Er, no they wouldn't. You know what identical means, right? The same in every way.

There is a difference between wizards and Muggles. One can do magic, one cannot. This can be said to be because one has a certain gene, and one does not. This makes them non-identical.

We can draw an analogy of a switch, in that a switch has two positions with no graduation: on and off. This is analogous (but not completely so) to the way people either have magic or they don't.

Nothing in the above implies anything of what you are saying.

Continuing the switch analogy, to say that wizards and Muggles are identical because the presence or absence of a gene is what distinguishes them is the same as saying that a light being on and off is the same situation, because all it takes to change the states is for a trigger to make it happen.

 

And you keep evading my questions.

This could go both ways, seeing how firmly entrenched in the Muggle world JKR's universe seems to be. The very concept of magic defies anything that's logical and yet, even magic seems to follow a set of guidelines that resemble the Universal Laws of Physics to some extent (eg. not being able to create something out of nothing; no spell to raise the dead). So, yeah, the fact remains that JKR chose to play it safe and stick as close to the truth (logic) as she could when she constructed the canon-verse. Hence, logic/science isn't secondary to canon -- rather, it is just as important.

This is meant to be a process of elimination? I'm sorry, but what options have you actually eliminated?

None.

Furthermore, options (1) and (2) are contradictory -- they cannot exist mutually, thereby rendering options (3) and (4) useless. Your in-universe perspective is flawed. For (1) and (2) to co-exist, you would need to introduce an alternate set of rules that satisfy magical genetics, which is essentially explaining magic with magic (as Sesc keeps saying). Rather counter-productive, isn't it?

Hence, by elimination, we are ... back to square one. Congratulations. You've achieved nothing.

^_-

I could say the same for you ...

 

Have eliminated Muggle genetics and non-genetic explanations.

Er... no they aren't. You'll find that 4 shows how they are non-contradictory. They're only contradictory if you were to hold another proposition:

0. Muggle genetics is completely correct and there cannot be any other possible theories of genetics, not even in a fictional magical universe.

Only if your aim is to explain magic with something extra-magical. Which it isn't. The aim of the thread (read the OP) is the explain magical inheritance.

Your desire for an extra-magical explanation for magic is confusing. When we look at science to explain the natural world to us, do we seek to explain natural phenomena in supernatural terms? No. We seek the explain the natural via the natural. So why should we seek to explain the (fictional) supernatural with something other than the supernatural?

 

Guys, I think we've been had. Here is why.

First of all, I'd like to express my gratitude to e1 who did not blindly accept my insane ramblings about "places where crossing-over doesn't work". What I was mistakenly referring to is the so-called Morgan's law; its expanded derivative is known as "the Chromosome Theory of Inheritance". It states that the traits regulated by genes that are located in the same chromosome are inherited simultaneously. The crossing-overs do in fact provide means to break this law, being the acts of exchanging parts of corresponding chromatids (halves of chromosomes). Therefore, my argument about "the right loci" is hereby declared null and void.

(By the way, if anyone wants to brush up their cytology and basic genetics, here is the source that I've used: Botany online - The Internet Hypertextbook.)

Secondly, this seems to be the place where we all assumed that one gene doesn't do the trick:

Seems true... if we take an idealised case, which is used to explain Mendel's laws at school. This, however, is not the case for the following reasons:

1. the traditional explanation of Mendel's laws deals with only up to 3 consecutive generations, whereas the Wizarding World of Britain is much older;
2. the laws were discovered and are explained using the example of plants, whereas we are dealing with sentient beings which obey slightly different rules of mating.

The article also touches the issue of The Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. For those of you who are too lazy to read the whole article, here is a tl;dr. Provided certain conditions are fulfilled, the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium mathematical model states that

which basically means that we can maintain an almost constant ratio of individuals posessing only dominant, only recessive and both of the allele genes.
The conditions for this model to work are:

Unfortunately, in humans almost all of the conditions are broken at one point or another. This model would've explained the ratio of muggles and wisards on purely genetic level, was it not for major deviations from the listed requirements.

