1MCB140 19-01-07 1Gregor Johann Mendel• Born to a peasant family in Brno (then Brunn) in Moravia• Showed promise in school• Studied at the University of Vienna, but could not get a degree, because of a psychiatric condition (exams made him nervous)• Returned home, taught high school physics school• Became an abbot at a monastery• Bred peas for 8 years• Presented the findings to his local “nature lovers” society• Wrote to the leading authority of his time on plant hybridization, had his findings rejected as incorrect• Died unknown, and remained so for 35 years• Stands in history next to Newton, Darwin, and EinsteinMCB140 19-01-07 2Observable phenomena, explainable and not1. Gravity.2. The color of the sky.3. Heredity.MCB140 19-01-07 3“It’s All in the Genes”New York Times, 5/2/04MCB140 19-01-07 4“An SCN9A channelopathy causes congenital inability to experience pain” Nature Dec. 14, 2006“The index case for the present study was a ten-year-old child, well known to the medical service after regularly performing 'street theatre'. He placed knives through his arms and walked on burning coals, but experienced no pain. He died before being seen on his fourteenth birthday, after jumping off a house roof.”2MCB140 19-01-07 5Fig. 2.11MCB140 19-01-07 6BASEBALL; Blood, Sweat and Type O” NYT 12-15-06 In the end, the Red Sox apparently decided to spend more than $100 million to get the Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka in a Boston uniform for the next six seasons, For intrigued baseball fans in the United States, Matsuzaka's relevant statistics are no-brainers: 26 years old, 6 feet, 187 pounds and a 108-60 record with a 2.95 earned run average in eight seasons with the Seibu Lions. But what many fans, the Red Sox front office and even Matsuzaka's determined agent, Scott Boras, may not realize is that in the eyes of the Japanese, Matsuzaka's most revealing statistic might be his blood type, which is Type O. By Japanese standards, that makes Matsuzaka a warrior and thus someone quite capable of striking out Alex Rodriguez, or perhaps Derek Jeter, with the bases loaded next summer. In Japan, using blood type to predict a person's character is as common as going to McDonald's and ordering a teriyaki burger. The association is akin to the equally unscientific use of astrological signs by Americans to predict behavior, only more popular. It is widely believed that more than 90 percent of Japanese know their blood type. ''In everyday life in Japan, blood type is used as a kind of a social lubricant, a conversation starter,'' said Theodore Bestor, a professor of Japanese studies and anthropology at Harvard University. ''It's a piece of information that supposedly gives you some idea of what that person is like as a human being. ''Japanese tend to have a fairly strong kind of inherent belief that genetics and biology really matter in terms of people's behavior. So I think Japanese might be much more predisposed to thinking about a kind of genetic basis for personality than most Americans would.'' Japanese popular culture has been saturated by blood typology for decades. Dating services use it to make matches. Employers use it to evaluate job applicants. Blood-type products -- everything from soft drinks to chewing gum to condoms -- have been found all over Japan. A person can have one of four blood types, A, B, AB or O, and while the most common blood type in Japan is Type A, many of the more prominent Japanese players are like Matsuzaka, Type O. That group includes Hideki Matsui of the Yankees, Kazuo Matsui of the Colorado Rockies (and formerly of the Mets, with whom he was a huge disappointment) and Tadahito Iguchi of the Chicago White Sox. Sadaharu Oh, the great Japanese home run hitter? He is type O, too, as is Kei Igawa, the 27-year-old Hanshin Tigers left-hander who has until Dec. 28 to sign with the Yankees. In Japan, people with Type O are commonly referred to as warriors because they are said to be self-confident, outgoing, goal-oriented and passionate. According to Masahiko Nomi, a Japanese journalist who helped popularize blood typology with a best-selling book in 1971, people with Type O make the best bankers, politicians and -- if you are not yet convinced -- professional baseball players.MCB140 19-01-07 7 MCB140 19-01-07 83MCB140 19-01-07 9In order for people with type O blood group to also be “self-confident, outgoing, goal-oriented and passionate” – what has to be the case?A. Each of these “traits” has to be controlled by a single gene.B. All of those genes have to be tightly linked to the ABO gene on chr. 9q.34.C. The specific allele of all of those hypothetical genes that makes a person “self-confident, outgoing, goal-oriented and passionate” has to be the one linked to the “O” allele of the ABO gene, whereas the “A” and “B” alleles of the blood group gene have to be linked to the “lacking self-confidence, reclusive, couch-potato, and frigid” alleles of those genes, respectively.D. All of the above.E. None of the above. MCB140 19-01-07 10Heredity: “blending inheritance”?President W.J. Clinton Senator H.R. Clinton Their daughter, ChelseaMCB140 19-01-07 11Phenomenon Æ explanation of mechanism1. “Just so stories” (i.e., making up an explanation that “makes sense”). Encouraging (rare) example: Francis Crick’s invention of tRNA. Discouraging (overhwelmingly so, in numbers) examples: theories of heredity before Mendel/C-T-dV.2. Scientific method.MCB140 19-01-07 12Just So Stories (R. Kipling)• How the elephant got its trunk• How the camel got its hump•Etc.R. Lewontin4MCB140 19-01-07 13“Accusers All; Going Negative: When It Works”New York Times 8-22-04“THIS was supposed to be the positive campaign. Late last fall, Democrats and Republicans alike predicted that a new campaign rule requiring candidates to appear in their own advertisements and take credit for them would discourage them from making negative ads. Yet it's not even Labor Day and President Bush has spent the majority of the more than $100 million he has spent on television advertisements attacking his Democratic opponent, Senator John Kerry. Mr. Kerry and the other Democratic primary contenders seemed to spend the fall and early winter in a contest to see who could jibe Mr. Bush the most.”MCB140 19-01-07 14“Accusers All; Going Negative: When It Works”New York Times 8-22-04 ctd“Political consultants cite a strikingly consistent
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