
You’ve heard this one before. From the study group: Eye color is “much more complex than previously thought.” If we’d thought of trademarking that phrase, we wouldn’t be asking for money from our readers at Christmas. On the other hand, it’s just as well used for free; it’s needed so often now.
Researchers have identified 50 new genes for eye color in a study involving the genetic analysis of almost 195,000 people across Europe and Asia.
An international team of researchers led by King’s College London and Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam have identified 50 new genes for eye colour in the largest genetic study of its kind to date. The study, published today in Science Advances, involved the genetic analysis of almost 195,000 people across Europe and Asia…
In addition, the team found that eye colour in Asians with different shades of brown is genetically similar to eye colour in Europeans ranging from dark brown to light blue…
This study builds on previous research in which scientists had identified a dozen genes linked to eye colour, believing there to be many more. Previously, scientists thought that variation in eye colour was controlled by one or two genes only, with brown eyes dominant over blue eyes.
Co-senior author Dr Pirro Hysi, King’s College London, said: “The findings are exciting because they bring us to a step closer to understanding the genes that cause one of the most striking features of the human faces, which has mystified generations throughout our history.
King’s College London, “Eye color genetics not so simple, study finds” at ScienceDaily (March 11, 2021)
Some of us recall learning in school that eye color was strictly a one-off. Brown eyes were represented by a capital B and blue eyes by a small b. Only one square in the diagram had two bb’s. That, we were told, was why blue eyes were rare…
Not that they were at all rare in our community. But hey, it was science! Who were we to argue?
Well, fast forward: Trust the science? It’s a good thing no one needed to take that one very seriously. It’s another thing when they’re dogmatically wrong about the stuff that really matters.
By the way, all this stuff supposedly came about purely by natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism)? Naw.
The paper is open access.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham