One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes
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People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.
A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there were no blue eyes.
“Originally, we all had brown eyes,” said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.
The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin.
“A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes,” Eiberg said.
The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.
{snip}
Baby blues
Eiberg and his team examined DNA from mitochondria, the cells’ energy-making structures, of blue-eyed individuals in countries including Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. This genetic material comes from females, so it can trace maternal lineages.
They specifically looked at sequences of DNA on the OCA2 gene and the genetic mutation associated with turning down melanin production.
{snip}
Melanin switch
The mutation is what regulates the OCA2 switch for melanin production. And depending on the amount of melanin in the iris, a person can end up with eye color ranging from brown to green. Brown-eyed individuals have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production. But they found that blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes.
{snip}
“From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” Eiberg said. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Eiberg and his colleagues detailed their study in the Jan. 3 online edition of the journal Human Genetics.
{snip}
“The question really is, ‘Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?” Hawks said. “This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.”
(Posted on January 31, 2008)
Comments
Being a green-eyed person, I wonder where “green eyes” fit into this?
And it’s a shame with all the promotion of the “melting pot person” that, in the near future when the entire world’s population is reduced to multiple shades of “brown”, the blue-eye gene is going to go the way of the dinosaurs…
Posted by Obscuratus at 5:59 PM on January 31
An interesting study. However, it does not explain variance within families. My sister has blue eyes, yet I do not. Both of my daughters have blue eyes as their mother does as well. Is there anyone here knowledgeable about Mendelian genetic odds?
Posted by JJ Björnsson at 6:20 PM on January 31
Could this possibly be one explanation why the Mormons and the
Amish — basically descended from northwestern Europeans — tend to have larger families, sometimes much larger, than most Whites nowadays?
I know, I know, their respective religions encourage large families. But I wonder if there could be a genetic component also. It would be worth studying, wouldn’t it? After all, the modest recovery of White birth rates in Europe in the past few years has been mostly in Scandinavia and Britain, hasn’t it?
Posted by Wayne Engle at 6:25 PM on January 31
Brigitte Bardot has brown eyes.
Posted by PBL at 6:48 PM on January 31
Almost all Caucasian babies have blue eyes at birth. How do they explain that?
Posted by at 6:57 PM on January 31
“From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” Eiberg said.
Japheth’s wife, maybe??
“The question really is, ‘Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?” Hawks said. “This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.”
I find myself more attracted to blue-eyed women, for some reason. I guess I’m not the only one.
Posted by Brendan at 7:02 PM on January 31
I (heart) Bridget Bardot. It is good to know I am related to her because of my blue eyes.
Posted by flyingtiger at 7:33 PM on January 31
Hawks said. “This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.”
I planned on having a large family to begin with, so I suppose this is only luck.
Posted by Guillaume at 7:33 PM on January 31
My little gray cat has blue eyes. Did she have a common ancestor too?
Personally, with all these academics steeped in leftist ideology, I wonder whether anything they declare as a “discovery” isn’t just an attempt to promote their perverted asgenda with doctored evidence based in nonsense.
Sorry, but when they came out against Dr. Watson, they lost ALL CREDIBILITY with me. It was the final straw, added to everything else.
They revealed that their true concerns ARE NOT in advancing science, but in promoting a social agenda.
Everything about academia today and those connected to it is a bald face lie.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 7:35 PM on January 31
A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there were no blue eyes.
key word here is “genetic mutation”
Posted by tan is grand at 7:53 PM on January 31
I have hazel eyes but I am the product of one blue-eyed parent and one green-eyed parent. So, how is this related to me? Can someone please investigate the origination of hazel and green eyes so we don’t feel left out?
Posted by GetBackJack at 7:59 PM on January 31
WE,
Larger families prevalent amongst Amish and Mormon folk may be influenced more by culture than genetics. Both groups - especially the Amish - are deeply committed to faith-based community. Therefore they tend not to embrace the “world” which is to say Western popular culture as it is today: a smoldering trash heap upon the face of the earth. Rejecting manufactured culture - e.g., media/gov’t directed ways of thinking/behaving - is the surest way to restore the importance of family life.
Posted by None at 8:21 PM on January 31
I have blue eyes but I am not related to Frank Sinatra. (Unless Ma has been holding something back from me!)
