Talk:Recessive allele

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Could someone translate this to English, please?[edit]

Yes, I have read about genetics and even taken some in biology classes, but this article uses strictly jargon that makes it difficult for any but the well-versed genetic scholar to understand. Can someone please add text that informs the layman--someone who might actually want an encyclopedia to help them understand what a recessive gene is and does? Thanks. Elf | Talk 22:45, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Seconded.[edit]

Thanks.

If there are no objections I am going to move this to Recessive trait and redirect this to that as it is a more accurate term, as people have pointed out. Also this weekend I will try and expand this article. rhyax 07:39, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)


yea i dont get like any of this

Redirect to Dominance Relationships?[edit]

There is a fairly good article at dominance relationship. Since it seems nearly impossible to explain recessive traits without also explaining dominant traits, and both depend on a lot of common background info, would it make sense to redirect this page and the Dominant gene page to Dominance relationships? Or maybe these could become Lists of dominant and recessive traits.

I've begun exanding Dominance Relationships with some of the requested "translation to English"  ;). I think I do pretty well at de-jargonification, but I'm no biologist -- Rhyax, I hope you'll take a look at that one for accuracy.

Wordie 15:06, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Diagram Colors[edit]

Visual learners may benefit from changing the coloring of the Punnett square to match the graphic above. In the graphic, the color blue indicates an unaffected non-carrier, and the color red indicates an affected individual. The Punnett square's colors are the reverse. Some readers may stumble over this.

Confusing statements[edit]

This article states several times that recessive refers to phenotypes only, but recessive refers to alleles as well, hence the homozygous recessive gene pair. I think this is confusing and should be clarified. 65.118.231.33 (talk · contribs)

A trait is recessive. A gene isn't - it's just a gene. Whether the combination of genes yields one phenotype or the other depends on whether the trait is recessive or not. JFW | T@lk 20:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're splitting hairs. Plus, to say that a phenotype depends on a trait seems like a circular reference since phenotype and trait are nearly synonymous. Most geneticists would refer to alleles as dominant and recessive just as Mendel referred to dominant and recessive factors when he first figured all of this stuff out. Again, how do you explain the commonly used terminology of homozygous recessive if recessive doesn’t refer to genes? Also what you say conflicts with another entry in wikipedia. Check out the Mendelian inheritance entry.


While we are talking about confusing statements, I am not sure what this means "Every person has two copies of every gene, one from mother and one from father. If a genetic trait is recessive, a person needs to inherit two copies of the gene for the trait to be expressed." If everyperson has two copies of every gene, then why does a person need to inherit two copies? This makes no sense to me. I am sure I would understand what this meant, if I remembered my biology, but then I wouldn't have to read this in the first place.

Discuss move article to "recessive allele"[edit]

Until (if) this is merged into dominance relationship, I suggest that we move this article to recessive allele since it is the allele, and not the gene, that is recessive. dominant gene has already been moved to dominant allele. Dr d12 22:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]