Running Head: Decision of Uncertainty Paper
Decision of Uncertainty
Introduction
At the age of 25, a woman finds out that her mother had a non-mitochondrial disorder called muscular dystrophy. She was recently married and feared telling her husband that she was a carrier. She had a daughter that is a normal child but still wanted to find out the probability that her next child will have the disease. They planned to have at least 3 or 4 kids because her husband wanted a big family. After reading a detailed article about similar disorders she found out that males usually develop the disorder because they only have 1 X chromosome. She was more relieved but more research had to be done before making her critical decision.
Research
The first step is to compile information about muscular dystrophy. In X-linked disease, the genetic defect is located on the "X" chromosome and usually affects males only (www.umdf.org). This happens because females have 2 X chromosomes - 1 each from the mother and father, whereas males only have one X Chromosome
(www.umdf.org). According to this article, the woman is at risk for passing on muscular dystrophy and would be a carrier because her mother had the genetic disease. She still doesn’t have enough information to make a decision therefore an applied concept will assist her in finding the probability. Now some of the questions she needed answered is, “What are the chances that if she had a son he will develop the disorder because she is a carrier?” “What are the chances that her next child, will develop the disorder?”
Applied Concept
The concept that would help the woman determine the probability that her next child would inherit a defective gene is Bayes’ Theorem. This concept allows us to provide quantitative reasoning. The probability of event A, given that event B has subsequently occurred, is P(A|B)= P(A)* P(B|A) / {P (A) P (B|A} +{(P (A)* P (B|A)}(...