Title: The difference between genetic and hereditary | Evolutionary Biology
Headings: The difference between genetic and hereditary
The difference between genetic and hereditary
Content: The adjective genetic refers to a trait or a feature determined, directly or indirectly, by the organism’s genes, and phenotypically perceptible because of the occurrence of those gene’s protein products or the activity of these protein products in a given environment. Once the genes come (usually, but not always…) from parents, saying that the number of fingers is a genetic trait (determined by genes) means that such a trait is passed from parents to progeny, since children’s genes come from their parents. But this doesn’t allow us to conclude that everything that is transmitted from parents to offspring is genetic. In my opinion, the adjective hereditary will fulfil this role. Hereditary is what is passed from one generation to another. A Venn diagram showing the relation between hereditary and genetic. Although the vast majority of hereditary characteristics are genetic, and vice versa, when confronting the definitions of genetic and hereditary we easily perceive the non overlapping areas. For example, the language we speak is clearly transmitted hereditarily: I learnt to speak my language by listening to my ancestors, and my descendants will learn it by listening to me. But it would be absurd to say that the language we speak is genetic!