So, without further ado, let me introduce

A Draft of the Theory of Magical Inheritance​

Let's once again consider that the "magicness" of a living being is determined by a (single) gene. In the allele pair a dominant variation (A) corresponds to the individual being magical, and the recessive one (a) - to a muggle-world inhabitant. The initial distribution of said variants remains unknown, but somehow (an educated guess will be: through the power struggle; muggles rallying against their peers who could do unexplainable and scary things; wizards, being more 'powerful', participating in and eliminating each other during numerous wars; etc) the recessive variant became much more frequent than the dominant one. At this point two populations separate: the Wizarding World goes into hiding, purging their gene pool from the recessive allele due to the wizarding superiority doctrine, and muggles kill off families in which kids show unusual powers, therefore wiping the dominant gene from their population. The superiority doctrine coupled with almost-refugee status then have an impact on wizards' mentality, further separating the populations.
So, we have a situation where muggles reproduce muggles, and wizards reproduce wizards. The existence of muggleborns and squibs can be explained solely by mutations (in the case of muggleborns) or them and infrequent recessive alleles hiding in generations and resurfacing in a squib.
The issue of "magic weakening due to inbreeding" suggests that there may be some genetic factors regulating an individual's skill with magic; the notion of "bringing in new blood (i.e. marrying muggleborns) strengthens the family" bears similarities with the instances of 'heterozygote superiority'. However, obtaining solid proof of such a hypothesis appears to be impossible because of the perspective from which we view the Wizarding World (i.e. the canon *cough* Rowling *cough* describes this issue rather crappily).

The magical creatures suffer a similar fate. Muggle folklore preserves tales of 'the old times' when magical creatures were much more frequent. However, due to their special properties and lack of hunting regulation, they were being exterminated up to the signing of The Statute of Secrecy, whereupon a concentrated effort has been made to hide them from muggles. Being superior in strength and what-not to their non-magical counterparts, magical creatures promptly eliminated most of 'normal' creatures inhabiting their places of hiding, creating a reverse situation to that of humans. In not-so-sentient species, however, the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium has a solid chance to work, maintaining the ratio of magical and normal animals in the protected magical reserve areas.

TL;DR. The hypothesis of a single dominant magic gene, while being questionable if fleshed out of context, becomes much more plausible in light of the fact that humans are, in fact, sentient.

Follow-up notes:

1. @Tinn Tam: were you talking about something like this when you mentioned your lost theory?
2. @everyone: feel free to tear this apart and point your accusing fingers to where I'm wrong;
3. and on a totally unrelated point: what is the difference between "magic" and "magical" as adjectives?

 

Describing Muggleborns and squibs as mutations seems inadequate to me. Mutations are random and shouldn't produce so uniform results, unless there is some cause for it.

When was magic weakening due to inbreeding or the introduction of new blood ever brought up in the books?

Textual evidence?

I'm still a bit unclear on how sentience effects genetics. Selection of partners? That alone doesn't seem to fully explain magical inheritance.

 

It does something unknown. There's no canon evidence, not even implied, not from the books, JKR's site, interviews or even the movies, to say what it is. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent. Anything we came up with would be fanon.

Personally my favourite idea is that it makes no biological or physical changes to the body, but rather does only one thing: enables to possessor to command the universe. Not through any mechanism, but just simply so. Like the power of God. No one when discussing God says "yes, but by what mechanism does God do X". It's just taken, if you accept the concept of an omnipotent (or even merely very potent) God, that it can change things by its will.

But this is an arbitrary idea no more or less valid than "the magic gene creates a new organelle in a person's cells which is a gnome production organelle, filling wizards' bodies with microscopic gnomes, who go around bringing about various changes and effects".

Because JKR brought it up.

