Talk:Common misunderstandings of genetics/Archive 1

Title!
That's quite a title you've got there. :) --Merzul 11:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes quite. The idea of this article was suggested by User:Madprime and I hope that we, and others, will collaborate on it. It's a big field, but when even medical dictionaries perpetuate serious misconceptions then work needs to be done.  Denis Noble is a great place to start - please don't revert the quote! NBeale 19:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I meant reverting the quote back into the way you had it. I didn't mean to delete it, but I experimented with the formatting and wasn't sure if this is better or not... --Merzul 20:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Why not rename it to "Misconceptions of genetics." ? It has that in the text e.g. "Popular misconceptions include.... " Ttiotsw 12:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The content is interesting, but the title is monstrous. What is the difference between as "social misperception" and any other kind? 1Z 13:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * As per my remarks below, I would favour something like: "Misunderstandings of genetics", "Oversimplifications of genetics", or "Common misunderstandings of genetics". I think the final one is the most suitable because it conveys the widespread or public nature of these misunderstandings / misconceptions / misperceptions.  I'm in the process of gradually copyediting the article, so I'll sort its naming out as well.  Anyway, thanks for dropping by - comments / edits most welcome!  At the moment the article's basically the product of just two editors.  --Plumbago 12:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate tone
The lead to this article does not sound encyclopedic. "the most remarkable achievements of humanity to date", "caught the public imagination", and "This article attempts to review a number of them, explaining in outline why they are misperceptions, and referring readers to more specialised articles and sources." are examples of what I am talking about. It sounds like the intro to a high school term paper. We don't need to work up how great gentics is, and we don't need to spell out what the article is about. There are other issues in other parts of the article as well. The tone just seems informal, campy, and fun.-Andrew c 20:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree. Other high school expressions are "great successes", "elusive concepts", "fantasically complex", "vanishingly unlikely".
 * Besides the article title itself is POV. Something with "disagreements" would have been more NPOV. The problem here is that the article first has to show that certain opinions are prevalent by giving references to people who have them. Then the article has to give references to people who refute those opinions. It is not Wikipedia's task to judge which one is right.
 * Not even when it comes to articles like Astrology or Scientology does Wikipedia take a stance beyond giving referenced facts and a judgement of what is the mainstream opinion. Mlewan 07:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately this article introduces as much confusion and distortion as it corrects. It would be productive to have an academically valid review of basic genetics which covers the key points with sidebars to be clear about points of complexity. For example: DNA *does* define all heritable characteristics, but this article implies otherwise by using a contradictory language to introduce some of the complex environmental influences present during gestation. Dna replication (talk) 16:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That very much depends on how you define a "heritable characteristic". If you define that as any character with at least some measurable genetic influence (says, aggressive behavior in mice), then DNA does not "define" it. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 16:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Genertic Determinism
There's an interesting essay on this by Patricia Greenspan here NBeale 07:33, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Popular misconceptions
These are mostly fine apart from the final one, "The idea that organisms are lumbering robots controlled by their selfish genes is not a metaphor but a statement of fact". This misconception (if that's what it is; does anyone actually think this?) seems simply based on a misreading of a rather infamous Dawkins paragraph. I would suggest removing it as it doesn't add anything not already said (directly or indirectly) in the previous four points. --Plumbago 16:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about it some more, I've a few comments about the other four misconceptions too:

1. "DNA is organised as a sequence of genes in much the same way as letters in a book are organised as a sequence of words."
 * Might it be simpler to say "Genes are organised as uninterupted sections of DNA that only code for a single protein"? I might be missing the real point of this misconception here, but the original statement of this misconception isn't clear.  Is it a reference to introns, exons and regulation of gene expression?

2. "Genes form a blueprint or computer program which determines every aspect of biological development, apart from random environmental factors."
 * I'd suggest dropping the computer program analogy here; I don't think most people have a good conception of computer programs (and one could argue that multi-thread/parallelised programs can start to share some of the interactivity of development), but many people do seem to believe that the genome is some sort of literal blueprint. This both misunderstands the relationship of genotype to phenotype, and overlooks the complex, interactive and recursive nature of gene expression during development.

