Log in brown eyed parents for you and your mate. Then log in both you and your mate as green eyed with no blue eyed siblings. I can't think of HOW I could make the results any more partial to brown.
And look at what you get:
Even if I gave the father brown eyes (with both brown eyed parents) and the mother green eyes (with both brown eyed parents), you'd STILL get a brown eyed child 72% of the time.
Again, does it seem even remotely likely you and your mate could have not one but EIGHT dark brown eyed children???
Just astonishing how they beat the odds!
9 comments:
I did a little reading, and I found a couple of sites on a quick search that said that eye color predictors are not accurate. They are finding that predicing eye color is more complicated than originally thought. The predictor you linked to assumes that only two genes are responsible for eye color. These other sites I researched say that several genes may determine eye color, and there may be environmental factors as well. Isn't it nice to know that there are still some mysteries out there that have not been solved?
Phoebe, you're very right - there are definitely some mysteries in all of this. And that's very refreshing, especially when you've been in our shoes of high-tech, ultra contrived creation. It's good to see things happen we can't predict.
The eye predictor I linked to, however, does take yourself, your spouse and each of your parents and siblings into consideration. It's just a way to determine statistical probabilities.
It's interesting, I'll say that.
It's kind of a long story but basically I said to someone (maybe my dad, maybe my geneticist MIL, maybe someone else) that I knew two blue eyed people who had a brown eyed child and certainly that meant that the chick must have been steppin out on the dude. I was told that it is possible. Of course my basic understanding of Medelian genetics told me that was wrong, so I had to go research it. As it turns out, eye color is coded for on MANY alleles (as is hair color). I learned that it is very complex but it is, in fact, possible to get a brown eyed baby from two blue eyed parents. Therefore I would imagine that it is possible to get a brown eyed child from two green eyed children. However, I would agree that it is probably a statistically unlikely event. Therefore I would agree with you that they hit the statistical jackpot getting 8 improbably outcomes.
"Me", you never cease to amaze me. (-;
I can't say I even noticed this one before you pointed it out. Honestly, I'll just be happy when their show (and reruns) go away. (-;
ME: I just adore you, truly! I was reading your comment and thinking, "now, I'm going to go and smack her down for that" because I kept thinking...Ugh! I KNOW IT'S HUMANLY POSSIBLE, I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW - everyone knows tons of people who have defied the genetics odds (yeah, I also learned it is actually possible for 2 blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed child, however unlikely).
But then you came in and closed with exactly my point. To have EIGHT children defy the odds for you every single time?! Wow!
That's the "mystery" here. Not that they had one brown eyed child but 8 of them!
You know, speaking of probabilities, I guess you have to look at each child's chances individually, and not collectively.
Think about flipping a coin. You have a 50/50 chance of getting heads each flip. If you flip it a hundred times, and if you've already gotten 70 heads, you can still get 30 more, because the chances do not cumulate, they are individual chances. (Probably not going to happen, but still.)
So I guess it really could happen (as it did) that each child would have brown eyes as the effect of the genes is not a cumulative result.
Did any of that make sense?
Maybe their light-eye genes were not matching recessives? If the dominant (brown) kicked in over those separate greens, maybe it isn't that unusual?
Or maybe I just can't hand them any more extraordinariness?
Just chiming in....My husband has brown eyes, as do his 2 sisters. His father has blue eyes and his mom has green. DH has one daughter with brown eyes, one with blue, and we are still waiting to see how our little ones eyes end up. I have blue eyes, with both parents and all siblings with blue eyes. I can't even use the predictor tool to find statistics for the my children because of my dh's parents.
Post a Comment