I have a Welsh/Scots-Irish background.
The statement herein that all blue-eyed people of Northern Europe share just one common ancester in itself is valid. But that may not be the only possibilty.
There may be multible common ancesters…certainly not a large number…but certainly more than one. If the mutation occured in one area with one woman, it could also have occured in other areas with other women. At more or less the same time.
One occurance could take place in Sweden with one woman. One hundred and fifty tears later, it could have occured with a woman in the Po River Valley of Northern Italy. Nine hundred years later it could have occured again with a woman in France. And so forth.
It has been my understanding that the gene for blue eyes is dominant. As such, the first mutations could have occured in men, then passed on when they mated with women. I would think it would come down on both the male and female sides.
At a minimum, the mutation did occur for one, two or three possible reasons. One reason could be environmental factors. A Second reason could be survival factors. A Third reason could be due to random errors in cell division. I understand that as we age, the chance of errors occuring in cell division within our bodies increases. Each cell can replicate X number of times. It is a finite number. As the cell nears the end of the progression, the likelyhood increases of random error.
If item Three is correct, we should be seeing this occur even today. In populations in China, in populations in Africa. Albinos occur in all populations I think. The same should be true of large black populations not exposed to Northern European gene pools. But if we cannot find it occuring at random in black poulations in Africa, maybe item Three is not the cause.
Normally I think environmental deals with pollution and the like. Ten thousand years ago I would expect the planet to be ‘clean’ environmentally. Floods, volcanos etc. would be the norm but not polluting in the sense that I understand the term today. As floods etc. are more or less uniform around the planet, then the mutation should be uniformly distributed around the planet, both geographically and on a time line. But apparently, that is not the case.
Leaving item Two, survival. I would look on the visible light spectrum. I have a pair of ‘Preditor’ glasses. They work on the lower end of the visible light spectrum. In Viet Nam they were used for surveillance. If the enemy had a camo position, the viewer use the glasses to find it. With normal vision, the position did not stand out. The glasses shift the normal jungle greens up, becoming brown. It deals with the fact that chorophil (sp) is present in the green, leaves and such. But the man-made camo doesnt shift up as it has no cholorphil. It appears to be black.
There is much jungle (green) in Africa. There is much forest (green)in Scandinavia. But the green is different. More snow and ice in the top of the world than Africa. I would think those colours are on the higher end of the visible light spectrum. If true, should we expect penguins in Antarctica to have blue eyes? I have no idea. But the birds would come in contact with saltwater where humans would have less contact. If no blue-eyed birds, perhaps that is a reason.
If just one female ancester, then her issue must have won the survival lottery. The high rates of loss of children back then would work against the mutation surviving and spreading. When I think of the odds against its survival, I find it quite amazing.
Posted by RonPaulforPresidentNOW at 8:37 PM on January 31
How do blue eyes cause Europeans to have more babies? (other than better Vitamin D absorption)
Posted by at 8:46 PM on January 31
“Hawks said. ‘This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.’ “
That is a poorly-worded sentence that indicates the essence of a group’s success is having more kids. It’s the ones that survive that count.
Posted by White Gene at 8:57 PM on January 31
Since they have located the loci for this, then they should be able to isolate or synthesis the protein(s) involved. Then, they can make BILLIONS selling this to all the Africans and Asians who are dying to have blue eyes.
Who do you think is buying all these Acuvue and Freshlook Color Contacts?
It doesn’t do us any good (if this is to have more babies) when the father is named Obama.
Posted by LOGIC at 9:08 PM on January 31
I doubt it. I’m half Sioux indian, and I have full-blooded Native American cousins who are born with blond hair, though they all have had their hair color turn black. Further more, one of my nephews who should have brown eyes, ended up with grey ones. It’s not just white people.
Posted by Survivor99 at 9:25 PM on January 31
Let’s see now….my mother was blue eyed (so was her mom) and dad had brown eyes….I have hazel eyes as does one sister and one brother…two other sisters have blue eyes…and one other brother has green eyes….none of us kids had dad’s brown eyes….so there ya go…I have no common ancestor??? I’m confused…LMAO!!
