[HPforGrownups] Re: Wizards, Muggles, and Genetics (long)

[sunnylove0 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 119736

 
In a message dated 12/11/2004 1:41:08 PM Mountain Standard Time,  
spotthedungbeetle at hotmail.com writes:

If the  two copies are the same – e.g. Muggle/Muggle, then
you're a Muggle,  similarly if they're magic/magic, then
you're a witch or a wizard. If  they're different, then (aside
from complications like co-dominance that I  won't get into) one
gene
is expressed and the other is not, so it  depends on which gene is 
dominant. If the magic gene is dominant, then  magic/Muggle people 
would be witches or wizards, if the Muggle gene is  dominant then 
they'd be Muggles or squibs.  

So if the magic  gene is dominant, then for Lily to have been a 
witch, at least one of her  parents must have had at least one copy 
of the magic gene.  That  would make one of her parents magic/muggle 
or magic/magic – ie, a witch or  a wizard.  Geddit?)



Not necessarily.  You're forgetting how genetic variation  happens.  Genes 
can mutate into original forms (there was no one afflicted  with hemophilia in 
the royal families of Europe before Queen Victoria's  children) and some genes 
can negate the indications of other genes (some  children are born with the 
predisposition to cystic fibrosis and do not develop  the disease due to other 
gene combinations--evolution at work).  All this  only reinforces how rare 
muggle-born (25% or less of the wizarding  population)  and squibs are.
 
Amber


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