Talk:Disappearing blonde gene

gene pattern disappearance isn't everyday life disappearance

"The second part of the hoax is the claim that blonde populations would eventually disappear. This is based on a misunderstanding of recessive genes. To show (or "express") the effect of a recessive gene, such as the phenotype for blondeness, a person must inherit the gene from both parents."

Unless this article has a highly scientific purpose and aims to discuss the gene pattern for blond hair, it should be clarified that blond(e) populations do disappear; not because the relevant gene patterns will be extinct (which is of course wrong), but because the fraction of suppressed occurances is constantly increasing. And, yes, this has to do with recessive inheritance. Whether or not the relevant gene combinations survive is absolutely pointless if they lose their chance to appear, and isn't the appearance what this article is really about??

Daniel3880 --85.181.24.47 03:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely true, which is why I changed the opening sentence of the article a bit. Additionally, the simple claim that blond people cannot go extinct is false, since any groups of living creatures can become extinct. It's just that the proposed extinction is very nearly impossible to occur through simple breeding, which was the basis of the hoax article.BuboTitan (talk) 13:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Topics

Under an IP address (I usually haven't bothered to log in when I do edit things), I had written this:

For the blonde gene to disappear, it would require that populations with a high proportion of blondes such as Northern Europeans reproduce much less than populations that do not, and allow large-scale immigration of non-blond populations into areas with a lot of blondes. For example, immigration of large numbers of highly fertile Muslims into Scandinavia could have this effect. The blond gene is not likely to disappear fully since it is not a lethal gene, but in such a scenario it could easily be "crowded out" and end up expressed in only a small fraction of the area's population.

...but it was reverted by the user Mikkalai. I understand that some people can be hypersensitive about white power vandalism (like the stuff below), and I also understand that those who put out the hoax did not understand how recessive genes are propagated, but I was trying to point out under what conditions blond hair could disappear, even if it may seem to be somewhat politically incorrect and even if it does not quite fit in with the hoax. All I want are facts. Am I wrong in any of the details? --BGMan 20:05, 20 December 2006 (CST)

That paragraph is unsourced original research and therefore was deleted correctly. In addition, this is not the article in which to explain recessive genes; instead the article should (and does) point the reader to future information on that topic. rewinn 02:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it was a thought experiment, not "unsourced original research", and (I hope) airtight and logically conducted. If something is perfectly logical, I don't see why it can't stay. And it wasn't talking about recessive genes, but about the disappearance of blond hair, which is relevant to the article. Unfortunately I don't have any major research grants to investigate the matter further to make it official. --BGMan 20:40, 20 December 2006 (CST)

The above comment is mistaken. The content is unsourced, and it violates Wikipedia:No original research. Much as we may wish it were otherwise, wikipedia content pages are not the place for thought experiments; that is why the proposed content may not stay. rewinn 16:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

And may i add, 'muslim' refers to religious affiliation and is NOT the name of a race. i assume that you mean 'arab'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.115.1 (talk) 06:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism

I removed some vandalism added by the user Wallacegubrath. At least I consider it vandalism, however I suspect he might disagree. In any case, he careless added the following paragraph to the bottom of the page which clearly contradicts the entire article:

However, interracial mixing and marriage will cause mongrelization of the European race. Mixing two different elements that have nothing in common creates a dilution and degradation of both. So therefore, Blonde Europeans will die out.

This is NOT a Hoax as stated up above, but a true danger of 20,000 years of selective European breeding and their offspring throughout the world in America, Canada and Australia.

--Mystyc1 08:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

sigh, please rewrite this in a better tone..

Go ahead! - DavidWBrooks 11:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments by 62.231.61.249

Has anyone ever seen a natural blonde-haired black or asian person?

The theory is correct, with enough interbreeding between blondes and races which don't genetically "support" the recessive blonde (and blue eye) genes, these traits will no longer be shown in phenotypes, (they will disappear, never to be physically expressed again) even though it may be kept as a recessive genotype, invisible to all but geneticists in a lab. Above unsigned comments by 62.231.61.249

Your comments are not consistent with science. Please read the article. rewinn 22:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm but an interested amateur in genetics but it appears to me that the situation described by our anonymous poster could theoretically occur.

