How and why do children tend to have a skin color pigment in between their parents rather than one or the other?
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This is an oversimplification.
Every gene in your body is inherited from either your mother or your father. Think of it as being like a big negotiation between your mother’s DNA and your father’s.
“I’m going to give him TYR and SLC45A2, and you can give him TYRP1, ASIP, and MC1R.”
“Oh HELL no, you’re not giving him SLC45A2, do you want him to look like a circus freak? No, I’m giving him that. But YOU should give him KITLG, IRF4, and TPCN2. They combine to make your best feature, the one I fell in love with.”
“You mean my huuuuge – “
“Kids are reading.”
“Eyebrows?”
There are about a dozen genes that dictate pigmentation – in the eyes, the skin, the hair, and how well you tan. Most likely, you well get half to two-thirds from one parent and the rest from the other.
In the vastness of human history there have, without doubt, pairs of siblings where one got all twelve from their father, and the other got all of theirs from their mother.
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