Blue Eyes Less Common in U.S. Residents of European Descent

[Social-Nationalist]

Blue Eyes Less Common in U.S. Residents of European Descent

Green and Brown Eyes Dominant Over Blue Eyes

Blue eyes are becoming less common in U.S. residents who identify themselves in census and other records as being of European, non-Hispanic ancestry. This is probably because the blue-eyed trait tends to be recessive or less likely to express when genetic influences of brown or green eyes are present.

Annals of Human Biology reported in November 2002 that the blue-eyed trait among people of European, non-Hispanic descent in the United States declined from about 57% in people born between 1899 to 1905 to about 34% among people born between 1936 and 1951.



Researchers concluded that blue eyes are declining in U.S. populations probably because modern people no longer use common ancestral heritage as a major reason for choosing a mate. As an example, people of German heritage in the United States were much more likely to cluster together in social isolation a century ago than they are today.

http://vision.about.com/od/opticsvis...t/blueeyes.htm

[Dr. Solar Wolff]

I have a little problem with this alleged .57 blue-eyed Americans. Assuming blue eyes was of a simple monogentic inheritance, a quick trip into Hardy-Weinberg (approximations) would place the actual gene frequency of the reported phenotype (.57) at .754 for the genotype. This would be the highest frequency of blue eyes the world has ever seen, topping Norway and Ireland.

I have another theory. I think that mixed light eyes were reported as "blue" more often than is the case today. Of course, the blue-as-recessive concept is valid but this would not ever change the geneotype, only the phenotype.

[QuietWind]

I agree with Dr. Solar Wolff that often people report their eyes as blue when they are not. I see many people claim to have blue eyes, when they are really a blue-green mix, like mine, or even a blue-amber mix (hazelish). Gentotypically, I equate the Blue-green mix as one of the green types-- to put it simply.

There was one city I lived in in Texas that seemed to have a Blue eyed gene in the water or something. Everyone had blue eyes. A blue-blue, true-blue eye. Even the native americans and Mexicans.

[Scholar]

I don't agree that blue eyes are recessive. My father has blue eyes but both of his parents had hazel. I know that blue eyes generally follow recessive behaviours but can you officially call them recessive if they sometimes aren't?

[Northern Paladin]

Where in Europe? The simple truth is Northern Europeans are Blonder than Southern Europeans.

The Blue eyed frequenced is declining in America because of inter-ethnic marriages.

[Rhydderch]

I don't agree that blue eyes are recessive. My father has blue eyes but both of his parents had hazel.

This is actually a typical example of a recessive trait. Both parents would have had genes for blue eyes, but because they're recessive, it wasn't expressed in their phenotype.

But there is still a lot to be learned about genetics. In theory, the known rules of dominance/recessiveness mean that blue eyed parents cannot have a brown-eyed child. But this has been observed to occur; the reasons for this are not known.

I know that blue eyes generally follow recessive behaviours but can you officially call them recessive if they sometimes aren't?

Well I think often alleles are recessive to some alleles, but dominant over others.

[Todesritter]

I don't agree that blue eyes are recessive. My father has blue eyes but both of his parents had hazel. I know that blue eyes generally follow recessive behaviours but can you officially call them recessive if they sometimes aren't?

This is the normal way it works, proving the science of blue eyes being recessive; my parents were similar to your case, both with hazel eyes, I ended up with hazel, and my brother with blue-grey eyes.

My father has hazel eyes as I mentioned, and for his parents, his mother has brown eyes and his father bright blue. Hazel eyed individuals seem to be a representation of the mix of recessive and dominant eye genes, having the possibility of offspring being blue, brown, or again hazel eyed, depending on the mate and chance.

There is much science on this available in books or on the web, if you wish to learn more.

One of my biggest pet peeves is poor casting in movies, once I was more aware of how this works, when they have two blue-eyed actors playing biological parents of a brown eyed actor.

[GreenHeart]

One of my biggest pet peeves is poor casting in movies, once I was more aware of how this works, when they have two blue-eyed actors playing biological parents of a brown eyed actor.

Exactly! My husband gets mad at me for commenting about it every time. He just wants to enjoy the movie...

I've always been fascinated by genetics.

[Leofric]

I have a little problem with this alleged .57 blue-eyed Americans. Assuming blue eyes was of a simple monogentic inheritance, a quick trip into Hardy-Weinberg (approximations) would place the actual gene frequency of the reported phenotype (.57) at .754 for the genotype. This would be the highest frequency of blue eyes the world has ever seen, topping Norway and Ireland.

I have another theory. I think that mixed light eyes were reported as "blue" more often than is the case today.

I agree that the self-reported nature of the data in the study lowers their credibility. Thinking otherwise would be something like citing an internet poll as evidence in a scientific journal.

But aside from that, I think eye color is not a matter of simple monogenetic inheritance. I have been told that it involves several genes on several different chromosomes, and that furthermore the dominant alleles exercise only incomplete dominance over the recessive ones, allowing a mixing of colors like one might find on a palette.

As far as Hardy-Weinberg goes, the H-W approximations only work in randomly mating populations. I can accept the idea that humans might randomly mate with regard to something like, say, color-blindness; but in terms of eye color, I think our mating patterns are decidedly not random. I know that's true in my case: although I love looking at dark brown eyes, I would never have chosen anyone but a blue-eyed woman as my mate. The nonrandomness would cause H-W approximations to vary significantly from reality.

I wish I had answers to offer here instead of more complications, but at least understanding the complexity of eye color in human genetics can explain the possibility of things like

My father has blue eyes but both of his parents had hazel.

without resorting to the all-too-frequent assumption in such cases of marital infidelity.

[GreenHeart]

My eyes are blue, and I have to say that I only like light eyes. I get bad feelings staring into dark brown or black eyes.