I don't know about blonde hair but in order to have light blue eyes a child needs four copies(alleles) of the gene responsible. A child gets two alleles from each parent. This means that in order to produce a child with light blue eyes you need a situation in which:

1. Two parents possesing each one allele(let's call it A) breed together each giving one allele to the child produced.

2. The child of that union would then have two alleles(AA) and could thus produce offspring with light blue eyes if breeding with someone who also has two alleles(AA).

It seems to me that if the people who have copies of the gene in question(A) are few and far between within a larger population of people not possesing the gene the probability of the above happening lessens. At least theoretically one could imagine a situation in which the probability becomes so low it is effectively none-existant.

As said though this would require that the people with the gene were vastly outnumbered. A situation which of course shouldn't happen as long as the people with the gene breed at roughly the same rate as the others. Hence it has more to do with the number of offspring produced by the people with the gene vs. the number of offspring produced by those without the gene rather than intermixture. As long as the two groups breed at roughly the same rate the gene should continue to express itself phenotypically.

Or at least that's the way it seems to me. I'm no expert as already stated.

--Whateva 20:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The above may or may not be the case, but such discussion belongs in recessive genes. Also, Please use proper indenting so we can more easily discuss. Cheerio! rewinn 02:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

My grandfather had blue eyes, and he was from Punjab state in India. I have a cousin with two blue eyed kids, she has blue eyes, but her husband is brown eyed. I have another two cousins who used to have blue eyes, but now they're green/hazel or something. So yeah, Asians with blue eyes happen. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Phantasee (talk • contribs) 04:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

If you visit the page on Blond hair there is a picture of an African boy with blonde hair. Natural blonde hair. K? Ambiesushi (talk) 00:57, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Analogizing to blue-eyes

Someone insists on posting a link to an article about blue-eye blacks. If this is going to be done, it should be done correctly; don't simply jam it into "External Links" with a long title. Instead, explain how it may be relavant to the article, and for heaven's sake, READ THE ARTICLE to which the link goes; it clearly states nothing about "Nordic" genes. I tend to think the link adds no information to the article, but what the hey, it's about a hoax anyway. rewinn 02:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• No bleu eyes here, please. This article is not about recessive genes. It is about a specific hoax. `'mikkanarxi 02:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Agreed. I was trying to accomodate the person who kept posting that link, but upon reflection, a better approach would be to refer the matter to recessive genes. rewinn 17:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

A hoax?

"The hoax has two parts. First, neither WHO nor any reputable expert has issued such a report".

In 1996 or so, their has been an article in Vogue, in which a London University professor (S. Jones) declared, that the blonde gene is disappearing, mainly due to the strongly increased frequency of contacts between blondes and non-blondes. Isn't a London University professor a "reputable expert"?

It may be true, that these contacts cannot make the blond gene disappear, but it is certain, that the non-blonde gene mostly dominates, so that the blonde RACE is disappearing. This is not original research, but among others declared by the genetics professor, mentioned above. So it should be added to the rest of the text, because otherwise Wikipedia's neutrality-principle would be put aside.

Original research, by the way, indeed is the word "hoax", that is used remarcably often in this article. What "reputable experts" have declared, that is was a hoax and not a most serious attempt, to stop the effect, the Vogue-article evidently was having more and more, especcially because it made blondes become aware, of wat was happening to their race?

There can be a special article about this subject, but the adition that it was all nothing but a hoax will have to be removed. James Blond 04:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Vogue is not an authority on genetics.
• Absent a link to that article, "S. Jones" cannot be assumed to be an authority on genetics.
• WHO is an authority, and has declared this a hoax.
• "Moslemian" is a neologism.
• Islam is a religion, not an ethnicity, and has no genetic component. Reference to it and to race, however, makes clear the racist intent of the proposed edit.
• Wikipedia has a technical definition of "original research" which such thought experiments

violate.