 

Yes, mutations are random. However, we are talking about a single gene which can only be in two variants: dominant/magical or recessive/non-magical. The random mutation will probably affect some more genes; they are, however, not interesting to us.

This seems to be the main line of thought of pro-mugleborns when they dispute on pureblood supremacy. Remember the overused argument of "Draco Malfoy is just a lot of arrogance with nothing to back it up, whereas Hermione Granger/Lily Evans is thrice as good as he could ever hope to be"?

The fact that you need evidence suggests that you don't believe me. So, yes, I based this purely on my rational thoughts on the matter; can you point any actual inconsistency in the theory?

That, and the initial shift of the magic gene distribution due to killings. They also have almost no evidence in canon, however I think that the described sequence of events has a very high degree of probability. It was similar to the natural selection, only in this case the magic gene was an undesirable trait due to muggles' advantage of numbers and their violent reactions, which in the later periods were fuelled by the Church.

EDIT:
@Sesc: no, I was referring to the difference in the meaning of the two words by themselves. Is there any? Or are they just two grammatically-acceptable variants of saying the same thing?

 

Here's my theory.

This "Magic Gene" causes its bearer to emit a faint amount of "zophoid particles" around their 7th birthday. These particles are then picked up by an inhabiting Guu-drak hermit (banished by his home planet 10,000 years ago) called John who decides to investigate. Upon encountering the child he absorbs every last zophid in their body and, as gratitude (for he lives off of zophids), he grants them access to the use of his "Transmatter Engine" which is currently in orbit around the planet; hidden form earthling eyes. It's not actually magic at all, just sufficiently advanced alien technology.

This is impossible to find an answer for, it could be anything. No need arguing.

 

No it wasn't. The Order's ideology is that purity of blood plays no roll in deciding who you are, positive or negative.

Which is entirely about the individuals concerned, and not the blood.

As I understand it, the "magic gene" isn't a gene which has two allele's magic and non-magic. Rather it is a gene with a single result: magic. Or non-presence: non-magical.

Bertrand Russell's criticism of Leibniz applies here: "a fantastic fairy tale, coherent perhaps, but wholly arbitrary".

Coherence does nothing to recommend the adoption of a theory. It is something a theory must have if we are to consider it true, but coherence alone is not convincing.

There's nothing in your argument to make us believe that what you suggest is the case in the HP world.

This is a rather different question: how on the large scale, the magic "mutation" would propagate. It's mostly unrelated to the question of the mechanism of individual inheritance.

 

All right, let's drop the blood purity and inbreeding, it's relevant neither to my theory nor to the ongoing debate.

That is a good alternative theory. And, while it may be the case, we don't have any decisive arguments for either of our theories, and my one is actually closer to explaining what on earth is happening. Because, you know, I have the genetics working. According to some sources, there are about 2 mutations in every living human being. As I've explained, some of them may "flip the magic switch", so to speak. Surely we don't have so many muggleborns as to render this impossible?

Fine, I can't proclaim it a universal truth. But I created it based on what I know about the history of humankind, our psychology, and the basic facts about Wizarding World's history. Which World, if I'm not mistaken, was specifically designed by JKR to fit into our everyday reality without major inconsistecies. Given the seven-or-so books, the only way we can finally confirm any of the theories we devise here is to ask JKR herself; a positive response will effectively make such a theory a part of canon. (And if later on we find a contradiction, the simple answer of "it's magic" will only be able to patch what we've done and therefore will be much harder to accept, hehe.) So anything we'll come up with, barring the omnipotent "it's magic" excuse, will hold a certain degree of uncertainty.

The sole reason I've been pressed to incorporate the sentience and what it entails is that, if we just proclaim the magic gene a dominant (the base point of this theory), it will not fully explain the world we see in the books - namely, the muggle/wizard ratio. I've taken Rowling's path: make an easy explanation based on what we have IRL and in the canon. Of course, purely genetic model would be better, but this works too and doesn't require full-blown mathematical investigation which will be unavoidable in case of any at least barely complicated genetic model. Looks like the Occam's Razor to me.

