Questions tagged [genetics]
The science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms.
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Do the mother's genes almost exclusively determine the sons' intelligence?
According to this paper: Intelligence and the X chromosome by Gillian Turner, published by The Lancet (a highly regarded medical journal) in 1996, the X chromosome is dominantly responsible for coding ...
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Is there any harm in forcing/re-educating a left-handed child to use their right hand?
Backstory:
Many of my relatives were subjected by their parents to a "training process" to "prevent" left-hand-dominance. This method started at a very young age and basically consisted of politely ...
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What risks exist with GMO, but not with selective breeding?
Anytime you hear Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) come up, someone always pipes in that it's perfectly safe because we've been doing it for thousands of years through selective breeding. ...
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Is Genetically Modified food safe to consume?
What's the truth surrounding the popular idea that genetically modified food is dangerous to consume?
There's entire websites and institutions dedicated to popularizing the alleged dangers of eating ...
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Is IQ hereditary? If so, to what degree?
The movie Idiocracy suggests that intelligence is hereditary; this idea has also been perpetrated by German author Thilo Sarrazin, who claims that due to the higher fertility of Islamic immigrants and ...
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Are Ashkenazi Jews smarter?
I just received an email entitled "Why are Jews So Smart". You can read an article here.
I also found a similar article in New York Magazine.
Did Jewish intelligence evolve in tandem with Jewish ...
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Has increased computer use led to increased myopia?
According to ABC News and this Ophthalmological study there has been a significant increase in the number of people with myopic eyesight over a recent 30 year period. From the ABC article:
There ...
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Is reviving an extinct species possible?
With all the science of genetics, and genetic engineering, would reviving an extinct species possible?
Yes, akin the story of "Jurassic Park".
Would it be possible now, with the science we have today?...
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Is there more genetic difference between men and women than men and male chimpanzees?
I got into trouble with someone yesterday for poo-pooing this idea as it smelled of apples and oranges to me.
The specific statistic was that genetically there is a 5% difference between men and ...
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Do humans share 99% of their DNA with rats?
I keep hearing this claim that a lab "rat has 99% of the DNA of a human?" Is that so? What exactly does this mean? One source for this claim seems to CNN which only says,
"About 99 percent of genes ...
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Does homosexuality preserve the species?
From The Huffington Post:
For even without a causal link established between homosexuality and population management, the obvious reduction in population growth attributable to homosexuality by ...
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Is Lamarckian evolution still considered credible?
I had thought that Lamarckian evolution had been essentially dismissed in favour of Darwinian evolution. Lamarckian evolution as I understand it is essentially the idea that the traits an organism ...
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Has natural occuring genetic insertion ever been observed in direct offspring of some organism?
Maybe this is somewhat of an ignorant question of me, and in all honesty I haven't tried very hard to find what I'm looking for1, but I keep hearing the argument that "information" can never be added ...
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Are red heads more likely to be hot headed?
It's a common cliche that red heads are more likely to have a fiery personality.
To quote from Wikipedia:
A common belief about redheads is that they have fiery tempers and
sharp tongues. In ...
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Does inbreeding cause severe birth defects?
I've been doing some research on breeding rabbits and saw many people mentioning that if you inbreed rabbits (father-daughter/mother-son/sister-brother) that there is only a small chance of birth ...
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Can one be naturally better at computers than English or Maths?
I think everybody heard this claim, and its opposite, a million times. Students or teachers commonly speak about having talents for a particular subject or another.
The subject is debated, for example,...
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Could obligatory screening for Thalassemia in Cyprus violate the bioethical rules?
Stefan Beck, a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley, claimed:
“The obligatory screening and counseling for Thalassemia in Cyprus is one of the most successful ...
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Is it possible for ingested dsRNA (or other genetic materials) to affect human gene expression?
I am usually pretty skeptical about claims on the danger of genetically modified crops because the issue of health for me logically breaks down to: Do the genes altered produce toxic chemicals in a ...
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Is approximately 80% of a child's intelligence acquired from the mother? [duplicate]
Uberfacts, a Twitter account with 9.43M followers claims that 80% of a child's intelligence is acquired from the mother. How true is this?
Gizmodo doesn't do a very good job of debunking this:
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Is 80% of childs intelligence acquired from mother? [duplicate]
Several articles on internet claim that 80% of child's intelligence is acquired from mother. however not providing any scientific publications. Is it really true?
source: http://brooklynmutt.com/post/...
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