• You deleted comments on this talk page that were made by another person. Please do not do that.

rewinn 04:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• Vogue may be not an authority on genetics, but it is a well known medium, that very well can publish an interview with a scientist, who is indeed supposed to be such an authority.
• Read about this interview in a newspaper, not in Vogue itself. Hope, that somebody else will have much more the opportunity, to find that interview and link to it here. (It was "Prof. Steve Jones").
• The fact, that the WHO called the newsitem, saying, that she had issued such a report, a hoax, doesn't mean, that it's a hoax, when is posed, that the blond race is becoming extinct.
• The edit in which there was something about Moslems, has been replaced by another one, in which this didn't occur any more. But there was nothing racist in it anyway, nor was it's intent. It was just about the question, whether the blond gene can disappear yes or no. The argument, that Moslems (in general) have no blond genes at all, was not (meant) denigratory, or something like that.
• The unmeant deletion was caused by a later return via History. The reaction of somebody else was not on that page yet. But the deletion of the own edit also deleted that reaction. Apollogy for this has been made om MyTalk allready. James Blond 05:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• Until you provide a link to the article, its value cannot be evaluated and the article should not be changed. It seems unlikely that Vogue would publish something more authoritative than WHO.
• There is no such thing as the Blond Race. rewinn 21:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The only thing the WHO has published in this affaire, was a message, in which she declared not to have published any report on that subject.

Indeed the term "the blond race" is not quite correct. It should be: "the lightblond sub-race"; or more formally: the Northern-Europide subrace". It could also be called "the temperates", the way persons from the subtropical climatezone sometmes are called "Subtropicals".

James Blond 06:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is about a gene, not a mythical race or sub-race. You may wish to be editting an article about "the blond sub-race" if you can find any science on the subject, which is unlikely. There is no "blond sub-race". rewinn 15:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is about a haircolour and the colour of the hair is one of the essential outward characteristics, that mark the difference between certain human races and/or subraces. Admitted was already that the term "blond race" is not quite correct. It's the Northern-Europide subrace, that naturally is light-blond of haircolour (and blue-eyed), otherwise than the Southern-Europide subrace, which naturally is (in principle) dark/black haired and browneyed. (Whereas both subraces have that much other characteristics in coomon, that both form the Europide mainrace). So it should'nt be denied, that racial aspects are relevant in articles about haircolour, even when in itself this is a genetical matter. But it is interesting to realise, that Prof. Jones (in the Vogue-interview) may have been wrong, as far as he posed, that the blond gene is disappearing, but right, as far as he agreed, that "blondies" are becoming extinct.

James Blond 04:07, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Somebody reverted this last edit without any kind of motivation. Maybe that will follow later on. In the mean time we hope to be able to go on making clear, what our point of view is, using our constitutional freedom of speech.

Oke, having taken a closer look at the newspaperarticle about the Vogue-article, it became clear, that the professor was not talking about a disappearing blond gene, but about blond people becoming extinct. Here's the translation of the newspaperarticle:

Blondies are becoming extinct.

"How frightening! Kathy Philips, editor of the column Health & Beauty in the famous magazine Vogue had a few questions about the heredity of blond hair and called Steve Jones, genetics-professor at the London University. To her big surprise he told her, that people with blond hair will become exinct. The gen, that makes hair blond, is relatively easy to be pushed away by other, more dominant characteristics, the scientist explained. And because more and more people can travel all over the world , have contacts with other nations, marry and have children, according to the professor only people with dark skin and dark hair will remain. Frightened, Kathy decided to dedicate a photobook to the phenomenon blondies. Real, as well as artificial ones. Unforgettable." James Blond 06:18, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

A few points:

1. "Free speech" has nothing to do with it; this is not a government, and not a soapbox, but an encyclopdia. You are free to set up your own website for content that doesn't follow wikipedia's rules.
2. The is no Northern European/Southern European subrace. The tribes mixed for centuries in historical times,cf Black Irish, the Tartar Yoke, Lombard invasion of Italy, etc. etc.
3. The article, as cited, gives undue weight to second-hand conversation which, as discussion under recessive gene makes clear, is not supported by science.
4. As long as there is hair dye, there will never be a shortage of blondes. rewinn 04:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

2) Of course thei're mixed by now, but that doesn't take away, that in principle Soutern-Europeans are blackhaired/browneyed, while Northerns are (created) light blond/blue-eyed. Would somebody here call a white-blond Icelander a typical Italian?

