Introduction to Genetics/Chapter 1. Introduction

Modern genetics can be divided into four main fields: quantitative genetics, classical genetics, population genetics, and molecular genetics. The following sections are a brief introduction to each of these fields, not that they are not integrated with each other and with other fields within and outside of biology. The concept of heritability is a good place to start in quantitative genetics. The connection between genotype and phenotype is used in classical genetics. Hardy-Weinberg genotype proportions introduce population genetics. And the flow of information from DNA to RNA to protein is mentioned in molecular genetics. Finally, the fields of statistics and genetics are closely connected, especially in a historical sense, and this is introduced with binomial probabilities.