What is heredity? Does this affect you in anyway?

Question

My science teacher gave us a Science Question of the week and we are suppose to find the answer, in abook, on line, we can ask somebody aswell.

Answer 1

Heredity is the genetic code you inherited in your DNA from your parents. It determines all of your physical characteristics, along with a number of other "programs" that are locked within your body (for example, some people are more genetically predisposed to certain illnesses). So yes, heredity does have a big influence on your life.

Answer 2

It was apparent to ancient humans that offsprings resembled their parents. For example, Genesis 30-46 tells how Jacob and Laban split their sheep into white and speckled varieties so they could distinguish the two to ensure none were later stolen. Although it was clear that traits were hereditary, the precise mechanism of heredity was not clear.[1]

The Greek philosophers had a variety of ideas about heredity: Theophrastus proposed that male flowers caused female flowers to ripen; Hippocrates speculated that "seeds" were produced by various body parts and transmitted to offspring at the time of conception, and Aristotle thought that male and female semen mixed at conception. Aeschylus, in 458 BC, proposed the male as the parent, with the female as a "nurse for the young life sown within her".

Various hereditary mechanisms were envisaged without being properly tested or quantified. These included blending inheritance and the inheritance of acquired traits. Nevertheless, people were able to develop domestic breeds of animals as well as crops through artificial selection. The inheritance of acquired traits also formed a part of early Lamarckian ideas on evolution.

During the 1700s, Dutch microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) discovered "animalcules" in the sperm of humans and other animals. Some scientists speculated they saw a "little man" (homunculus) inside each sperm. These scientists formed a school of thought known as the "spermists". They contended the only contributions of the female to the next generation were the womb in which the homunculus grew, and prenatal influences of the womb. An opposing school of thought, the ovists, believed that the future human was in the egg, and that sperm merely stimulated the growth of the egg. Ovists thought women carried eggs containing boy and girl children, and that the gender of the offspring was determined well before conception.

Pangenesis was an idea that males and females formed "pangenes" in every organ. These pangenes subsequently moved through their blood to the genitals and then to the children. The concept originated with the ancient Greeks and influenced biology until little over 100 years ago. The terms "blood relative", "full-blooded", and "royal blood" are relicts of pangenesis. Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's cousin, experimentally tested and disproved pangenesis during the 1870s.

Charles Darwin proposed a theory of evolution in 1859 and one of its major problems was the lack of an underlying mechanism for heredity. Darwin believed in a mix of blending inheritance and the inheritance of acquired traits (pangenesis). Blending inheritance would lead to uniformity across populations in only a few generations and thus would remove variation from a population on which natural selection could act. This led to Darwin adopting some Lamarckian ideas in later editions of The Origin and his later biological works. Darwin's primary approach to heredity was to outline how it appeared to work (noticing that traits could be inherited which were not expressed explicitly in the parent at the time of reproduction, that certain traits could be sex-linked, etc.) rather than suggesting mechanisms.

Darwin's initial model of heredity was adopted by, and then heavily modified by, his cousin Francis Galton, who laid the framework for the biometric school of heredity. Galton rejected the aspects of Darwin's pangenesis model which relied on acquired traits.

Answer 3

"In biology, heredity refers to the transfer of biological characteristics from a parent organism to offspring, and is practically a synonym for genetics, as genes are now recognized as the carriers of biological information. In humans, defining which characteristics of a final person are due to heredity and which are due to environmental influences is often controversial especially regarding complex traits such as intelligence and race. (See also the nature versus nurture debate.)"

This, and more on heredity, from Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heredity

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

heredity are the genes we get 'handed 'down from our biological parents and they can affect your future in life .
predominantly it's a health issue which will be the most significant situation that may affect your health , i.e mental health , heart disease , cancer and so on . if you know of any family disorders through heredity , it can benefit you no end to improve , or , combat any health issues that may arise in your life time and that of any future generations .

Answer 5

The passing on of physical and metabolic traits from generation to
generation by means of genes is heridity.
Your eye color, attached ear lobes, curly hair, ability to digest foods,
even things like muscles and skin are inherited. That is if you did not "inherit" the genes for these things from your parents you would not have them.

Answer 6

Its the traits you have from your parents.... or grandparents.....from your timeline...