Experts critique statistics, conclusion of autism twin study - News & Commentary - Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI)

Experts critique statistics, conclusion of autism twin study - News & Commentary - Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI):
"For example, in March, Shiva Singh's group at the University of Western Ontario analyzed the genomes of identical twins among whom only one twin has schizophrenia. Singh's team found that identical twins carry different spontaneous genetic mutations."
It is difficult for many laypeople, and even some with science backgrounds, to accept that "genetic" does not mean hereditary. I've written about this several times. Genes mutate during development of the fetus. During the first six to eight stages of development, minor errors in replication can affect all future development. Changing one cell among millions isn't so bad. Changing one cell among hundreds? That leads to potentially serious spontaneous genetic replication ("copy number variant") errors.

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