Posted by lydia at 10:09 PM on January 31
What puzzles me is how East Asians and Europeans look so different, even though the climate of northern Europe is similar to the climate in nothern Asia. You’d think there would at least be some Chinese or Mongolians with round eyes, if not blue eyes, or that at least some of them would have lighter hair. But they don’t, unless they’re of mixed ancestry.
Posted by at 10:52 PM on January 31
Hmmmm … All blue-eyed people have a common ancestor, huh?
What about the brown-eyed people related to the blue-eyed people?
Me (brown eyes) = brown eyed Mom + blue-eyed Dad …
Plus three out of four grandparents—blue-eyed …
All but one great-grandparent—blue-eyed …
Maybe we all share the same ancestor regardless of eye-color, no?
Posted by kitty at 11:00 PM on January 31
For those wanting to know, the simplest gene model for eye color currently is thus (I’m going to assume you remember from biology that we have two copies of each chromosome and therefore two “alleles” for each “gene”):
There are three genes (six alleles). The possible alleles are brown and blue. You need six blue alleles to have blue eyes. One brown and five blue alleles gives you green eyes. Two brown and four blue alleles will give you light brown eyes. And so on and so forth, the more brown alleles you have the darker your eyes get to a maximum of six (basically black eyes).
This is why you green eyes parents can have blue eyed children. Because they got a blue allele from you and a blue allele from your spouse.
But you can also have green eyed children. For example myself, my mom has green eyes, my dad has blue. I got my mom’s brown allele and my dad’s blue allele.
The problem with this model—it does not explain weirder stuff like grey eyes, hazel eyes, heterochromatism, etc. etc. For that you need more genes and it gets more complicated and research is still being done.
Basically European populations are the only population with significant frequencies of the blue allele. Other populations have some of it floating around, enough to give them a blue eyed or green eyed individual once in a while (1 in 1,000,000). Think: Memoirs of a Geisha or National Geographic Afghani girl.
Posted by Andrew at 11:29 PM on January 31
“What puzzles me is how East Asians and Europeans look so different, even though the climate of northern Europe is similar to the climate in nothern Asia.”
Actually, East Asians look like a mix of whites and shorter/darker Southeast Asians
Posted by at 1:54 AM on February 1
Hey “tan is grand,” everything in human heredity is a matter of mutations; we are far from the root of the primate evolutionary tree.
Amren is just one of the few places which allows open debate about which mutations are preferable.
Posted by pbl at 2:34 AM on February 1
All humans do, in fact, have a common ancestor. If you go further back, all animals have a common ancestor, too.
An earlier poster speculated on three possible reasons why the mutation happened: (1) environmental factors, (2) survival factors, and (3) random errors.
The third one is correct. Genetic mutations are always simply errors. Usually these errors are either harmful or irrelevant. The rare beneficial ones can spread quickly and widely through the population because they provide an advantage to the individuals in which they appear. Those individuals tend to live longer and more healthily and, therefore, have more descendants.
Another poster wrote that blue eyes are dominant. I believe that is incorrect.
Posted by Randall at 2:37 AM on February 1
This sounds ridiculous. What KIND of blue eyes? There are many shades of blue eyes. And who even cares? I’m more in favor of the poster who said there could have been many mutations. My cousins, brothers, and I all have DIFFERENT shades of blue eyes, and there are shades of green and yellow in some of our eyes, although I wouldn’t call them hazel.
Posted by at 2:44 AM on February 1
I didn’t draw any good or bad meaning from this article, I just thought it was interesting that all people carrying the blue eye gene are related (family) to a degree.
Too answer JJs question in a simple way there are 2 genes that determine eye colour. You are only guaranteed blue eyes if both parents carry blue blue genes.
Posted by Kurt at 2:55 AM on February 1
All eye color genes are either blue or brown. Eye colors other than blue or brown are caused by partial dominance.
Thus, all people with eye colors other than brown have the blue eye gene and have the common blue-eyed ancestor. A lot of brown-eyed people have the ancestor, too, since the blue eye gene is recessive and it’s possible to carry it while having brown eyes.
Posted by qwerty at 3:06 AM on February 1
The gene for blue eyes is recessive . To have blue eyes you must have the same gene from both parents. If you get one blue eye gene and one brown eye gene you will have brown eyes. I have no idea why having blue eyes would cause one to have more children unless women find blue eyed men more attractive and they have increased mating opportunity.
