cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) (05/16/91)
In article <73217@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> arocho@acsu.buffalo.edu (vance a arocho) writes: . . . >4) This is may be thought of as a weird question but anyway, does anyone think > that there exists a gene that would predispose a person to being above > average in mathematical ability? An article in OMNI (yes, the PENTHOUSE > of science publications) stated the results of a study on lefthandedness: > lefthanded people (usually?) have allergies, asthma and above avg. > math ability. Guilty on all 3 counts (I'm a lefty). But I doubt that all > mathematicans (I include in this group teachers/professors who are mathe- > matically above average...then again one could argue 'average' is rela- > tive) are lefties. . . . Correlations have also been asserted with being male, myopic, first-born, gestated in an androgenized uterine environment, ... The speculation can get rather interesting (when not too politically-charged), but I don't know of anything that has yet advanced beyond speculation. Some of the other news groups have recently thrashed through the topic of incest avoidance, which, like your questions, pokes into some of the muddier areas of our understanding of organismal biology. Utterly unrelated to your question, but with some small con- nection to incest, let me note here the publication of "Fatal Sibling Aggression, Precocial Development, and Androgens in Neonatal Spotted Hyenas" (Science, v. 252, p. 702-704 (3 May 1991)), which describes a dramatic illustration of behaviors which are (epi)genetically shaped. My best guess: there is more than one kind of mathematical ability. There is more than one gene which predisposes one to at least some of those abilities. Human genetics are so complex that the truth of these postulates can have no prac- tical consequences for a long time to come. -- Cameron Laird +1 713-579-4613 cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net) +1 713-996-8546