Why is it a "gene pool"?
Solution 1:
According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pool, the word "pool" meaning a body of water and the word "pool" meaning an aggregation are different words with different etymologies. Wiktionary agrees: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pool#Etymology_1 and http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pool#Etymology_2.
The second etymology explains that the word comes from:
French poule ("collective stakes in a game") (The OED suggests that this may be a transferred use of poule (“hen”), which has been explained anecdotally as deriving from an old informal betting game in France - 'jeu de poule' - Game of Chicken (or Hen, literally) in which poule became synonymous with the combined money pot claimed by the winner)
I suspect that the gambling analogy came about because of the random manner in which genes are passed from parent to offspring in sexual reproduction. Collectively, a species has some repertoire of genes to which all parents contribute, and from which all offspring take.
Solution 2:
I think that the expression refers to the genetic heritage that gene pools carry with them which is responsible for our present and future development. An essential resource for human life.
Gene pool:( from www.biology-online.org)
(population genetics)
The total number of genes of every individual in an interbreeding Population
- Gene pool gives an idea of the number of genes, the variety of genes and the type of genes existing in a population. It can be used to help determine gene frequencies or the ratio between different types of genes in a population.
Word origin: gene: from G genea, generation, race + pool: Middle English, from Old English pōl.
Pool: (from TFD)
Any combination of resources which serves a common purpose.
A grouping of resources for the common advantage of the participants: a pool of implements for the use of all the workers on the estate; forming a pool of our talents.
Pool: (from Etymonline)
- Meaning "collective stakes" in betting first recorded 1869; sense of "common reservoir of resources" is from 1917.
An alternative metaphorical meaning of pool in this context (in the sense of pool of liquid) is suggested by Richard Dawkins in The Ancestor's Tale:
- "The very idea of a gene pool has no meaning if there is no sex. 'Gene Pool' is a persuasive metaphor because the genes of a sexual population are being continually mixed and diffused, as if in a liquid. Bring in the time dimension, and the pool becomes a river, flowing through geological time..."
As for an early usage of the terms 'gene pool' according to the following source:
- Theodosius Dobzhansky was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology. ( from Wikipedia)
- In 1937, he published one of the major works of the modern evolutionary synthesis, the synthesis of evolutionary biology with genetics, entitled Genetics and the Origin of Species, which amongst other things, defined evolution as "a change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool". Dobzhansky's work was instrumental in spreading the idea that it is through mutations in genes that natural selection takes place.
Solution 3:
A "pool" just means a collection of things.
It simply comes form the french "poule" which just means like "collection", "box with money in it", "the money in the middle when gambling"
The only use of the word "pool" in English is for things like that .. a "pool" of programmers (you have ten programmers, available for work), a "pool" or horses (you have ten of them, available for work), a "pool" of money in various situations, etc.
So, it's discrete different things, where you can choose one of them to use.
As I mentioned above, someone recently mentioned to me their "pool" of available babysitters (so, there are 5 teenage girls in the local high school who are that "pool".)
Incredibly someone just mentioned: they search a carpenter in the town. There is only "a pool of five or six carpenters ..." available in the town.
You often talk about the "pool" of available husbands (or wives) in a given town, and so on.
Another one, looking over at the programming SO site, you often hear a "pool of techniques" to choose from, so, how do you do a swipe or whatever in iOS, there's a "pool" of approaches you can use there, different engineering approaches.
Note that a couple people have mentioned "car-pool". As I understand it, a car-pool is when you have a pool of cars, say ten cars, and you can use one or the other. That would be because "pool" means "collection of things".
BTW M-L, you seem to speak English almost perfectly, I'm totally surprised you have not used/heard this very common word? (I am a Native English Speaker, although very drunk.)
(If future readers are thinking of the word "pool" - like swimming pool - that is utterly unrelated.)
TO save anyone googling "who coined 'gene pool'" ...
"It is worth noting that Dobzhansky's early allegiance was with Filipchenko, not with Serebrovskii.6 Yet it was Serebrovskii who originally coined the term 'gene fund' ('genofond', Serebrovskii 1926) and Serebrovskii's use of that term that appears to have led Dobzhansky, by a long and ironic pathway, to coin the English term 'gene pool' in 1950 (Dobzhansky 1950; Adams 1979)."
From the paper:
"DOBZHANSKY ON EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS: Some Questions about Dobzhansky's Russian Background Richard M. Burian Department of Philosophy Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061-0126 December, 1990 Submission Draft. Published in M. Adams (ed.), The Evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. 129-140." ... "Internet URL" .. try .. this long one
Solution 4:
According to Wikipedia carpooling originated in WWII, and with a 1946 date for gene-pool, the possible source is suggestive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpool ...and hey, we all know the genetic shenanigans that go on in the back seats of cars! =]