Autosomal Dominant?

[Mog the Dog]

Back in 1980, my first assignment in my computer programming class was to write a program that simulated the flipping of a coin 1,000 times. The teacher told me to go back and correct my error when the outcome was 826 heads and 174 tails. I argued that the outcome was statistically possible, but he insisted there was an error. He was right. Every time I ran my program, I got the 80/20 outcome instead of the 50/50 I should have gotten.

I was diagnosed with EDS hypermobile back in 1990. After surveying the family, we have determined that it came from my mother’s mother’s side of the family. We have also determined that roughly 80% of us have at least mild symptoms.

If what we have is truly an autosomal dominant genetic disorder, why aren’t we seeing closer to the 50% we’d expect to see?

[Author]

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