3. "Every aspect of the biology of an organism can be predicted from its genes."
 * I'd be inclined to shunt this one up to the top of the list. This seems the most common (and pernicious) misconception about genes.  It might be worth adding "(including its behaviour)" after "organism" (c.f. point below).

4. "Most, or indeed all, aspects of biological behaviour are caused by "a gene for" that behaviour."
 * This point is partially covered by the previous one. It might be an idea to shift the focus here onto the latter part concerning "a gene for".  Perhaps, "Single genes code for specific anatomical or behavioural features (e.g. a gene for homosexuality)"?

I'm just a little concerning that the current points are a little indistinct and miss a few tricks. Cheers, --Plumbago 16:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

How about altering and reordering the list to these points?


 * 1) Every aspect of the biology of an organism can be predicted from its genes
 * 2) Single genes code for specific anatomical or behavioural features
 * 3) Genes are a (literal?) blueprint of an organism's form and behaviour
 * 4) Genes are uninterupted sections of DNA that only code for a single protein

Points 1 and 3 could be seen as overlapping, but even if one accepts that the blueprint analogy of point 3 is wrong, one might still think that, somehow, all aspects of an organism can be worked out from its genome. --Plumbago 11:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Article title
Taking another tack, the article's current title is rather cumbersome and wordy. Could it perhaps be shortened to something like, "Misunderstandings of genetics", "Oversimplifications of genetics", "Common misunderstandings of genetics"? "Social misperceptions" is something of a mouthful, and somewhat ambiguous. Why "social" for instance? Are these the sorts of misconceptions ("misperceptions"?) that one can only come to as part of a group? And "misperception" carries a sort of sensual overtone that seems misplaced in the discussion of ideas and concepts. Cheers, --Plumbago 16:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi P. Thanks v much for your help with the article. The title was Madprime's suggestion, I'd be quite happy for it to be adjusted if she is. NBeale 21:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Any progress on this? 1Z 21:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As per NBeale's suggestion, I've put a note on Madprime's talkpage to ask for her input. I'm pretty sure she won't mind it moving though.  Cheers, --Plumbago 21:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Central dogma
The line, "A more sophisticated misperception is that the information flow in this causal chain is one-way, which leads in extreme forms to genetic reductionism or, even more absurdly genetic determinism", is a bit ambiguous and could be read as violating the central dogma. There is certainly a sense in which information flow is one way: genes are not rewritten by higher levels (which would be tantamount to Lamarckism), although gene expression may certainly be altered by higher levels. Perhaps inserting "Gene expression" into the chain then making some of the arrows point both directions (from "gene expression") would get around this? That said, in the context of the section, it makes sense to have unidirectional arrows - perhaps repeating the chain lower down in the section with bidirectional arrows would make the point clearer (i.e. "The actual relationships between the elements in this causal chain are:"). Cheers, --Plumbago 16:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

One gene, one phenotypic effect
The section on "A gene for X" contains this quoted statement: "strictly speaking, it is never correct to speak of 'a gene for X'" (my emphasis). In the context of the rather short section here, this seems a misleading statement to me. For instance, given that some genetic disorders stem from single gene effects, it's arguable that these really are "a gene for [insert genetic disorder here]" (c.f. Mendelian traits). And there are no absolute theoretical reasons for believing that all (for that's what the quote implies) phenotypic features necessarily stem from a complex interaction of several genes and gene products. I would suggest cutting the quote, and softening to something like:

"However in light of the known complexities of gene expression networks (and phenomena such as epigenetics), it is clear that instances where a single gene "codes for" a single phenotypic effect are exceedingly rare, and that media presentations of 'a gene for X' grossly oversimplify the vast majority of situations."