 

Er... no, actually, Taure does have JKR on his side which is a much more valid argument than your conjecture. And the very fact that you have the genetics working means that your theory is wrong, because your genetics don't take into account magic.

There are two mutations in every muggle human being, which again doesn't take into account the fact that we are talking about a fictional, magical race of people who are different from all other humans for the sole reason that they have magic within them. Muggles have no magic because they don't have the magical gene; wizards have magic because they do have the magical gene. How hasn't this simple argument gotten through to you all?

Your very theory in the first place is just plain conjecture and even has points contradictory to JKR's earlier statements. Magic is a single gene that you have or you do not have. No one is less of a wizard or witch because of that gene's phenotype -the way it is physically expressed, but because of their own lack of will and confidence to make the magic happen. My conjecture is that their are no limitations to magic in any way besides one's own lack of will, but again that's just my own opinion.

You are thinking of dominance by comparing it to a recessive gene. Don't. The gene is, just like Taure has said a hundred times, either there or it isn't. JRK has backed this, it is canonical evidence, finished.

You have taken JKR's simple explanation and warped it based on your own, simple knowledge of modern muggle genetics that has not explored or included the changes magic would make. Looks at the step by step explanations from my earlier post and Taure's post. Figure out what we are saying before you fight it.

 

Crap. I found another contradiction for my theory This time, though, it is in Rowling's interviews.

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=19:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/harrypotter/default.aspx?sec=3:

And that means that magic gene is recessive.

I recall something like that has already been said. Now we have proof.

I went to look this up to find some evidence that would've supported either the "everpresent on/off switch" theory or the "additional magic-enabling gene" one. Sadly, the first option is now completely eliminated. Now it's a question of "how to make the additional gene work"...

@Taure & Snarf: my apologies, I was wrong.

 

Actually, you're right on this count. This means that it isn't just there or not there. It can be there and dormant, meaning that their must either be something masking it phenotypically (which seems impossible, as it's magic) or that this is magic somehow making the gene turn from dominant to recessive without any other known outside stimulus.

 

LMAO. Your 'logical' deductions are border-line farcical.

My mother says I should study atleast an hour a day. So I do it.
My mother says I should drink my own piss because it's 'healthy'. So I ... do it?

A 5 year old could come up with a better line of reasoning.

Let's say, from a hypothetical viewpoint, you're correct. Does your theory of explaining the supernatural via the supernatural take into account the new set of unknowns you're adding? Yes, I know I've said this before, but you seem to gloss over this issue in your desperation to defend canon. Since you like analogies so much, here's one for you.

Consider this:

Simulataneous equations. Nothing too fancy. X and Y should work out to be 9 and 8, respectively -- that is, if you employ elimination or substitution of one of the unknowns. Of course, in reality, magic wouldn't have a numerical solution.

What you, Taure, are essentially doing is adding another unknown (explaining the unknown with the unknown), Z, to the pair of equations that could otherwise be easily solved. Now, is that helping the cause or creating yet another dilemma? You decide.

Your favourite idea sucks hairy balls. If magic made you omnipotent, you wouldn't be limited by the laws that govern the canonic universe (eg. raising the dead). And it's not like it's a question of ability or will -- it's just that it can't be done, no matter what.

No shit, Sherlock. Fleshing out canonic evidence only leads to dead ends and contradictions.

So the magic gene is dominant? Fine ...

This must mean the magic gene is recessive [reads above] Hang on .... wtf?

Canon contradicts canon. Hence, screw canon and screw Rowling.

This leaves us with science and logical deduction to explain what canon clearly cannot. Magical genetics is out -- creates more unknowns (read above). Muggle genetics seems to be getting us nowhere -- hence, eliminated. Non-genetic scientific models aren't garnering much of a response - hence that is out as well. Which leaves us with ... nothing.