Posted by at 3:58 AM on February 1
Blue eyes are recessive.
The brown or green-eyed persons may be carriers of one copy brown/green and one copy of a blue-eye gene (heterozygotes), and the gene is then expressed in their progeny (1 blue : 3 brown when they marry another heterozygote, or 1 :1 if they marry a blue-eyed partner).
Posted by EW at 5:08 AM on February 1
Surely the simplest explanation is that blue eyes have been regarded as more attractive?
Brown is not a striking colour and is common in the natural world. Blue is regarded as striking. Pure blue is rare in the natural world, apart from the sky of course, which is not a “thing” and therefore regarded in a rather different way. Gardeners often regard blue flowers as especially desirable due to their comparative rarity. Blue jewels, minerals and paints were very precious in times before synthetic dyes.
Given this, a blue-eyed person in a brown-eyed population could be regarded as more attractive and have more children.
Posted by Ed at 7:18 AM on February 1
I doubt that all have a single blue eyed ancestor. Even in the central part of Africa and among the pure blooded natives of Papua New Guinea there are very black people with dark blue eyes.
My northern european ancestry gave me eyes that change from very dark brown to light brown to yellowish to yellow green to dark green depending upon how long I have been in bright light and my mood. At no time do I have blue eyes.
But my wife has eyes that change from very light grey to sky blues to grass green. All here parents,grandparents and great grand parents were blue eyed except one who had light blue grey eyes.
So explain that.
Posted by Oldman at 8:33 AM on February 1
People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.
Yeah, his name is ADAM.
The Hebrew word for Adam is ‘aw-dawm’. Strong’s concordance, one of the standard reference works on the subject, clearly points out that the word means ‘fair, ruddy (of face or hair) able to blush.’
Caucasoid humanity is descended from this Adam of God. Any other option is merely heretical muticlturalist idolotry.
Posted by Fr. John at 9:43 AM on February 1
That’s propaganda, it’s what those Marxists always claim, namely that Europeans are no own race, but mutated mongrels! I for example have gray blue (Germanic blue meets Celtic blue) green eye’s, how to explain that with this theory? Thesis failed!
Posted by Skeptikos at 10:13 AM on February 1
“What puzzles me is how East Asians and Europeans look so different, even though the climate of northern Europe is similar to the climate in nothern Asia.”
Actually, East Asians look like a mix of whites and shorter/darker Southeast Asians
Posted by at 1:54 AM on February 1
Actually Southeast Asians look like a mix of North East Asians and Indians.
Posted by at 2:05 PM on February 1
Eiberg and his team examined DNA from mitochondria, the cells’ energy-making structures, of blue-eyed individuals in countries including Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. This genetic material comes from females, so it can trace maternal lineages.
They specifically looked at sequences of DNA on the OCA2 gene and the genetic mutation associated with turning down melanin production.
Okay, some biologist has to help me out on this one. How could a gene for melanin be in mitochondrial DNA? Mitochondria have their own DNA distinct from nuclear DNA because a couple billion years ago when eukaryotes were the the new kids on the block mitochondria were actually symbiotic bacteria living inside other cells. Most of their genes eventually migrated to the nucleus, the remaining mitochondrial DNA codes for proteins that can not be readily transported into the mitochondria. But the bottom line is that mitochondrial DNA should only code for proteins used by the mitochondria. Is melanin such a protein? That seems unlikely to me. Also blue eyes exhibit classic recessive Mendelian inheritance, and that wouldn’t be the case for mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only through the maternal line.
Posted by WR the elder at 3:13 PM on February 1
The lyrics to this song recently hit home…is this about what I think it is?
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free
No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free
When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool
If I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
If I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
Posted by at 6:48 PM on February 1
“Actually, East Asians look like a mix of whites and shorter/darker Southeast Asians”
The only real distinguishing feature that I see between East Asians and Southeast is the skin color. East Asians tend to have a pale yellow tone while the other is a light brown. I don’t see any resemblance to Caucasians at all with maybe the exception of the Ainu.
Posted by at 8:59 PM on February 1
How about violet eyes? Same category as blue eyes?
