Opinions on Reptile Wobble Gene [Survey]

Hello, I'm holding a short survey to see community opinions on the wobble gene that's seen in spider ball pythons, woma ball pythons, hidden gene woma ball pythons, champagne ball pythons, powerball ball pythons, super sable ball pythons, enigma leopard geckos, and jungle carpet pythons.

The survey only takes about 5 minutes and is fully anonymous. Only 3 questions are required.
If this is breaking the community rules in any way/shape/form, I'll take it down immediately. If this isn't the right forum section, I'll move it. I put it here because it affects multiple different herps and not just BPs.

The survey is in a google form format that does not record or ask for email addresses.
It can be found here: https://forms.gle/Z1B7dUTyk2jVLa3A8

In any case, I'd love to hear your opinions on the owning or breeding of animals with the wobble gene. I was interested in the controversy when it first became big in 2017/2018, but I rarely hear about it anymore. I'd also like to hear your opinions on the survey, if the questions were fair or if it was biased or not. Just please keep the discussion civil.

I'm hoping to post the results to this same thread within a few weeks. None of this information will be redistributed to other sites.

Filled it out.

Same here.

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Originally Posted by TheWobbleGene

I'd also like to hear your opinions on the survey, if the questions were fair or if it was biased or not.

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I was unable to complete the survey. Got stuck on question: 2 and stopped.

Question 2: 'Do you support the breeding of animals with the wobble gene?'
-As mentioned previously: There are multiple genes which create wobble. The question forces the users to adopt all or no wobble genes.
'Do you support the breeding of animals with a wobble gene' would be a viable choice.

Question 2b: '...If new studies were conducted stating that these animals were negatively affected by the wobble gene, would you still support the breeding of these animals?'
-I think 'negatively affected' is too broad. I think the majority of people will agree that many of the morphs unrelated to wobble will negatively affect the quality of life of a ball python in the wild in some form.
'Negatively affects their quality of life in captivity...' would be a better choice as conditions in captivity and conditions in the wild are two separate sets of circumstances. :)

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Originally Posted by Lord Sorril

There are multiple genes which create wobble. The question forces the users to adopt all or no wobble genes.
'Do you support the breeding of animals with a wobble gene' would be a viable choice.

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I find this (https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ble-Hypothesis) hypothesis on the wobble gene very compelling, and it would imply that all wobbles in these animals are caused by mutations of the same gene with variable expressions depending on the morph. Since all of these morphs would be caused by mutations in one gene I used 'the', but since this isn't a confirmed hypothesis, I agree with you that it should be changed to 'a'.

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I think 'negatively affected' is too broad. I think the majority of people will agree that many of the morphs unrelated to wobble will negatively affect the quality of life of a ball python in the wild in some form.
'Negatively affects their quality of life in captivity...' would be a better choice as conditions in captivity and conditions in the wild are two separate sets of circumstances. :)

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If that will clear up any confusion that that question was related to health in captivity, I'll have no problem adding it.

Thank you for your feedback

Done. FYI it's not Jungle carpets but actually Jaguar.

Currently we own a spider, enigma, and a jag as pets. Only the enigma displays any sign of neurological issues. Coincidently she is also the only one of the group that has gone through shipping.

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Originally Posted by 67temp

Done. FYI it's not Jungle carpets but actually Jaguar.

Currently we own a spider, enigma, and a jag as pets. Only the enigma displays any sign of neurological issues. Coincidently she is also the only one of the group that has gone through shipping.

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Whoops, my bad. I'm surprised no one else pointed that out. I fixed it in the survey, but it looks like I can't edit the first post anymore.
Thank you for the additional information! It makes sense that the enigma shows the issues since the shipping might have stressed her out a bit.

Completed

Same here

completed (yesterday)

Completed

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Originally Posted by 67temp

Done. FYI it's not Jungle carpets but actually Jaguar.

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You beat me to it. And completed ��

May I ask who this survey is being done for, where else you may be conducting it, and what the results will be used for?

I ask as somebody who conducts surveys for academic purposes, which entails a lot of paper work and institutional review board approvals.

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Originally Posted by WrongPython

May I ask who this survey is being done for, where else you may be conducting it, and what the results will be used for?

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This started as a school project on the process of conducting primary research, but I have actually been interested in doing something like this for a while and saw this project as an opportunity to follow through.

This survey is being done for the community, as in, I just want to show the reptile keeping community the opinions of its own members, which might be hard to gage from back and forth (or one sided) discussions. While reading the spider controversy a while back on different forums, it struck me that the opinions seemingly varied greatly depending on what site you went to. I wanted to see for myself if opinions varied as greatly as they appeared to depending on the site, or if there was more to the controversy that met the eye. I also wanted to make sure that these findings were shared back to the community, because I thought others might be as curious as I was.

A copy of this survey has also been posted to the r/ballpython subreddit. I was trying to think of more than just one other site sites to post it on, but in the end, these two forums just seemed the most vocal about spider ball pythons and other animals with the wobble gene. Also, these two sites seemed to have the most differing opinions.

This isn't for any real academic purpose and I'm not using the results to come to any scientific conclusions.

The results of this survey are just going to be cleaned up, graphed, and put right back into this forum site, possibly with the comparative data from reddit.

If you have any more questions I'd be happy to answer them. (Also, conducting academic surveys sounds really interesting. I love statistics and collecting data, but I've never really been good at writing up surveys or figuring out what questions to ask)

Completed.