UNDERSTANDING GENETICS

WHAT IS HEREDITY?  Every person is developed under the influence of a mix of genes that are inherited from his/her mother and father.  The structure and activity of the body is determined by these genes. These genes determine visible characteristics, such as, eye and skin color and height.  They also determine traits that cannot be seen, for example, the likelihood of certain diseases, the functioning of body systems and the chemicals made by the body.  Most of the time, each cell in the body contains two copies of each gene.  One that originally came from the egg of the mother and one from the sperm of the father.  These two copies are slightly different from each other in many instances.  The result is the child is never identical to either parent.  The child receives some characteristics from the mother and some from the father.  GENETIC DISEASES are disorders that are inherited from his/her parents.  A gene that works normally usually can make up for one that has a defect.  A gene with a defect that causes a particular disease may be passed through generations without causing illness.  The normal gene of the two may work well enough to cover for the defected one.  The child will develop the illness if he/she inherits two genes with the defect. GENETICS is the study of how traits are passed from parents to children.  HEREDITY OF INTELLIGENCE  Evidence suggests that family environmental factors may have an effect upon childhood IQ.  It states in a report by The American Psychological Association that there is no doubt that normal child development requires a certain level responsible care.  What was once believed that intelligence was fully genetic, now environment has been found to play a role.  Severely deprived, neglectful, or abused environments have negative effects on many areas of children's intellect development.  BEHAVIORAL GENETICS is a branch of science that tries to find out what role inherited factors play in how people act and what kinds of genes may lead to different patterns of behavior.  Behavior geneticists work to discover to discover how much of people's behavior is determined by the genetic information he/she inherited from the parents.  Since environmental factors can also influence human behavior, behavior genetics also work to discover how much is caused by his/her living conditions, learning choices and other influences from the world around them.