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Date: | Sat, 30 Jan 2021 16:52:22 +0000 |
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" the thelytoky gene appears to be a single
gene based outcome"
This may well be true. However if you look at the history of genetics in the western world there has been this huge bias for more than the last 100 years in the genetics community that everything was due to single genes. Never mind that Darwin's cousin Galton showed clearly in 1875 that this was pure nonsense. If you took a genetics course before about 1980 you surely learned about several single gene phenotypes in humans. Things like ear lobe shape, widows peak and others I do not recall at the moment. Today we know that none of those classic examples are due to single genes and in some cases it seems they are simply an accident as to when some hox gene turned off. If I were to bet on thelytoky being a single gene I would bet against that idea without even reading the paper which I am sure presents a wonderful argument as to why it is a single gene. I would bet against the idea simply because I have seen so many examples where this statement was made and then proven wrong and I know the bias built into the profession to call everything a single gene. That single gene nonsense was the whole basis of first spending billions of dollars to learn the human genome. If we knew the whole genome we would solve all kinds of human disease issues by identifying the single gene responsible. Well, we have known the human genome now for over 20 years and solved zero human disease issues as a result. We have gotten lots and lots of benefits from knowing the human genome and learning the techniques to determine the human genome. So, we got out moneys worth and then some, just not from solving disease issues.
It is worth noting that work has been done on thelytoky in mellifera and it is a trait that can be selected for and is quite variable in frequency in those individuals showing some of the trait. That sure does not sound like a single gene so I am cheating when I make the bet as I know stuff that says I am right.
Dick
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