How's that sound? --Plumbago 08:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi P. I don't object to this rewrite though the "strictly speaking..." bit is a direct quote from Noble and he is quite right. Even when it seems that a genetic disorder stems from a single gene, the story is invariably more complicated. NBeale 05:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I dunno. I think the quote from Noble is overstating things.  It's too definite for a general article, and too easily contested (IMHO).  In the case of disorders such as cystic fibrosis, changes to a single protein cause problems that filter up to even larger problems at the organism scale.  To me this is a classic "gene for X" effect.  Yes, the fallout from this simple change causes a multitude of effects that can only be tortuously connected back to the protein (and, thus, gene) difference, but most of this tortuousness stems from us being multicellular organisms.  At the single cell level, the consequences of this single gene effect are pretty linearly connected to the genetic dysfunction (so, since most organisms are unicellular, single gene effects might actually be quite common in the biological world).  I'd also argue that the example of cystic fibrosis is different from the majority of situations where a large number of gene products interact together (in a manner that's difficult to deconvolute) to produce a phenotypic effect.  Here a single gene is causing a number of phenotypic effects; all of which are deleterious - the phenomenon of sickle cell anemia provides a counter-example where the effects need not be entirely deleterious (IIRC).  Anyway, the section is headed "A gene for X" not because this is always false, but because it would appear that the common understanding of genetics assumes that most (all?) genes transparently code for some macroscopic phenotypic feature.  This latter belief is what's being challenged here.  Cheers, --Plumbago 08:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Genes as words
Sorry I took a hands-off attitude on this article for a while, I didn't want to try to guess at "social misperceptions of genetics". But I have a couple comments about this section, which I don't think is justified as a misperception.


 * This kind of misperception is perpetuated when mainstream media report that an organism's genome has been "decyphered" when they mean that it has simply been sequenced[20].

I don't see that the misusage of "decyphered" and "decoded" has anything to do with any misconception of "genes as words", I'm pretty sure it traces back to the phrase Crick coined to refer to the correspondence of DNA sequence to protein sequence: the "genetic code". Between this term and the heavy usage of computers in modern times, these abuses of terminology just seem like the typical word-abuse done by journalists looking for a catchy headline, not reflecting some fundamental social misunderstanding.


 * A related misconception is that the sole function of genes is to code for proteins, with the non-coding remainder being "junk DNA". However, it now appears that, although protein-coding DNA makes up barely 2% of the human genome, about 80% of the bases in the genome may be being expressed, so the term "junk DNA" may be a misnomer[21].

And yet most of the mutations we look for either affect protein-coding regions of DNA or the regulation of these. I think simplifying genes as protein coding is not really a misperception, it is a justifiable generalization. Exceptions exist, but that doesn't make the generalization wrong anymore than it is a misperception to say: "every cell of the human body contains the same DNA genome".


 * It is popularly supposed that a gene is "a linear sequence of nucleotides along a segment of DNA that provides the coded instructions for synthesis of RNA"[16]

This isn't the correct definition? If this isn't, what is? Defining the endpoints on that sequence may be fuzzy and subject to argument, but the very first definition of genes as unitary observations in inheritance means that we are sticking to this "linear sequence" single-unit definition. And while we have some exceptions to the protein-coding generalization, can you point to any "genes" that don't get transcribed into RNA? Madeleine ✉ ✍ 01:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Madeleine. That's the section I've not properly edited yet!  :-)  I think NBeale might be trying to encapsulate the idea that genes have multiple reading frames, or something.  I must admit though, that I'm far from au fait with the status quo of gene transcription (being educated in the days when classical genetics ruled the Earth), so I'd be very grateful if you could either hack this section into shape, or hack it out entirely.  And, if you have the time, I'd appreciate feedback on the other sections.  I've modified these extensively from NBeale's original text (mostly for obvious POV reasons), but, again, I'm probably not the most qualified person on these topics (biogeochemical modellers rarely are).  I should add that, despite my editing, I'm not entirely convinced that this article is notable - it was born out of some, well, interesting times.  Anyway, thanks for dropping by here - it's been getting rather lonely (even NBeale seems to have temporarily foresaken it for RL).  Cheers, --Plumbago 08:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi PLumbago and Madeleine. Thanks for pickup up the baton on this. I've been v busy on other things - and anyway the whole idea of the article, as I understood it, was that it would be a chance for a number of us to work together from different viewpoints to dispel some of the misconceptions. NBeale 20:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

