“The disappearing blonde gene was a hoax claiming a scientific study had estimated that natural blonds would become extinct, repeated as fact in reputable media such as the BBC and *The Sunday Times* between 2002 and 2006.”
“The hoax claimed that, because the allele for the genes for hair colour is recessive, blond hair would become less common as people with dominant non-blond hair alleles had offspring with people with the recessive alleles, even though such a pairing would retain one copy of the blond allele in the genome of the offspring. Claims that blond hair would disappear have been made since 1865.”
I’m trying to understand *why* it’s a hoax *and* how *the reality* works. To a layman and uneducated non-expert on genes, like myself, the premise of the hoax may at least *seem* logical:
If more and more people with the **dominant blond-hair gene** have offspring with people that have a **dominant non-blond gene**, then, eventually, the blond-hair gene may still *exist* but blond-haired people will be a rarity, because the blond-hair gene will be dominated by dominant non-blond genes. I mean, wouldn’t a traditional blond-haired, blue-eyed Swede only be born through two people with the dominant blond-gene?
In: 16
If my I understanding’s of genes is correct recessive genes are just as likely to be passed on as dominant genes so there’s no real reason they would go extinct
Latest Answers