Posted by Violet at 4:08 AM on February 2
My little gray cat has blue eyes. Did she have a common ancestor too?
Personally, with all these academics steeped in leftist ideology, I wonder whether anything they declare as a “discovery” isn’t just an attempt to promote their perverted agenda with doctored evidence based in nonsense. …their true concerns ARE NOT in advancing science, but in promoting a social agenda.” R.Kelly
…………….
I believe Mr. Kelly is absolutely right about this. When reading the article, It struck me that this is just another social engineering attempt to convince us that we are all one and that we are all really the same beneath the skin —- but for some minor, insignificant details about skin or eye color. As they like to say, “There is only one race — the human race.” I also question that suspiciously short time-line too. I don’t believe it.
As for his claim that blue eyes have more children, I suspect that was a tongue-in-cheek remark implying that lighter eyes are found more attractive by potential mates, and thus maybe once tended to have greater reproductive success (if ever they did, that is). But that was, at best, long ago and certainly does not apply today. If it did, how would he explain the tremendous birth rates of black Africans, Mexicans, Arabs, East Indians, etc? All present-day evidence very clearly contradicts the notion.
Posted by ghw at 10:51 PM on February 2
I have on occasion thought I noticed in certain Nordics(supposedly I am one back up the line ) , not the actual eyefold itself but something very similar that I can’t really identify . But it is the eyes . My own two children who were very blond when little always looked like little blond Eskimos to me . Admittedly they did have a Cherokee grandmother or two somewhere back there . But then I don’t see the eyefold in a lot of the Cherokee . For lack of a better term I’ll call it the look . Boris Yeltsin had it , the blond singer for ABBA , I think her name is Agnetha ? She has it , more when she was very young than now , but she does have it .
Posted by at 2:29 AM on February 3
“I noticed in certain Nordics(supposedly I am one back up the line ) , not the actual eyefold itself but something very similar that I can’t really identify . But it is the eyes.”
I know what you mean. I have long noticed that too among some very blond Swedes. Mai Britt (Sammy Davis’ wife) had it. Some Irish do too. My grandmother (Irish) had it. I suspect there is some very ancient element present there.
Posted by at 5:29 PM on February 3
As for his claim that blue eyes have more children, I suspect that was a tongue-in-cheek remark implying that lighter eyes are found more attractive by potential mates, and thus maybe once tended to have greater reproductive success (if ever they did, that is). But that was, at best, long ago and certainly does not apply today. If it did, how would he explain the tremendous birth rates of black Africans, Mexicans, Arabs, East Indians, etc?
In a homogeneous WHITE society blue eyes may certainly have an advantage over brown eyes in terms of attractiveness and hence sexual selection.
Non-whites with dark eyes in homogeneous non-white societies do not have competition from blue eyes - hence your point is moot.
Posted by at 8:56 PM on February 3
But then I don’t see the eyefold in a lot of the Cherokee . For lack of a better term I’ll call it the look . Boris Yeltsin had it , the blond singer for ABBA , I think her name is Agnetha ?
Interesting observation. Also Yeltsin’s wife looks like she could be of somewhat dubious racial heritage.
Have a look Russian general Alexander Lebed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Evstafiev-general-alexander-lebed17oct96.jpg
Mongol genes are apparent - even after many centuries. All the more reason why Americans MUST oppose ANY form of race-mixing with Asians.
Posted by matthew j at 9:31 PM on February 3
I believe the genetic basis behind eye color is still far from being understood. My family: blue eyed father, green eyed mother. Three blue eyed children, two hazel. I have the darkest of the hazel eyes— described as brown on my driver’s license. My eyes are darker than either parent, yet I am definitely my father’s blond child.
My son, who is 9 months, has gray eyes. His father also has gray.
My murky swampy eyes did not prevent him from having a child with me…
I find that the people who ascribe to the idea of blue eyes being superior and more attractive often have blue eyes themselves. Perhaps visual acuity and absense of cataracts and glaucoma should be considered more important than eye color.