V good article by John Dupré
In a CUP/Royal Institute of Philosophy publication called Philosophy, Biology and Life (2005) there is a very good essay by John Dupré called Are There Genes which raises a lot of the questions I tried to bring together here. If I have time I'll update this with some of the fascinating points he raises, but I'm v v busy at present. Someone else might want to look into it. NBeale 20:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The article is available here (at least from where I sit). From a brief skim reading, it looks like it could be a good source for one or two of the points made in the article.  However, I'm not convinced that it's on entirely stable ground at times, so I'd advise caution before adding it wholesale to the article.  Certainly, on the subject of information transfer between generations and the distinction between cellular machinery and genetic information, it makes far too much of the former to my mind.  A very limited subset of an organism's cellular machinery makes the leap from one generation to the next (and few organisms have any further inheritance modes on top of these two), and what does make the jump contains relatively little information relative to that coded in DNA.  Still, that said, it seems like it would be a good paper to cite here, and would certainly make for good "further reading" for people interested in this topic.  If I've the time, I'll read it myself, but I'm a bit wrapped up in RL at the moment.  Cheers, --Plumbago 12:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The role of this article...
I'm not sure about the role of this article on Wikipedia. To justify an article on misperceptions and oversimplifications much would be needed on the stated topic, namely the misperceptions themselves. How did they arise, who is holding on to them, and to what extent are they influencing our culture? If the focus is entirely on dispelling such misperceptions, well that is our general goal, that is the purpose of the genetics article itself. Perhaps, the material here fits nicely into introduction to genetics. Alternatively, one could go for a social implications of genetics, which would somehow generalize the issues taken up by things like Biology and sexual orientation and Genetics influencing aggression. --Merzul 18:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Reading the article more carefully, it actually does focus a little on these issues. With the article cited above and so there could be a hope for this... but not with the current title, as there is no way our readers will ever find this! --Merzul 18:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Merzul. Sorry that I missed your comments until now - last month was a bit hectic for me.  Regarding this article, you're absolutely right about the title - in a discussion further up this page I suggested that "Common misunderstandings of genetics" might be an appropriate replacement.  I've been waiting to hear from other interested parties if I can move to this title, but no dice.  If you're OK with it, I'll just go ahead and move it.  On the content of the article, I'd be very pleased for assistance.  It started as an article written by NBeale, but I heavily edited it to remove certain POV issues.  Anyway, if you've any thoughts, that'd be great!  Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 17:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Article is a load of opinion
I think this aritcle is largely a load of rubbish, and doesn't belong in Wikipedia. It is certainly an opinion and there is no 'fact' whatsoever in it. It would be just as convincing and correct to write an article titled "common misconceptions of common misunderstandings of genetics" and basically argue the opposite with just as much evidence to support it.

The only parts of this article I agree with are the first two points. The blueprint section can definitely be argued the other way. A blueprint is needed to build a building, but along the way you need builders, and raw materials (which don't come from blueprints, they come from mines, which have their own independent planning). This is the same as an organ needed cells (the bricks) that needed raw materials, which required of course miners and tools to dig them up (proteins). So you see, I am able to easily and convincingly argue that DNA is exactly like a blueprint for an organism. In other words, this section is based only on opinion, and as such should be deleted from wikipedia, preferably along with the rest of the article.

Wikipedia is a place for fact, not opinion, and this article does nothing but confuse people with opinions. 172.212.19.83 (talk) 20:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * You'd have loved it before I started editing it! ;-)  I agree that the article does have more than a whiff of opinion about it.  I've edited it to try to thin this out and make it more concrete, but it's still not satisfactory.  That said, I'm not sure that its content is entirely arguable the other way around.  Certainly, I think your point about the blueprint is off-base.  DNA is nothing like a blueprint for an organism.  Blueprints describe structures in a very literal way, where the relationship between components of the structure is diagrammatically laid out.  DNA does nothing of the sort.  As the article currently states (citing Richard Dawkins' analogy on this point), DNA is far more like a recipe, such that the structure of an organism is an emergent property of the information contained in DNA rather than a scale model.  Anyway, if you think the article should be deleted, try to do so via an WP:AFD.  While this shouldn't be done frivolously, it should focus the minds of the editors who contributed to this article.  Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 21:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

confused !!
so if DNA does not contain the instructions for building the organism, what does ?

it may be that in trying to explain the misconceptions people are actually making the situation worse

