Sunday, March 04, 2007

farewell, pebbles! farewell, little mermaid! farewell, daphne from scooby-doo!

Via Dan: Will redheads be extinct by 2100? (Or, at least, extinct in terms of new redheaded children being born.) Barring intervention, it really is just a question of when, and offhand 2100 doesn't seem implausible to me. A question is, as red hair becomes rarer, will those remaining be want their kids to have red hair, or want their kids not to have red hair? If the latter, dissortative mating could bring the end of the auburn world as we know it even sooner.

My guess is there will be more of an effort to save blonde hair and, even more, blue eyes.

I have nieces with red hair and blonde hair, but the six identically brown-haired kids produced by my parents would lead me to suspect only one parent has recessive genes for hair lurking within (my father, since I have redheaded cousins on that side). My own brown eyes seem weirdly like they have become a bit greenish in recent years, which I've attributed to the DNA effects of the unfortunate latch on my microwave.

4 comments:

Lucy said...

My mum's eyes are turning greenish, which has led her to give some credence to the iridologist who years ago told her that if only she cleansed her aura or something, the impurities that made her eyes brown would disappear and their true colour would be revealed. Maybe your aura is becoming cleaner, too. :)

jeremy said...

I think if anything my aura is getting murkier.

jennifer said...

My son went from having reddish blonde hair and blue eyes when he was little, to having medium brown hair, and green eyes. His hair gradually changed color when he was three. His eyes changed color about two years ago. No clue why. You can see it is his school pictures over the years. He's about 13 now. Very weird.

Bad Runner said...

I was checking around and it seems that he greatest concentration of redheads is in Scotland. Apparently, 13% of them actually have red hair. And then there are many more carrying the recessive variant even though it isn't expressed. So I'm betting on the Scots to carry the torch past the year 2100, especially if we can keep them isolated enough from the rest of us! By the way, I have Scottish blood in my veins, and every once in a while, a couple of read hairs pop up on my arm...