Okay.

[kiya]

The article suggesting that natural blondes are being outcompeted by bottle blondes and thus are going to be disappearing from the breeding population (because, you see, men really prefer bottle blondes and women have no volition in theories like this) was bad enough on the irritating pseudoscientific drivel front.

The reply comment saying that "recessive" is not a random designator, but in fact means "disappearing from the population" makes me want to bang-head-on-wall-a-lot. Alleles, people, alleles!

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Why is it my lot in life to exasperatedly explain basic genetics to people on usenet?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Why bother?

[tiassa]

There's just always this constant, overly idealistic hope that the next time they'll understand. That the light will turn on in their otherwise-empty little brains and they'll stop making an idiot of themselves online.

It never happens, of course, but it might! Someday!

[brooksmoses]

Also, the little constant overly-idealistic belief that such things shouldn't be left uncorrected because someone else might read them and believe them....

No way to tell if that one happens or not, as far as I know.

- Brooks

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, it happens. I can't attest to the spread of misinformation about genetics, but I've seen misspellings propagate.

You see, I read fanfiction. I have done so for year, and in several different fandoms. After a while, I noticed that certain fandoms had distinctive spelling and usage errors. Once two or three people in a small, incestuous online community share the same error, the behavior gets reinforced. Then it starts spreading to others.

The only effective countermeasure I have seen is for the community to maintain a corps of pedants, ready to correct any errors before they spread. These pedants must be strong-minded individuals, because they will meet with great resistance. They will be accused of intolerance, inhumanity, and discrimination. They will be informed that the misspelling is actually proper usage. They will be called "smarmy and self-important." (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/265/focus/Pidgin_droppings+.shtml)

They will also be called heroes.

[kiya]

. . . oh dear. I have a suspicion that that's cheshyre in that article . . .