Chaosdruid (talk) 14:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC) Epigenetics also plays a huge role in the idea of "building an organism". The acetylation and methylation of the genome can control much of an individual cells production of a given protein. The man that stated one gene, one genotype and stated the genetic disease idea; this is not completely true. Due to the numerous effects that can cause the disease, such as a post-translational enzyme incorrectly shaping the protein could cause the single disease not a mutation in that exact gene. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.244.27.253 (talk) 21:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Deliberate Errors of Fact
This article ought to be deleted or rewritten by someone knowledgeable in the field. Amidst the errors mentioned above and poorly diction emerges the language of dimensionality. Specifically, that genes are one-dimensional. This seems an unlikely error for a thirteen-year old geometry student, much less someone attempting to create a wikipedia article about genetics. Two attempts to change this error of fact were met with instant 'undo' actions. This is tyrannical support of an idiotic position. Simply put, genes are molecules. They exist in three dimensions. They can be symbolically represented in two dimensions. They are neither one-dimensional, nor can they be symbolically represented in one dimension. Somebody please help correct these errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.24.59 (talk) 21:22, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I do not think it is malicious. Think about the example of the piece of paper, which is said to be "two-dimensional". Paper, too, is three dimensional in the sense that it too is a real object-but the drawing on it is commonly said to be 2D. You see? A string of genes is, by this same token, a single dimension, or line. There may be issues with that section, but there is no a deliberate error. In fact, the same visualization is used by Richard Dawkins, in the cited book. So I put a link to it, with the page #. Anarchangel (talk) 05:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Here are some genes
Here are some genes for brain size and intelligence (Weiss, 1992; Plomin, 2004), behavior, skin, hair, and eyes, and diseases that are either already known to differ between populations or are very likely to differ. http://erectuswalksamongst.us/Chap13.html 76.120.17.197 (talk) 15:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Weiss (and his claims for major gene effects on IQ) is not taken seriously by anybody in the field. And the surprising thing about Plomin's findings is that he hardly finds any genes (and those that may perhaps be related to IQ explain only tny amounts of the variation). Besides that, what has this post to do with improving this article? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 16:36, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It was in response specifically to this "However, in light of the known complexities of gene expression networks (and phenomena such as epigenetics), it is clear that instances where a single gene "codes for" a single, discernible phenotypic effect are rare, and that media presentations of "a gene for X" grossly oversimplify the vast majority of situations." Also, it's not just Weiss and Plomin. Popesco, 2006; Williamson, 2007; Evans, 2004; Dediu, 2007; Mekel-Bobrov, 2005; Wang, 2004; Woods, 2006; Rushton, 2007a; Dick, 2007; Gosso, 2006; Burdick, 2006; Leingärtner, 2007; Caspi, 2007; Meyer-Lindenberg, 2007; Hardy, 2005; Balter, 2005; Pollard, 2006; Thomas, 1998; etc. 76.120.17.197 (talk) 16:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It says "grossly oversimplify the vast majority of situations" (my emphasis). Without more information, I'm not sure which studies you mean with this spate of citations, but none of them are about "single gene 'codes' for" (no serious scientist would ever use that expression). And almost none of those are about single-gene effects that are easily discernible (as opposed to detectable by QTL methods). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Removed merge proposal
I've removed the merge proposal since a year has passed and no one has expressed a view one way or the other on the talk page or even in edit summaries, not even the proposer. More importantly, the proposal rests on a linguistic confusion anyway: a common misunderstanding about genetics is not necessarily a common misunderstanding, many people have no knowledge of genetics at all. There are common misunderstandings about multivariable calculus too, but no one would suggest those are "common". Hairhorn (talk) 19:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Really?!!! Whole wiki page!
Common misunderstandings of Republicans, Liberals, environmentalists, climate change deniers, socialists, capitalists, etc. etc.... It could go on & on. Has Wikipedia turned political by pointing the absurdities or misunderstandings of a position. This is stuff Fox News, MSNBC or Rush Limbaugh does. It's an attack without any other point. Personally I think this wiki is just an over-reaction due to Modern mans denial of Human Nature, but that is just my opinion. Quisp65 (talk) 23:00, 13 August 2015 (UTC)