Comment by dayyan
8 hours ago
The article says there's no evidence of the gene being responsible for behavior.
Which means it's inconclusive if the gene is responsible for behavior.
But, collectively we know it may be.
8 hours ago
The article says there's no evidence of the gene being responsible for behavior.
Which means it's inconclusive if the gene is responsible for behavior.
But, collectively we know it may be.
This is fairly typical for genetic studies. We can observe an association, without understanding the causal relationship. Those of us who take the molecular biology/biophysical view of genes and proteins have been watching the geneticists slowly discover that "the allele of a gene that codes for" mental model is very limited; at least they're starting to pay more attention to the regulatory changes and indels and structural rearrangements, even if they don't have the tools to explain the underlying mechanism.
Like most hair/skin coloring, it's related to melanin production, regulation, and distribution.
Very often the appropriate lens for genetic expression isn’t traits, it’s tools - a gene knockout isn’t “blue eyes now”, it’s “socket #6 is missing from the kit,” which is why you’ll see blue eyes and a bunch of other unrelated stuff.
(With love to my blue-eyed friends in the thread)
Yes; the molecular biologists have been pointing out this for decades. Trait-based genetics really set back the mental model for understanding complex phenotypes (the ultimate phenotype being the molecular structure of an entire human being over time). It's been an uphill battle to fight the long-term insistence of genetics professors that we just need to do a few more association studies on larger genome populations and all of diseases will be cured.
But I don't know how well a gene knockout maps to a single tool missing (in terms of analogy); due to the intricate, complex, functional history of evolution, many genes play multiple roles (a wrench can be used as a hammer), and many phenotypes are resilient to loss of one or another tool (can't find wrench? Use this hammer instead!) Understanding those details at the molecular level and relating them to the full human phenotype has been a major interest of mine for decades, but I can't say I really understand anything about it.
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Yeah but there's good reason for an investigation here, in particular:
Said every scientist who wanted more grant funding.
The color is genetic. The behavior is due to them not having a soul. While there is an obvious relationship, it's not direct but mediated by the color.
The behavior is because of having one orange brain cell.