A bit on the off-topic, but I think your pedigree sports analogy, as a metaphor for all the things we do because we think we should, is incredibly apt. We do all these things because of the way our ancestors were selected, what they were, and what they did. When we think we should, we may or may not be doing it, but the reality is that the same people who did those things, will do them again.
The same parents who had the bad genes from the beginning will do it again. Our ancestors are our ancestors, and we as a society are not in control of their actions. We can’t really “fix” this, but we can stop allowing others to do these things.
In the end, we can only do our best to provide the best environment for our progeny to thrive. While we are not in control of what happens in our environment, we can control what affects our society. We can choose to make our society more like our ancestors, or less like them.
In a recent article in Forbes, a company called Pedigree Sports was quoted as saying that they had discovered that a lot of our athletic prowess is hereditary. The company believes that genetic testing can help coaches, parents, and athletes prevent some behaviors which may have begun as a way to help the family but become harmful. The company claims that it has found a way to predict which of these behaviors are likely to manifest in one’s children, and can help prevent some of them.
There’s some merit to the idea of genetic testing for athletics for some of us, but this is definitely one area where I think there’s a lot of misinformation. Genetic testing (aka “genetic profiling”) is not a solution to solving any athletic problem. It’s a solution for the most part to find out who you are, when you are, and what you do.
It is a good idea to know your family tree to be able to take precautions against certain behavior, but as it turns out, there is no evidence that any of the many behaviors that are genetic markers for are genetic markers for good behavior. What’s worse, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that the genetic markers for some of these behaviors are caused by anything other than our genes.
If you’re curious about genetics, the only surefire way to figure that out is to go ask your parents. Your parents are the one place where you can go and find out what your genes are, since that’s the only way anybody will know for sure. And this is where the “pedigree” part comes in.
The key to understanding the difference between pedigree and behavior is to look at the evidence. You can find out what your genes are by having the parents of an individual you want to know your genetic markers for, and then get their DNA. So if you want to get a better sense of what your genes are, you have two choices. One, you can go ask your parents, or two, you can buy the books.
The books are the least expensive way to find out, but they are also the least accurate way. In fact, as I said above, there is a third option: Ancestry.com. When you do an AncestryDNA test, you get a genetic snapshot of your family tree.
This is a little off topic but Ancestry.com requires you to buy their DNA test and pay a $20 fee. That’s because Ancestry.com uses a non-family database and doesn’t keep track of your family’s DNA. So you have to know where you are and how you got there to pay for the test, and then you have to pay Ancestry.com a $20 fee everytime you want to buy a new one.