Conclusion : Magic just is. Nothing in canon or fanon provides magic with a fitting definition. So I'll go with option (2) in the poll -- Screw Rowling, magic can't be explained! -- because it seems to be the most plausible deduction.

As of yet, 75% of the voters seem to agree with this.

 

Er... that isn't the same argument form at all.

No, but it doesn't even attempt to.

And me from another thread:

The fact is that by logical process of deduction (we know it's genetic, we know it isn't Muggle genetics, thus it must be non-Muggle genetics... pretty simple really) my "unknown" has been introduced, whether you like it or not.

It isn't a matter of Occam's razor, which is merely a principle of elegance, not of truth. Occam's razor gives you a practical guide as to what kind of theory to back when you have alternative explanations for the same phenomena.

However, in this case there is only one explanation (we know it's genetic, we know it isn't Muggle genetics, thus it must be non-Muggle genetics... pretty simple really), so Occam's razor does not apply.

1. There aren't any rules to HP magic. People break them all the time. Up until DH it was impossible for a wizard to fly unaided. Until someone did so. The laws of magic are not like natural laws, in that they're only laws until someone finds out how to break them.

2. The lack of wizarding omnipotence is pretty easy to explain. Here's one explanation: Magic may be omnipotent, but to cast a spell one must will it, a mental process. And our mental process is limited by our brain. A wizard's power is limited by his mental prowess, not his magical. Basically: a wizard may have potential omnipotence, but he would need omniscience to exercise it to its maximum potential.

No. You admit yourself above: anything non-canon we come up with is fanon. And fanon is another word for "arbitrary truth-independent bullshit".

If canon contradicts canon we have two options:

1. Out of universe explanation: JKR screwed up. End of discussion.

2. In universe explanation: find some kind of idea, backed up by canon itself, that can reconcile the apparently contradictory positions.

There is no option 3: "Come up with my own bullshit and try to pass it off as what is going on in the HP world". That's for fanfiction.

 

@ e1: I'm sorry to tell you, but I don't think I've taken a look at a single one of your arguments and found that I didn't end up asking, "what the hell is this kid talking about?". Your random tries at logical deduction fail you, along with your knowledge of in-universe realities and modern-day genetics.

You argue that the two sides contradict one another. Well, what if they do? Magic contradicts itself all of the time by breaking rules usually thought impossible to break. Yeah, it was probably JKR being a fucking dipshit, but if we take both as canonical evidence then their must be some other object -that 'unknown' Taure keeps talking about- which makes up the difference between our level of understanding and what is really going on.

We've already stated that their is a contradiction, so their has to be another variable to your very simple mathematical analogy. What is it? Who the hell knows. Maybe JKR will explain it in some interview question later on. Until then, we don't have canon to support it so this argument is pretty much closed.

The fact that your side, being 'JKR sucks! Go Fanon!', is a majority population within this forum is sad. Too lazy to derive conclusions from canonical evidence, or even find that their wasn't enough canonical evidence to derive anything, everyone just slaps down the same 'FUCK JKR' reply and leaves it at that.

/sigh

How fail.

 

Frankly, all the arguing is bullshit. You can't seem to get past the mundane and look towards the mystical. You seem so preoccupied by adding physical laws to something completely magical. I haven't even read nearly all of it, but I have a simple answer: THE SOUL!

Harry received Parseltongue (a magical ability) when he received a piece of Voldemort's soul. This alone gives canon credence to the connection between souls and magic.

Souls can be physically eaten by dementors, leaving the body alive but taking all ability for thought, magic, movement, etc.

Also, when Voldemort created his new (very magically powerful) body, it didn't take anything but blood, flesh, and bone to bring him back to life. The magic was already in his soul. AND when he was in his baby body form, he was able to use Avada Kedavra. The magic was definitely already there.

Obviously, the soul is the center for magic.

Someone made an earlier point about wands choosing wizards based on their magic. I'm saying they choose them based on their souls, which is why Harry received Voldemort's brother wand.

