If blue eyes are a recessive gene and green eyes are a dominant gene, why are there more people with blue eyes?
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I have eyes which are green on the outside and brown in the middle. Can anyone explain how this has happened? My dad’s eyes are basically black and mums are solid brown – neither of them have 2 colours.
Alright, kiddo! Let’s think of it like ice cream flavors:
1. Brown is like chocolate. It’s the strongest flavor and can hide others.
2. Green is like mint. It’s stronger than vanilla but not as strong as chocolate.
3. Blue is like vanilla. It’s the gentlest flavor.
Even if vanilla isn’t the strongest, it’s easier to find because of how it gets passed around. So, even though mint is stronger than vanilla, you’ll find more vanilla ice cream out there!
ARE there more people with blue eyes? i mean i believe you, i guess, but so many of the topics on here make some sort of assumption that is new to me.
Dominance is different from prevalence. Dominance means “if you already have this gene, then you have this characteristic”. But some genes are very rare, so it’s not often you get them. For example, having six fingers is dominant (polydactyly), but it’s a very rare gene. This is why you don’t often see people with six fingers in one hand, but when you do, their family members probably also have six fingers.
(Polydactyly is a common example of dominant trait. However, most human characteristics are not simple Mendelian traits. iirc the few Mendelian characteristics humans have are diseases, and the only non-disease is about ear wax)
First off, eye color in humans is not determined by a single gene. It’s much more complicated than that. But I can answer your question using an example of a human trait that *is* determined by a single gene: freckles.
The allele (gene variant) that codes freckles is actually dominant over the allele that does not. The reason that you see more people without freckles is very simple: the allele for freckles just isn’t that common in the population. Anyone who does h ave that allele will have freckles, but most people just don’t get that allele.
I think high school biology does a slight disservice in genetics teaching. So many people come out thinking a lot of our characteristics are simple to figure out, just a few inputs, with what’s dominant or recessive, and you get results.
In reality, most traits, including eye color, are more complicated than we think.
This is totally random, but my whole life I thought I had brown eyes. It wasn’t until I had my second child, and I couldn’t figure out what color her eyes were, that I realized that both my children and myself have hazel eyes! I was 29 when I found this out haha.
My ex has blue eyes and I have hazel eyes, which are I guess brown dominate, but also a bit of gray/green in them. My son has hazel with blue dominate and my daughter has hazel with green dominate. It’s sort of cool how we all have different color eyes
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