3) This article mainly has been mentioned here, to show, that there has not just been a newsreport from the BBC about this subject, of which the content has been denied by the WHO, which was reason for some, to declare, that the theory of blond disappearing is nothing but a hoax.

4) "As long as there is hair dye, there will never be a shortage of blondes".

The shortage is enourmous already. Otherwise there would be no bleaching.--James Blond 20:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but how long until the Redheads are gone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Noclevername (talk • contribs) 21:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

As soon as there's no red hairpaint any more. But natural orangeblond will stay for ever; even if there would be no darkbluehaired around any more.--James Blond 20:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

No, not even Redheads can stop proton decay and the effects of dark energy. So they, too, are doomed ... but not for a while. rewinn 06:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Redheads maybe, but those are either darkbluehaired, painted red, or hypotetical entities, like proton decay and dark energy are. This here might be some more realistic: [1]. James Blond 01:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Taught at school way before 2002

no comments about it being thaugth at school before the hoax? Certainly the hoax creators didn't invent the theory. At least it was thaugth in Spain... --euyyn 11:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it tought (or taught)?

Anyway, that 'hoax' is as 'funny' as the one about the Greenhouse effect. James Blond 02:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I meant taught, thanks for the indication. --euyyn 09:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be delightful if you could source this hoax earlier. Scholarship is good! rewinn 05:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the said hoax only consisted in attributing the words to the WHO; that it has no two parts, as we say in the article (I mean, the claim of the blonde's disappearance being not part of the hoax, because the creators would've believed it, as I did earlier than them). Of course back when I "learnt" it at school nobody went posting things on the internet for the sake of posting, so unless anybody can find the origin of the claim (maybe some article or some textbook), I cannot provide sources. (And no, I'm not contacting my old teacher only to ask him about it, lol) --euyyn 21:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The WHO report is the hoax

People should remember that the "hoax" is that the WHO reported that blonds will be extinct by 2200. There is no hoax that blonds are going extinct in general, unless someone has another reference to add. I edited the intro to reflect this better.

Certainly the percentage of blonds (as well as redheads) are going down as a portion of the world's population. It's unlikely they will actually go extinct, since genes don't disappear but lie dormant. But it is theoretically possible (genocide, nuclear war, virus, whatever). Any species, race, ethnic group, or even genotype can go extinct. No one is immune.BuboTitan (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Additional fix: since there was no report, the hoax was a story about it. (If the actual (er... fake) report were posted somewhere, then the report would be a hoax.) - Altenmann >t 18:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The WHO has said nothing.

The page used to read that the WHO said that the disappearing blonde story was a hoax. However, when one clicks the link provided the WHO acutally says: WHO has no knowledge of how these news reports originated but would like to stress that we have no opinion on the future existence of blondes. Which means that the WHO did not tell this story off a a hoax. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.96.76.251 (talk) 20:42, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

birth rates

Societies like Germany have a birth rate of 1,39 per woman, so the population shrinks 50% within two generations. It is not rocket science, that blond and red hair will die out pretty soon. Northern European societies have failed and they get replaced. If you like it or not. That is not a hoax... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.49.94 (talk) 21:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It is pretty clear that blondes are less & less of the worlds pop., but this article is about a specific hoax, not about the shrinking % of blonds - indeed, nowherein the article is claimed that blondes will always remain a visible population. the birth-rate thing interesting but beyong the artcles scope-moreover, its not wikis aim to predict future based on trends. but as an exception i might add that the amish, a german people in america are above average is fertility rates, sowho knows,they may carry on the legscy of blodehair.--69.121.51.151 (talk) 22:51, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand how this article is a hoax? Blondes and blue eyes will be extinct, that is no longer existing in the phenotypical gene pool in less than 500 years based on current reproduction rates of blue/blonde individual relative to brown/brown, black individuals. The replacement rate is 2.1 and it's currently 1.3 in germany, luthiana, and norway (natives only) the largest blue/blonde countries compared to 8.1 central Africa. This is not a hoax, and talking about it like it is a hoax is irresponsible and inaccurate. Yes the Amish have higher than average birthrates but they are such a small population relative to the rest of the US where the blonde/blue birthrates are sub 1.2. Even with the Amish the blonde/blue birthrate is around 1.3, significantly below replacement.