It really is very simple. Two parents, through sex, create a little life with a soul. If the parents are magical, or if one of them is magical, then the child will probably get a soul with magical ability. They may not.

The same is true for muggleborns, but there is a lot less chance of a mundane child getting a magical soul.

Perhaps it takes certain conditions, like having magic in the air when the baby is born. Perhaps it is luck and chance. But magic has nothing to do with genes, no matter what JKR says. It just makes no sense genetically, and if it makes no sense (and it's magic) why try to make it make sense?

It's magic people.

 

Ron Weasley does not speak Parseltongue just like I don't speak French.

Oui?

Oh wait! Now that I have replicated a single word from an immense language, I should now be classified as a speaker of French.

In reality, we are given no canonical, book evidence of Albus Dumbledore's ability to speak Parseltongue. We are in fact given a glimpse into the possibility of him being capable of understanding parseltongue, which, as any learner of languages would understand, is not even close to being the same thing.

I myself can understand a lot of Spanish - if two hombres are behind me talking, I can usually get 90% of the conversation. Speaking it however? No way, Jose.

Still - that is the assumption that Dumbledore is capable of actually understanding it. There are other possibilities: he found out from someone else what the conversation was about, perhaps by using his formidable powers of legilimency on someone involved in the conversation. Perhaps through visiting the area, perhaps through knowing what eventually happens, he, through logic, arrives at the same conclusion that Morfin must be speaking of "The big house over the way".

We are given the world not through Dumbledore's eyes, but through Harry's - and half the reason the book is as successful as it is is because Harry Potter never sees what is truly happening. Meaning, his hypotheses and his thoughts are often either wrong or influenced by red herrings and miscues by other characters.

At the end of the day, there is not enough conclusive evidence to suggest that anyone save those naturally gifted can speak it.

We may however postulate that it involves heavily the soul. Perhaps the reason Dumbledore can understand this speech is because he himself came into contact with a Horcrux very intimately. We do not know the effects entirely but we do know this:

Harry Potter can speak Parseltongue because there is a piece of Voldemort's soul attached to him.

We know Ginny Weasley could speak Parseltongue to open and command the Basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because, once more, a soul piece of Voldemort's is involved.

We know Ron Weasley had a brush with a horcrux.

Does Dumbledore's ability come from his brush with Voldemort's soul? Did the lingering effect that devastated his arm and which would have claimed his life within a year regardless of Snape's actions stem from that soul still festering? Or did he retain the knowledge and insight the horcrux perhaps briefly granted him because of his superior mind?

These are all better ways of explaining what is contradictory. And that is what this is - a contradiction. If one can learn Parseltongue, if one can speak and understand it, then it must be magical - for we do not have the capability as humans to replicate the vibrations and noises required. I also think it must involve the soul - which means for this universe, the soul exists and its capabilities include passing on both the ability to do magic and whatever specific traits particular to a family or line.

It helps explain lycanthropy - which as a disease is hardly logical. Diseases can of course be passed onto children but what disease is capable of rendering a person irrational on the full moon and turning him into a creature? One that is not so much a disease but an imprint on the soul that quarrels with the nature of that person - which helps explains Fenrir's ability to distinctly ignore the trigger and conditions required to become a werewolf (yet which is not classified as a new disease or condition). He has embraced evil and has mastered that imprint.

Since Rowling so eagerly wants to use the soul, I think the soul should be the explanation for everything. It does not require much logic, it does not require us to jump through hoops to explain. There are no such thing as Muggleborns as Rowling alludes to and so therefore, if there is a wizard in the line, there is always the chance somewhere, perhaps centuries down, that a person can access that magic.

Just my rambling, I suppose. But it's better than trying to use genetics, which is not canonical but instead is from interviews. And as any good fanboy knows, interviews are often contradictory and hardly noteworthy (see: the Fidelius Charm in interviews).