How a kids’ novel inspired me to simulate a gene drive on 86 million genealogy profiles
I read a novel where the rules for inheriting witchcraft resembles the real-world gene drive, so I developed a simulation and queried 86 million genealogy profiles to see how witchcraft would spread in real life.
Hasnain says:
“Seriously, though, there’s one common theme to everything in this article: test your assumptions.
I assumed that exponential growth should apply to the witchcraft population in the Kat books. So I tested that assumption with models, and concluded that this applies… in certain conditions
Unckless’s formulas assumed that the Selection Coefficient is low. Because I violated the assumption, I made a simulation to find how the formula would fail.
I assumed that indexes in SQL databases magically speeds things up. I tested it out, and it slowed things down instead.
I assumed that a genealogy database is a good way to track a person’s descendants. After I analyzed the data, it became clear that it doesn’t. I came up with a new set of assumptions to explain why, but now I’m looking for ways to challenge those new assumptions.
I assume that people want to read about kids’ books, population genetics, and PostgreSQL in the same article. The jury’s still out on this one ;)”