INHERITING YOUR EYE COLOR

It's always a wonder to us why some people have blue, brown or green eyes. Most people are even drawn to men or women having blue eyes or green eyes. However, science suggests that our eye color is actually a result of production of pigment called melanin. Large amount of production of melanin in the iris will result to people having brown eyes. On the other hand, people with blue eyes have lesser amount of melanin production compared to people having brown eyes.

---

image source

Researchers used to think that eye color was determined by a single gene and followed a simple inheritance pattern in which brown eyes were dominant to blue eyes. Under this model, it was believed that parents who both had blue eyes could not have a child with brown eyes. However, later studies showed that this model was too simplistic. Although it is uncommon, parents with blue eyes can have children with brown eyes. The inheritance of eye color is more complex than originally suspected because multiple genes are involved. While a child’s eye color can often be predicted by the eye colors of his or her parents and other relatives, genetic variations sometimes produce unexpected results.

---

Laws of genetics suggests that the eye color is inherited according to 3 reasons:

If both parents have blue eyes, the children will have blue eyes.

Image source

Because both parents have two blue eye genes the child will have blue eyes as well. This means that the dominant gene is the blue eye genes. If there are cases where both parents have blue eyes and their child have brown eyes then it is easy to conclude that the father is not the biological father of that child. However, there are rare cases where two blue-eyed parents can produce children with brown eyes.

---

The brown eye form of the eye color gene (or allele) is dominant, whereas the blue eye allele is recessive.

Image Source
If both parents have brown eyes, but both parents have one blue eye gene that is recessive and the other gene is a brown eye gene that is dominant, then their child could have either a blue eye or a brown eye.

---

If both parents have brown eyes yet carry the allele for blue eyes, a quarter of the children will have blue eyes, and three quarters will have brown eyes.

Image Source

There is 75% chance that both parents having brown eyes will have brown eyed children. So if you ever wondered why you have brown eyes, then maybe you belong to the 75% probability.

Thank you for having the time to read my post!
Follow me for more --> @angelspeaks!!!
COMMENTS ARE HIGHLY APPRECIATED :)

---

References:

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/traits/eyecolor
http://genetics.thetech.org/how-blue-eyed-parents-can-have-brown-eyed-children
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061023193617.htm