You inherit the gene for male pattern baldness from your mother, so you should look at your mother’s brothers, not your father, if you want to predict what you are going to look like.
False. My mom's brother was balding well before he was my age, and I have a full head of hair, like my father and his father at my age (and also now, actually). I don't pretend to know what the actual genetics of male pattern baldness are, but my family is pretty much a perfect falsification of the popular myth that it's purely derived from your mother's family (my mother's father and uncle also went bald very early).
The claim is just that the gene for this is found on the X chromosome which, if you're an XY male, you by definition got from your mom. That doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to get the gene, though, since your mom has two X chromosomes, of which you only get one (plus recombination and mutation and all that jazz). I'm not a biologist and I don't know the details of heritability for baldness (though I'd be mildly surprised if this were a trait controlled by a single gene in the first place), but "you get it from your mother's side" and "my mother's side is mostly bald and I'm not" aren't incompatible.
That may have been the original claim, but as you say, it's mildly ridiculous to think such a complex phenomenon is the result of a single gene. And that claim has since morphed into "if your mother's father is bald then you will be bald" (or some variation of that) in the popular understanding, which my anecdote does refute.
Oh, sure (and I wasn't really arguing with you--just expanding on what you said). Like I said, this isn't my area of expertise so I don't know the details of the heritability here, but I'd be more than a little surprised if it were something as simple as (say) eye color. Very, very few phenotypic traits are straightforward in that high school textbook Punnet Square way.
My maternal grandfather was totally bald by the time he was 25, and I also still have no sign of going bald at nearly 40. Genetics is complicated.
False. My mom's brother was balding well before he was my age, and I have a full head of hair, like my father and his father at my age (and also now, actually). I don't pretend to know what the actual genetics of male pattern baldness are, but my family is pretty much a perfect falsification of the popular myth that it's purely derived from your mother's family (my mother's father and uncle also went bald very early).
The claim is just that the gene for this is found on the X chromosome which, if you're an XY male, you by definition got from your mom. That doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to get the gene, though, since your mom has two X chromosomes, of which you only get one (plus recombination and mutation and all that jazz). I'm not a biologist and I don't know the details of heritability for baldness (though I'd be mildly surprised if this were a trait controlled by a single gene in the first place), but "you get it from your mother's side" and "my mother's side is mostly bald and I'm not" aren't incompatible.
That may have been the original claim, but as you say, it's mildly ridiculous to think such a complex phenomenon is the result of a single gene. And that claim has since morphed into "if your mother's father is bald then you will be bald" (or some variation of that) in the popular understanding, which my anecdote does refute.
Oh, sure (and I wasn't really arguing with you--just expanding on what you said). Like I said, this isn't my area of expertise so I don't know the details of the heritability here, but I'd be more than a little surprised if it were something as simple as (say) eye color. Very, very few phenotypic traits are straightforward in that high school textbook Punnet Square way.
My maternal grandfather was totally bald by the time he was 25, and I also still have no sign of going bald at nearly 40. Genetics is complicated.