Chapter 21, Problem 3CS

CASE STUDY|A genetic flip of the coin

On July 11, 2008, twin sons were born to Stephan Gerth from Germany and AddoGerth from Ghana. Stephan is very fair-skinned with blue eyes and straight hair; Addo is dark-skinned, with brown eyes and curly hair. The first born of the twins, Ryan, is fair-skinned, with blue eyes and straight hair; his brother, Leo, has light brown skin, brown eyes, and curly hair. Although the twins' hair texture and eye color were the same as those of one or the other parent, the twins had different skin colors, intermediate to that of their parents. Experts explained that the blending effect of skin color in the twins resulted from quantitative inheritance involving at least three different gene pairs, whereas hair texture and eye color are not quantitatively inherited. Using thisas an example of quantitative genetics, we can ask the following questions:

Would twins showing some parental traits (hair texture, eye color) but a blending of other traits (skin color in this case) seem to be a commonplace event, or are we looking at a “one in a million” event?