Posted by JMT at 9:47 PM on February 3
The blue eyed gene is recessive. If you have blue eyes, you do not carry a brown eyed gene to pass on - both genes are blue. If you have brown eyes - you could have one btown eyed gene and one blue eyed gene. Conceivably, you could marry a brown eyed mate, who also had one brown eyed gene and one blue eyed gene. Your children could have blue eyes. That would mean they inherited one gene from you - the blue one and one gene from your mate - blue. They could only have blue eyes if both genes were blue. Two blue eyed people can’t produce a child with brown eyes.
Posted by at 9:18 AM on February 4
“that lighter eyes are found more attractive by potential mates, and thus maybe once tended to have greater reproductive success (if ever they did). But that was, at best, long ago and certainly does not apply today.”
“In a homogeneous WHITE society blue eyes may certainly have an advantage over brown eyes in terms of attractiveness and hence sexual selection.”
Posted by at 8:56 PM
……………………………………….
I’m uncertain just how homogeneous that theoretical white society, to which you refer, would be. In some very homogenous ones, such as Denmark, blue eyes are so common that they mean nothing at all. I recall reading (long ago) a novel or story by some Danish author [Isak Dinesen?] in which the heroine, or seductress, of the tale was presented as a ravishing dark-eyed Spanish beauty with jet black hair, a sort-of Carmen type. That exotic type seemed to the Danes to be quite fascinating — much more so than their bland blue-eyed neighbors who were everywhere. I think the rare and exotic always holds a certain fascination.
Anyway, regardless what (possible) reproductive advantage certain eyes or hair types might once have had (in the distant past), today they are actually a reproductive liability. Why? Because such types (especially when combined with beauty) tend to get scooped as rich men’s trophy wives; or they become models, actresses, ballerinas, etc. — all of whom are pretty much taken out of the reproductive pool and instead of having the most children, they often end up having none.
This unfortunate effect is heightened by the availability (and acceptance) of abortion and The Pill, and by the unfashionableness today of large families. Thus, the heavy emphasis on beauty in today’s commercial and glamour-centered world is very dysgenic. Another instance of Hollywood’s (and Madison Avenue’s) damaging corruption of our culture. I suspect that at present, as we squander our stored-up genetic inheritance, each generation is getting both uglier and dumber.
Let me also commend JMT who faults the notion held by some that blue eyes are somehow superior. It’s like bickering over which ice cream is better: raspberry or peach. They’re all good! Thank you, JMT. I fully agree, and also with your sound observation that health should be more important than color.
Posted by ghw at 11:09 PM on February 4
I always thought that the American actor Jan Michael Vincent has a slight Oriental air about him.
Or Patrick Swayze for that matter.
Charles Bronson’s partially mongolian ancestry (apparently from ‘Tartars’ long settled in Lithuania as soldiers serving Lithuania/Poland) is well known.
Posted by Peter Williams at 6:34 AM on February 5
Blue eyes may have do something with giving some advantage in the icy north to ancient peoples. Look at Huskies and northern wolf species in Alaska or Siberia. Most of them have blue eyes.
Posted by Raja Ram at 8:50 AM on February 5
If the gene “makes people have more kids”, this is an evasive way of saying it coincides with reproductive fitness….This story really speaks for itself. When I was watching it on the news, I thought I could see in the newslady’s face the irony that she was stuck giving a really weak explanation for the increasing population in the last 10,000 years of blue-eyed people: that they are more attractive.
***This just in: The human brain has grown rapidly in evolutionary terms because women find larger brains more attractive***
Posted by radicalrealist at 8:56 PM on February 7
Someone (RonPaulforpresident I think) wrote that blue eyes are dominent? My understanding is that brown eyes are dominent over blue. I could be wrong just wondering if anyone knows for sure?
Posted by at 6:08 PM on February 9
“My understanding is that brown eyes are dominent over blue. I could be wrong just wondering if anyone knows for sure?”
Posted by at 6:08 PM
You were right. Brown is dominant over blue.
Generally speaking, darker things (whatever) are dominant over lighter.
But it must be added, that doesn’t mean dominant genes are “stronger” (as many people, blacks particularly, tend to misunderstand). The word “dominant” is just used here in a special biological sense, meaning it takes precedence genetically. But lighter genes are recessive, thus being actually more persistent.
If a dominant gene isn’t present, you’ll know, because it would be apparent if it were. If a recessive gene is there, you can never be sure because its presence is not apparent.
Posted by at 7:29 PM on February 9