24.239.126.78 (talk) 13:42, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Article Title: "Blonde" vs "Blond"

Shouldn't the title of this article be "Disappearing blond gene"? Wikipedia's entry on Blond notes that spelling blonde with an "e" is generally reserved for the description of a woman or women, while the general adjective is generally spelled without the "e". Indeed the adjective used throughout the text of this article is spelled blond, so why is it spelled differently in the title? Florescent (talk) 16:07, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I looked throuh the article history and references and I see no reason for the current title spelling besides the fact that the original article was called Blonde gene. Since the two references of the initial stub were "Blondes 'to die out in 200 years'" and "Cavegirls were first blondes to have fun", I guess the title had to mean "a gene that makes blondes", rather than "a gene that makes blond hair". I would admit that the article being about a hoax, "blonde gene" has more April Fool Day spirit. Anyway, I support renaming. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:58, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Math

Maybe someone can find a reference with the math of the disappearing blond gene.

Assume that currently the world has 7.1 billion people, and that 150 million are blond. Then, 1 in 47.3 persons is blond (2.1%).

All blond people carry two blond genes. Assume also that 400 million people carry only one blond gene, and therefore are not blonde. With these assumptions the world currently has 150×2 + 400 = 700 million blond genes, out of 14.2 billion hair genes. This means there is one blond gene for every 20.3 hair genes (4.9%). If everybody in the world intermarries, the probability of being a blond will be one in 20.3² = 411.5 people (4.9%² = 0.24%). Therefore, in the future we can expect the blond population to be decimated but not extinct. HaŋaRoa (talk) 15:48, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Missing the Point Entirely

The claim that this is a hoax misses the point. Noone, to my knowledge, is claiming that the blonde gene is somehow 'more recessive' than other recessive genes. What they are pointing out is, that of all the hair types, blondes are far and away the most likely to be targeted, by violence and other life-altering crimes, which leave the victim less likely or unable to reproduce. Additionally, it has been well-documented in recent years that many historically blonde areas in Europe and North America now have negative birth rates. This is not a hoax, this is a stone cold fact that simply hasn't been spelled out yet in a cohesive argument that is considered politically correct enough for mainstream sites to publish. This is not about recessive genes, this is about the deliberate and widespread slaughter and disenfranchisement of people based on their appearance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.187.45.179 (talk) 20:52, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't look at the 'political correctness' of sources, but their "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Finnusertop (talk | guestbook | contribs) 09:54, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Link to more general articles

The article talks about a hoax, or rather a media-spread misinterpretation of a report, but in what contexts do these ideas fit, and is there a general idea or fear of losing the blonde gene rather than just a fright caused by the article? Is race one of the overall categorical contexts of this article, and not just media hype or genetics? Then say so. Does the idea of losing the blonde gene fit into racialistic theories about blondes? Then say so in the article. -Inowen (nlfte) 09:22, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Issue with this article

I have an issue with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_blonde_gene

In the article, they talk about how blond genes are not under threat. However, people are not worried about blond genes disappearing in the first place. People are worried about blond looks (aka, blonds and blondes) disappearing. I feel that the entire existence of this article is a straw-man. Nobody ever said anything about the genes. They are talking about the looks. In fact, even within the article itself, they talk about blonds. The looks. Not the genes.

I feel that the title as well as content of this article should be changed to the disappearance of blonds, or maybe the disappearance of blond looks. Going on and on about how blond genes aren't going anywhere is intentionally misleading because nobody is even talking about these genes in the first place.

2604:3D08:6881:8E00:A518:8217:860D:87E7 (talk) 21:19, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I second this

Nobody is talking about blond genes but the article somehow twist the words to make it about genes Apspsuperman (talk) 14:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)