of population of (approximately) 59,000,000 people, or about 0.03% of the
population.  That is a significantly small number.

Wait, it gets better.

There are approximately 6 Billion people on the planet.

That means that there are about 1.8 Million wizards on the planet.  That
number's not unreasonable, given the numbers that attended the World Cup.

If we assume that Voldemort killed a large segment of the wizard
population during his reign of terror, the overall effect on world
populations wouldn't have been dramatically altered.

Back to the dabate again:  Assuming my math is correct, then 1 person in
3000 is born a wizard.  That means that the likelihood that the Weasley's
could happen is something on the order of 1 in 3x10^21.  The Parvati's
alone would be literally a million to 1 shot.  Clearly, it's more than
just "Next!" or some wizard/muggle ratio.  Both of these would homogenize
the population.  You could get random high populations, but not 9 wizards
in 1 household or even communities of wizards.

So, I think that magical entropy is pretty much dead out-of-the-chute. 
The other two distribution mechanisms would be too random to meet the
needs of a mechanism that clearly runs in families.  It seems that
genetics would have to have at least a causal effect, if not be the reason
for the entire population.

-- 
Dave Burgess