Talk:Reaction norm

On social issues and original research
I recognize that the below message I wrote many years ago would probably consitute original research if put in an article as-is. I'm copying and adjusting bits of pieces of it; but please help me out in getting the right NPOV tone.

That said, I want this article to touch partially on the science-studies and popular conceptions issues as well as the strictly biology concepts. As a philosopher of science (or at least I was in a past life), I'm interested in the (mis)reception of scientific concepts, and also in the sort of critiques, e.g. Lewontin makes (for example in Biology as Ideology).

If need be, I would rather rename the topic a bit than ellide the social/political aspects. Perhaps by renaming it to "Norms of reaction and ". But I think the title can still work as-is. I do recongize that the Nature versus nurture article can and should go into some of these issues in more details than this article can or should. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:49, 2005 August 27 (UTC)

Notes from old message
(just some old stuff that might be possible to recycle)

GENOTYPE, PHENOTYPE, AND NORMS OF REACTION

by David Mertz, No Copyrot

My previous comment:


 * "... and will lead, soner or later, if not to _the_ causes of English-speaking, then at the very least to some biological markers which correlate with English-speaking." (nuff said?)

A response:


 * Not really. Help a stupid interactionist understand the logic of your argument. You're not claiming that my point is merely a tautology, are you? The sentence might be empirically problematic, coz we cannot be absolutely sure that there are any biological causes or correlates with English-speaking. I don't think he same could be said of homosex (and you'd disagree naturally :).

Well... it's like this: English-speaking is *entirely* environmental. Beyond a few people with dreadful genetic deformities (causing brain damage, or whatever), *anyone* can learn English. Same goes for any language, obviously. English is even a particularly good example of a language that won't even have any accidental widespread correlations with anything genetic. It might be for Finnish or Khoi-San that the relatively isolated groups which speak them also have some genetic characteristic which is non-causally correlated with speaking that language. But there are native English speakers (to say nothing of non-native) from India, and Hong Kong, and Europe, and Native Americans, and Africans/African-Americans. There are just so many different groups (in terms of breeding communities) which maybe had been isolated for a thousand years, but in the last couple hundred have started speaking English, that there certainly isn't any even accidental correlation between *anything* genetic and English- speaking.

In a general way, I tend to be an "interactionist" as well. But it must be recognized that *some* things are entirely genetic, or entirely environmental. I *suspect* sexual orientation isn't either of these, but if it turns out to be entirely environmental, then your language is no good.

I think it's like this:

Entirely Environmental   Interactional      Entirely Genetic --   -          Language                 Height              Blood type Religion                Weight              Eye color etc. Skin color         etc.                             Sexuality (??) "IQ"

I DO NOT think of these columns as a continuum, however. I think they're just three seperate things. The reason is that people usually make a mistake of thinking the "genetic-ness" of something determines the range of phenotypic possibilities. It does, of course, in a sense... but not at all in the way most people think. The usual conception is something like this (using sexuality as a hypothetical, and that old canard about "domineering mother" as the environmental part [mind you, this is a joke for me, it's just so stupid that it's funny to use]).

#- POPULAR CONCEPTION OF GENOTYPE/PHENOTYPE INTERACTION: -#

Kinsey Scale: <--6--5--4--3--2--1--0-->     ^ (Genotype A) ^                                 ^ (Genotype B) ^ |             |                                 |              |   Domin <---> Passive                          Domin <---> Passive mom            mom                               mom             mom

You see what I mean. The conception is that each genotype gives a certain range possible phenotypic expression. In the popular conception, something which is "more genetic" gives a narrower range, while something which is "less genetic (more environmental)" gives a wider range of phenotypic possibilities.

