Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

to think this is basic biology?

130 replies

juneybean · 07/07/2012 23:37

Just caught the back end of Million Pound drop where the question was What determines the gender? The Egg or The Sperm.

The couple in question honestly didn't know the answer and I have just asked a friend and she didn't know either.

I seriously thought it was common knowledge

OP posts:

Herrena · 08/07/2012 08:40

needlescuties I think we have the same DH! When we went for the 20-week scan with DS, the sonographer told me it was a girl. DH's family history of sons is so strong that I refused to believe her and insisted on jumping up and down so she could get a better look! DS is indeed a boy

I used to work in a cancer research lab and met someone who seemed quite surprised to learn that it's the sperm that decides sex of the foetus. She had a PhD in biology

poppy283 · 08/07/2012 08:48

Yanbu! I thought everyone knew that too. Easiest last question I've ever seen on that show.

CecilyP · 08/07/2012 08:58

YADNBU I thought it was common knowledge. I can understand how someone's brain turns to mush in a quiz show - think the weakest link - but if the 2 options are there, surely that is a reminder. As well as biology, I agree with JenaiMarr that it is likely to come up in history - Henry VIII and all that.

youarekidding · 08/07/2012 09:03

May out myself here but................

I worked with Kieren 8 years ago abroad in a hotel. I was pg with DS at the time - biological knowledge was not his strong point

Bloody amazing guy and singer tho!

DilysPrice · 08/07/2012 09:06

Just checked the DCs. DS (7 and big Horrible Science fan) was definite that it was sperm, DD(9) wavered so didn't really know.

I think it's pretty bloody ignorant not to know - if I'd have been in the office of the show I'd have vetoed that question on the grounds that it was much too easy, and surely everybody knows it.....apparently I would be wrong.

crescentmoon · 08/07/2012 09:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

holyfishnets · 08/07/2012 09:09

without reading the answer - I think it's the sperm.

Blueoctopus · 08/07/2012 09:15

I had a friend who knew the man determined the sex but thought he did it by willing it to be a boy or girl. Hmmm

kickingKcurlyC · 08/07/2012 09:15

I cannot comprehend how anyone wouldn't know this.

It's like not knowing which hemisphere we live in. Basic.

RuleBritannia · 08/07/2012 09:18

Years ago, I was told that men who produced girls were more masculine than men who produced boys! My ex was therefore not very happy to have one of each.

Gibbous · 08/07/2012 09:24

*i couldnt have told you and got double a at gcse and a at a level.

Some things people couldnt give a shit about to hold onto once the need to know it is gone. Doesn't make them thick*

This. Stupidity doesn't equal a gap in knowledge.

What's more I am astounded by the tone of the majority of posters on this thread in contrast to the tone of the majority of the posters on the grammar and spelling thread. Arguably, a reasonable knowledge of correct grammar and spelling to make oneself better understood and communication easier and more comprehensible is more important in everyday life than knowing whether the sperm or the egg carries the Y chromosome.

Tbh it may be basic biology but for some it's pretty irrelevant. I'd have probably got there eventually with a bit of prompting

Bunbaker · 08/07/2012 09:24

I didn't know either, and neither did OH (and he has a first class degree, an MBA and a PhD).

"its taught in basic science so yes it is common knowledge"

It might be nowadays and it might have been when I was at school, but I dropped biology in my third year at school (that would have been in 1973) and so did OH (and that would have been in 1966). I have forgotten an awful lot of stuff that I was taught then - Cosines and tangents, logarithms, quadratic equations anyone?

Gibbous · 08/07/2012 09:31

Besides my brain is far too busy musing on the implication of Schrodinger's cat on quantum physics, Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reasoning and the Higgs Bosonto be bothered with basic biology :o

youarekidding · 08/07/2012 09:38

I also have a friend who's an identical twin - it transpired one drunken night he didn't have a clue about the biology of how that happens. He does now.

There are many people who just accept things in life without needing to know the reasons they happen - such as the sex of a baby.

CecilyP · 08/07/2012 09:51

It is so simple and basic, I can't see how, once known, anyone could forget. It is not like, say trigonometry, where if you don't use it, you will forget. And it was taught in basic science when I was at secondary in the 1960s.

Bunbaker · 08/07/2012 09:53

Well, both OH and I obviously have forgotten. We probably subconsciously thought that it was information we didn't need later on in life.

I agree with Gibbous about the tone of some of the answers on this thread.

GnocchiNineDoors · 08/07/2012 09:54

I would say it was common knowledge.

However, I have also met NT adults who couldnt point out the UK on a world map so nothing fazes me anymore.

CecilyP · 08/07/2012 09:57

Well, I am going to show my ignorance here, but, what does NT mean?

Gibbous · 08/07/2012 09:57

It may be basic biology which some of us have either forgotten or buried deep with all the other basic but fairly irrelevant to every day stuff.

It is, however, not a barometer of intelligence. And some posters would do well to realise that.

Thumbwitch · 08/07/2012 10:40

NT = neurotypical, i.e. not apparently having any form of SN/SEN.

Gibbous · 08/07/2012 10:50

in parts of the world that have a huge preference for baby boys the man and family and community 'blame' the woman for not having sons. Because of not knowing this basic biology fact: that the sperm determined the sex of the child not the egg.

That may be true Crescent, however there is evidence to suggest that it is the conditions inside a woman's reproductive organs which determine what kind of sperm get through to the egg. I remember having a conversation with then DP about this when I was pregnant (so I did know at one point!).

Not that that is reason for blaming the woman of course.

ByTheWay1 · 08/07/2012 11:07

I knew but as it is totally irrelevant to most folks passage through life
a. I don't care and
b. why does it seem to matter so much to some folks that other folks don't know.... recall of facts which may or may not be of relevance to particular person at some arbitrary point in the future is no indication of intelligence.

LizzieMint73 · 08/07/2012 11:08

I've never watched million pound drop but I know that the answer is sperm - this is basic common knowledge surely? and I didn't even do GCSE biology

I've come to the conclusion that most people are idiots and have no idea of basic general knowledge beyond what is going on on strictly come x-factor talent shows

A recent example is that an adult woman I know had no idea that caterpillers turned into butterflies!

Gibbous · 08/07/2012 11:18

I've come to the conclusion that most people are idiots

Personally I think it is pretty idiotic to judge a person's intelligence on recall of one fact, but there you go.

Gibbous · 08/07/2012 11:22

...not to mention using it to deduce their viewing habits.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6