Talk:General Genetics/Introduction

From Robert W. Williams Professor of Developmental Genetics, University of Tennessee Health Science Center rwilliam@nb.utmem.edu

We have become gene-centric in the last half century, but I think it is important to keep the focus of a true genetics text on patterns and causes of variation. If this is planned as a text on genetics it will be important to keep the focus on sources of biological variation; whether caused by gene variants, epigenetic modification, somatic mutation, stochastic developmental process, or environmental effects. Students need to understand from the get-go that genetics in not just the study of genes. That is an easy mistake to make.

For this reason the introduction could use help at two levels.

1. Genetics as a field of study predates a well defined DNA gene by roughly 50 years. For this reason, the first sentence needs some modification. Perhaps:

"Genetics is the study of the sources and inheritance of biological variation, usually within populations that can interbreed."

2. Only a small fraction of the genome of many species is made up of genes.

The strict study of genes, their structure and function, is more the domain of molecular biology. Of course, many geneticists are great molecular biologist, But some of the greatest geneticists (Fisher, Wright, and Haldane) predate the era of molecular genetics.