A more general, and more accurate picture would look like the below. The example I give is an extreme one to highlight the difference with the popular model... but the idea is that ANY curves are possible for some trait across some range of genotypes. In fact, almost any curves CAN be found for various things (like height of corns in different altitudes, or whatnot):

#- MORE ACCURATE "NORM OF REACTION" OF GENOTYPE/PHENOTYPE -#

^      |                                                   ____A___A K   6 B                                                A  I    |  \_B__                                   ___A___/     Genotype A  N    5       \__B__                            A  S    |             \___B___          _____A___/ E   4                     \_B_     A  Y    |                        _\___/ 3                      A  \__B__ S   |                 __A__/         \___B__ C   2                A                      \__B__ A   |          __A__/                             \__B__    Genotype B  L    1         A                                         \__B__ E   |  ___A__/                                                \_B__ 0 A                                                           \ +--->        Passive mom                                    Domineering mom

You see the idea. If genotypes were like this in terms of "norm of sexuality" it would be impossible to say one genotype was more or less homosexual than another, since each would be "more homosexual" in some environments, but less in others. I draw more or less linear functions for each genotype, but any other curve could hypothetically be there also. One curve which is quite common in actual organisms is a normal-type curve, where a phenotype is maximized (or minimized) at a particular environment, but slopes off in both directions from than maximum (minimum). Of course, some genotypes across some environmental variables have more than one maxima/minima.

One important thing to notice is that even where different genotypes, or genotypic groups, each have a bell-curve in distribution, each genotype may reach maximal values higher than the other genotype has in the same environment -- while both showing the same general pattern of being maximized at an intermediate environment. For example, maybe there are different educational styles (i.e. rote-learning vs.  problem-solving), where everyone does the best with a combination of the two. But perhaps different genotypic groups do better at a different point in the middle. If you have a socially dominant style of eduction, it could produce as an "artifact" the effect of giving one genotype higher average scores. However, if the socially dominant education style were to change slightly, it might favor the other group. The picture might look like:

# Norm of Reaction Chart #

^      |           Genotype A     Genotype B  T    6            _________     _________ R   |           /         \   /         \ A   5          /           \ /           \ I   |         /             X             \ T   4        /             / \             \ |      /             /   \             \       3      /             /     \             \  S    |     /             /       \             \ C   2    /             /         \             \ A   |   /             /           \             \ L   1  /             /             \____         \ E   | /     ________/                   \_________\________ 0/ ____/                                      \_______\______       +--->         Environment extreme                               Other extreme

Mistake in the graph with gaussian distributions
The y-axis of the graph with the two gaussian distributions is labeled "trait scale." This is misleading as well as incorrect because this is a graph of two probability distributions; the y-axis of a distribution function should be probability/density. On the other hand, labeing the y-axis of the other graph as "trait scale" makes complete sense (which is probably why it was misapplied to the gaussian distributions graph in the first place). So could someone edit the first graph? --JianLi 21:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments by IP user
The cited figure has to be removed for two reasons applied on the upper part of the figure: (1) Monoclonal is frequently used for antibodies! not for plants. However, it means the same genetic makeup. Here we have different genotypes (A and B). Therefore, the figure does not apply! (2) The figure tells nothing about a difference of performance (trait scale) in function of the environment. It just says that a very identical performance (trait) can be obtained by two different genotypes at two different environments. Therefore, to be more accurate, the curve should be stretchable upside down and right left, meanwhile, the figure should be removed! Similar arguments apply also to the lower part of the figure... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.102.247.153 (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Please go ahead and improve the article, but remember that anything you do must be based on reliable sources.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Title of this article should be "Reaction norms"
"Reaction norms" is about four times more common than "norms of reaction", in keeping with general patterns in English noun phrase construction. See here vs. here. The title of this article should be changed to reflect usage (although it would possibly make sense to refer to both). Not sure about the procedures for changing article titles without breaking things. Human fella (talk) 07:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed, although the name should be singular, Reaction norm. I requested the move here.--Victor Chmara (talk) 10:13, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Origin of the term
A PhD student working with a lot of population genetics literature here. I am not the expert, but all the references I have in the cited literature point to I. I. Schmalhausen, Factors of evolution: the theory of stabilizing selection (1986) as the person who originaly introduce the term of the norm of reaction. Andrei.chiffa (talk) 16:27, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I removed the ref tags because they are not needed on a talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 00:42, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Figure correction needed
The figure on this page should say phenotype not genotype. The environment changes the phenotype, not the genotype! I'll fix it later if no one else does. Jparcoeur (talk) 17:21, 23 July 2019 (UTC)