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Equation 5 · Part 1 · Human Evolution Did Not Stop, and Medicine Is Now Steering It

Symbol q

q=0.01q = 0.01
qq

What this part means

q is part of the quantity the equation computes from the expression on the right.

Its job in the formula

q is part of the quantity the equation computes from the expression on the right.

The passage around this formula

Set s = 1 , the theoretical maximum in which every affected embryo is detected and never implanted: for q = 0.01 , this gives qn+1q_{n+1} = qnq_n/(1+qnq_n) ≈\approx 0.009901 , a reduction of under one-tenth of one percent of the allele’s frequency in a single generation, even at total, universal, perfectly effective screening. The reason the effect is so small is structural, not a modeling artifact: for a…

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A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.

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Sources cited in the article section

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