On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Trizt wrote:
> On 04-Feb-98, E Gray (grayhome@sprintmail.com) wrote about Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] -
> The Birds & the Bees:
> If you look at the researche we have about how humans develope (RL), then you
> will notice that there is two schools, one which thinks that the genetics has
> more to do than the environment when shaping a human and then the other
> branche sees it all the other way.

Most geneticists accept that both are pretty important.

> I'll try to explain, the normal gens is divided 50/50, but in the blood we
> have a sort of DNA too, this DNA goes from mother to child. The father's
> "blood DNA" isn't transfered at all, this DNA has don't affect the bloodtype
> of the child (atleast as I know).

Do you mean Mitochondrial DNA? This isn't found in the blood, but within
the Mitochondria inside cells. Mitochondria are though to be descended
from bacteria that were taken up by primitive cells and became involved
in a symbiotic relationship. They reproduce independantly, and have a
remnant genome of their own. Since the sperm doesn't carry any normal
mitochondria, we only inherit them from our mothers. However the amount
of mtDNA compared to chromosomal DNA is tiny, and it's not involved in
controlling metabolic processes except within the mitochondria
themselves.

> It's this DNA structure which is counted to be 1% which it's really isn't but
> when rounded up it will visual that you inherit more from your mother than
> from your father. Oh, then we have the X and Y cromosems which are belived to
> give the gender, those two aren't of the same length, which is belived why
> males do get some defects much easier than females. But I don't have any
> imagenation how large the difference is, but I guess it's quite little
> compared to the total length of the gens.

Y-chromosomes are pretty small compared to X chromosomes, so a man
inherits slightly more of his mothers genes than his fathers. Probably
about a percent.

> ->Hmmm......I don't think that any environmental(read: cultural) factors come
> ->into play directly....and if you're saying the Stat bonuses are partly due
> ->to non-genetic factors, well you'd have to adjust for where the character
> ->is living..

I'd suggest that if the child is being reared within the culture
of one of the parents, use that culture's modifiers, otherwise don't use
any modifiers at all.

neil