Is there such a thing as "Bad Genes"?

[Dan in Pasadena]

The "toddler pitching a fit on an airplan" thread got me thinking of an old idea of mine.

When they were little kids my ex and I had best friends who had three boys similar ages to our kids. Good people. Those boys all had problems. Oldest son molested a neighbor girl when he was 13. He was put into a program, taken out of his own homke during this period and as far as I know he is "normal" today - personally? I'd never trust him. The second boy was a sweet child but developmentally diabled. His mentality is about that of a 6 year old and he is about 22 today. The youngest was smart as a whip and quite a talker but his stature is tiny! He is not a midget or dwarf but he stands about 4'-10"...he ,ay be up to 5 ft now. He's about 20. His dad is 6' and his mother about 5'-6".

Am I the only one that thinks there really is such a thing as "bad gene" combinations? I'm NOT talking about hereditary diseases, I'm talking about otherwise "normal" people that probably can't keep from making children with problems. I feel terribly sorry for these people. How's a person to know?

[livi]

Everything in our organism is affected by our genes. The genes are the blue print for how we will turn out. Both physically and psychologically. The environment will of course have an impact from birth, but the genes lay out the basic ground boundaries.

In the genetic lottery that conception constitutes, some couples will have a higher risk of bad combinations than others. That goes for everything from hight to temper.

There is no escaping from our genes..

[Rikao4]

all the more reason for a test.
Rika

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally posted by Rikao4
all the more reason for a test.
Rika

I suppose I see the need for pre-marital (or would it be pre-conception?) testing for known carriers of a potentially horrendous genetic diseases like Huntington's or Taysach's (sic?) but would you propose genetic testing of everyone?

So, if you find out you and the intended mother of your children have some slight chance of something pretty bad....what do you do about it anyway? I suppose it gives you the option to adopt or something. I kinda feel as though many couples wouldn't do it in the first place, and wouldn't do much about the results once they got them.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by livi


There is no escaping from our genes..

well there is one escape
it's just not an acceptible one.

[livi]

It will not be possible to design a 'test' that catches all possibly bad consequences of inferior gene combinations. Firstly the number of combinations on different levels is not even possible to count. Secondly, we do not know which genes or gene combinations or protein synthesis that causes different 'traits'.

It is a lottery and will always be a lottery.

[Moses]

Originally posted by Dan in Pasadena
Oldest son molested a neighbor girl when he was 13. He was put into a program, taken out of his own homke during this period and as far as I know he is "normal" today - personally? I'd never trust him. The second boy was a sweet child but developmentally diabled. His mentality is about that of a 6 year old and he is about 22 today. The youngest was smart as a whip and quite a talker but his stature is tiny! He is not a midget or dwarf but he stands about 4'-10"...he ,ay be up to 5 ft now. He's about 20. His dad is 6' and his mother about 5'-6".

The mother was having an affair with a horny, retarded dwarf. Just a guess.

[Seahawk]

My genes are spying on me...oh, wait, wrong thread

[livi]

Originally posted by Moses
The mother was having an affair with a horny, retarded dwarf. Just a guess.

Very plausible. In different studies the numbers of people growing up with a father that is not their real father biologically are sometimes as high as 10%. Women - can´t trust them, can´t shoot them - except in Alabama..(or so I have heard).

[Rikao4]

maybe both test and lis. (like can you afford it , or are you trying to increase your welfare score)
the reasons you stated are good reasons, a headsup for what you might expect,
but just because you have a d@ck, or a slot doesn't mean you should spawn away..
take some places in Africa..spawn 10 kids with the hope that one will see age 20..while the other 9 starve.
my cleaning lady, a single mom with 2 sons 13 and 15
15yr old has been in jail, and is & will be loser .
13yr old has 2 kids already, mom's are 14 and 15.
or my niece.. We tried being parent's
her real mom&dad had those mental midgets scores.
she was 13 going on 30...after one year.. I had enough.
she has had 5 kids=all different men, at least 8 abortions, all kids have been taken away, she is now serving 20 yrs for attempted murder.
Rika

[svandamme]

anyone seen Idiocracy yet??

[nostatic]

Originally posted by svandamme
anyone seen Idiocracy yet??

seen it? I'm soaking in it!

[svandamme]

[Moses]

Originally posted by livi
Very plausible. In different studies the numbers of people growing up with a father that is not their real father biologically are sometimes as high as 10%. Women - can´t trust them, can´t shoot them - except in Alabama..(or so I have heard).

In several studies done in the US and repeated in Europe, DNA analysis is unable to find any family whose paternal DNA is "correct" for 5 generations. In every family you don't have to look too far before you find offspring that are not genetically related to who was supposed to be the father.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Originally posted by Moses
The mother was having an affair with a horny, retarded dwarf. Just a guess.

It'd be funny if the kids weren't really like that.

I saw a documentary where they interviewed Jeffrey Dahmer and his dad. It was very painful to see because (at least in this interview) "Jeff Dahmer" was an articulate, attractive, if somewhat shy person. He seemed to have had as ordinary a childhood as any kid could have. He KNEW he was a monster and from a fairly early age. He found a dead dog or cat as a child and was fascinated by it. He kept the bones out in the woods near where he lived. Later he did the stereotypical nascent muderer thing, he killed small animals and skinned them, kept their bones.

His dad obviously loved his son and was completely at a loss to understand how he could have come out this way. Some people think Dahmer deliberately provoked the attack in prison that resulted in his death to put an end to his own suffering and that of his family. Makes you wonder.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

It's a slippery slope. Let's say a gene test is performed (and yes, there are certain prenatal screenings done, like for PKU and other disorders). Is a positive result justification for termination of pregnancy? If so, for which disorders? That's the dangerous one. It's easy to say "for 'extra-chromosome' disorders", or for other serious disorders with a high likelihood of mortality or mental illness/behavioral disorders, but what about a 50% chance of mild retardation? What about something simple like polydactylism? Wrong gender? Eye/hair color the parents don't like? Where do we draw the line and how exactly do we define what an "ideal" human genotype is, since it gets down to (subjective and different) choices regarding the phenotypes expressed. . .

Interesting medical ethics problem. . .

[alf]

Of course there are bad genes; but in the case of the naughty trantrum throwing toddler it is likely a case of bad parents...who are themselves throwing a tantrum for the world to see.

[livi]

Originally posted by Moses
In several studies done in the US and repeated in Europe, DNA analysis is unable to find any family whose paternal DNA is "correct" for 5 generations. In every family you don't have to look too far before you find offspring that are not genetically related to who was supposed to be the father.

Fascinating really. Makes me wonder if my brothers really are my brothers. My youngest does not look like me at all!

[nota]

Originally posted by livi
It will not be possible to design a 'test' that catches all possibly bad consequences of inferior gene combinations. Firstly the number of combinations on different levels is not even possible to count. Secondly, we do not know which genes or gene combinations or protein synthesis that causes different 'traits'.

It is a lottery and will always be a lottery.

true with current teck

but ''will always be a lottery''
I donot think so
they donot need to know every combo possable
in fact a lot of the DNA is junk without function

they need just to get a list of the real bad genes
and most of those are recessive so require two bad bits
one from each parent
even that is years off in the future
but not impossable

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Seahawk
My genes are spying on me...oh, wait, wrong thread

Maybe not, Scotch?