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During the latter half of the 20th century, the fields of genetics and molecular biology matured greatly, significantly increasing understanding of biological heredity. As with other complex and evolving fields of knowledge, the public awareness of these advances has primarily been through the mass media, and a number of common misunderstandings of genetics have arisen. Common misunderstandings include the following ideas: # Every aspect of the biology of an organism can be predicted from its genes # Single genes code for specific anatomical or behavioural features # Genes are a blueprint of an organism's form and behaviour # Genes are uninterrupted sections of DNA that only code for a single protein ==Genetic determinism== (詳細はsee this discussion ) of the behaviour of the digger wasp〕 these examples have been extrapolated to a popular misconception that all patterns of behaviour, and more generally the phenotype, are rigidly genetically determined. There is good evidence that some basic aspects of human behaviour, such as circadian rhythms are genetically-based, but it is clear that many other aspects are not. In the first place, much phenotypic variability does not stem from genes themselves. For example: # Epigenetic inheritance. In the widest definition this includes all biological inheritance mechanisms that do not change the DNA sequence of the genome. In a narrower definition it excludes biological phenomena such as the effects of prions and maternal antibodies which are also inherited and have clear survival implications. # Learning from experience. This is obviously a very important feature of humans, but there is considerable evidence of learned behaviour in other animal species (vertebrates and invertebrates). There are even reports of learned behaviour in ''Drosophila'' larvae. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Common misunderstandings of genetics」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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