Harry Potter Fan Explains Wizard Genetics

[DJ_DEnM]

So she did what every 13 year old fanfic writer does? Wow, impressive.

 

[teebeeohh]

I still prefer the Joe Quesada approach.

"It's magic, we don't have to explain it."

and thank god for that because it would be kinda hard to explain why you can trade in marriages for deals with extra favors.

ot: this kinda devoted fandom is the reason i prefer to stay on the sidelines, i like harry potter but this kinda devotion is scary.

 

[Queen Michael]

I havn't read the books in English, but "squib" shouldn't have a capitalized s, right?

 

[Blunderboy]

Now if only she would focus this drive and attention on something useful...

 

[Twilight_guy]

Now explain how a strand of DNA can make a set of proteins that fucking makes you magic!

Its nice to see her (name sounds female) putting work into the issue and congratulations on the essay, but it all seems rather dumb when you use science to explain magic, something that is inherently unexplainable and the opposite of science. I'd rather just say 'because flux capacitor' and realize how silly it is rather then trying to explain it and winding up with more problems.

JK has stipulated in interviews, plus going off what other people have said, hinted in the books that magic has scientific groundings and thus to a limited extent can be explained by science.

Time travel as a plot point. That explanation is very, very limited to the point where 'Flux capacitor' is an accurate description of how soft the science is.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

...this woman really has too much time on her hands...

-_-

[sub]Well played. Not exactly what I meant... but well played.[/sub]

 

[Moeez]

Uh I'll call bullshit on this, because having more trinucleotide repeats will mean a worse DNA and not an advantage, so you wouldn't get magic from this. She could've picked missense or nonsense mutations or mutations in coding genes or any of the other mechanisms to maker her point. Why did she pick the dancing disease lol?

Also, there are other mechanisms she could've used that actually give advantage while she's making this all up. Like karyotype changes of supermale or superfemale genome of XYY or XXX for this "magic" heritage, and supermales are still fertile so they can pass it down. Or shortened telomeres which people try to theorise as the "cure" to ageing, which could explain why magic people live longer in the universe.

Now that's hard sci-fi mixed with your fantasy.

C'mon, anyone who's done genetics on any level knows the more repeats or mutations is a bad thing. Oh and I'm a medical student but anyone with A-level biology knows this is her wiki'ing because she is obsessed with a dead franchise.

 

[piclemaniscool]

Odd vocabulary aside, I find these kinds of things intriguing that not only are people applying real life biology to obviously impossible scenarios, but they are proving it plausible (if such mutations already existed)

Wow, I can't believe someone delved this deep into it.

We (bronies) did the same thing regarding pony genetics. Had quite a few forum posts about how earth ponies could have pegasus and unicorn foals (the episode that inspired the debate was "Baby Cakes" if you were interested).

But sorry for the slight derail. Carry on.

That was even more complicated than this, what with 3 types of dominant and recessive. At least this one I only had to re-read once or twice.

 

[Evil Smurf]

You mean it wasn't midichlorians?

you win sir, On that note, what if J.K.Rowling had directed starwars 1,2 and 3?

 

[Gilhelmi]

God bless the Nerd, nothing is too detailed for their eye.

 

[Beautiful End]

So...are we all lame Muggles?! Dammit!

But seriously, it's like someone said The Harry Potter world is rules by " just because". As in: Why does magic exist? Most of the things there don't make a lot of sense (The ending of Prisoner of Azkaban, anyone?) so you just gotta nod your head and deal with it.
If anything, this whole thing is good for the lulz but that's about it. Like that one other guy who did that research about Rainbow Dash's attack or something.

 

[Gatx]

This is great and all, but the biggest question for me about Harry Potter magic was why they didn't have mana. Being able to shoot one hit kills without limit also seemed... yeah.

 

[Fasckira]

This is great and all, but the biggest question for me about Harry Potter magic was why they didn't have mana. Being able to shoot one hit kills without limit also seemed... yeah.

Theres a lot of things I didnt quite get in the HP universe which seemed to be explained with the ol' "Just because".

Mana of a sort did exist though, its just a skill. A champion NBA player could keep shooting hoops from huge distances with ease over a weekend dribbler, but after a while that NBA player will get tired and need to rest up. Its that fatigue that comes from using magic that limits how much someone can do.

Cracked did a fantastic article on the HP universe and why its doomed, well worth a read if you like nitpicking like me

http://www.cracked.com/article_19667_6-horrifying-implications-harry-potter-universe.html

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

This just reminds me of how sloppily Rowling designed rules for the HP world. Things would just come up in the series typically as a deus ex machina (like the time-reversing artifact) and then NEVER be mentioned again despite the giant holes in logic.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yes, that's what I want in my stories about witches and wizards; A scientific explaination for why they're witches and wizards.

I don't even like Harry Potter at all and this still pisses me off.

 

[Moeez]

C'mon, anyone who's done genetics on any level knows the more repeats or mutations is a bad thing.

I really don't know from which kind of medical school you got your knowledge from and which strange form of genetics they teach there but this sentence is so wrong on so many levels.
Just saying that mutations are bad is just... urgh. Seriously. Some basic knowledge about evolutionary genetics would really, really help here.
If I were you I would not go out on a limb concerning other peoples knowledge in genetics...

But yes, the paper has some flaws. But you know what? I doesn't matter! It's fun. It's a joke. It's nothing serious. It's just a piece of nerd humor. To tinker abound with science where it doesn't make sense. Like predicting the energy output of the Death Star to see if it could destroy a planet of the size of Alderaan.

And she even makes an interesting remark on the underlying racism theme concerning wizards and muggles, or what they are called (never read a book, just forced to watched some of the movies with my niece)

lol ok take my comment out of context and insult me without any counter-argument. When did I say that mutations are bad? You think more mutations rather than less mutations is a good thing? You do know that one of the hypotheses to ageing causing functional decline in your organ is because of the accumulation of mutations over your life time? And yes obviously there are good mutations which have helped us adapt, like heterozygosity inferring advantages to sickle cell anemia patients being immune to malaria for example. We're the result of many mutations over thousands of years. Mitochondria, moms, and all that.

THIS wizard gene "joke" though can't be considered "fun" or a "joke" if she wastes THIS much inadequate research time over something pointless and there's no punchline. It's just sad. The Death Star joke is hilarious because nothing like that exists, but genes do. Nerd jokes are great, but they're hilarious if it's totally pulled out of your ass and don't waste your life over it or if it's actually true and informative like:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81jvnGIea1qg5yowo1_500.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m46ik29cOc1r3rpypo1_500.jpg

Here's a few I made up:
"There's a storm coming, Mr Wayne. A thyroid storm."
"Heinz ketchup and Heinz bodies both being red can't be a coincidence. Someone must've thought let's name our ketchup after inclusion bodies you get in red blood cells. 'That's red, ketchup is red, we'll call it Heinz ketchup!'"
"GAPDH sounds like a wrestler's name. If you inhibit him, he'll release all that pent-up glycolysis metabolites just waiting around and ACTIVATE ALL DAMAGING STATIONS! Polyol, AGEs, PKC, Hexosamine MAN BROTHER YOU HAVE IT COMING"

I'm here all night.