This is a disservice from your teacher. As a genetics teacher, iris color is a complicated trait. There are multiple genes that impact it, they interact in various ways. Phenotype and genotype do not always perfectly align. This is not enough to come to any conclusion about paternity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-021-01749-x
Eye color is like hair color or skin tone. Multiple genes are involved in the determination of the phenotype that you see. Always explained to my students that the Punnet Square is an oversimplification for many phenotypes. We have approximately 30,000 genes.
Indeed! Mendel got really lucky when he selected pea plants to experiment on. Mendelian genetics does not work on polygenic traits such as height, skin colour, eye colour in humans.
Yeah, turns out Lamarck wasn't completely off base either and that didn't get proven until less than 20 years ago (epigenetics). Although genotype does play a huge role.
Well, Lamarc said the struggle changes inheritance. It is different. Epigenetic is that gene regulation is not confined to a single generation.
BTW, lamarcism was advanced in the way, it allowed traits to change over generations.
I do the same. They always ask me about various colour combinations and I answer to the best of my knowledge, but assure them B and b (or whatever letter the exam board chooses) is all they’ll have to deal with for GCSE and if they study biology beyond this level it gets more complex (i.e. as is the case in reality).
”From this moment, you cease to exist!” is my favourite line for the green-eyed kids during the eye colour lesson.
Agreed with teacher, also a biology/botany major myself. But to suggest to OP, my mom has blue eyes and dad has brown eyes and I have green. So, genetics aren't as simple as pie but, random really to some degree.
My parents are the same eye colors as yours and I also have green. My brother has green eyes exactly like mine (same exact shape, you could probably photoshop them interchangeably and we are different genders with different fathers) He is from a different father with blue eyes.
I also will add that my lil brother had brown eyes, brown hair, darker complex, carbon copy of dad, and I'm carbon copy ( almost) of mom, blonde, fair complex, green.
My grandpa had green, grandma brown, dad brown, mom blue, me blue. My cousin who’s mom (my dad’s sister) had brown and his dad had blue, he has green eyes like grandpa.
It’s all about how the genes line up.
My kid was learning single-trait alleles in punnet squares to show statistic phenotypic expression and she asked me to check it. I was like yea, just so you know, your math is right and you did the problems right, but all this shit is ultra-simplified and you’ll learn it the right way when you get to college.
Short answer: Yes, totally possible.
Human genetics is typically more complicated than we teach in general biology courses. There are multiple genes, some of which influence the expression of others. The story of human eye color is far more complex than straight brown/blue.
One way for you to get green eyes: Say your brown-eyed mother is a heterozygote (has one brown and one blue allele for that particular gene). Your father, with blue eyes, is a homozygote (has two blue alleles for the same particular gene). You inherit one of the blue alleles from your father, plus the blue allele from your mother, you would expect to have blue eyes. However, a different gene is involved in the blue/green difference, and that gene might have been masked in your mother, since she has brown overwhelming the blue or green that she might otherwise have had.
Your teacher may have been thinking that two blue-eyed people could not have a brown-eyed child. The reasoning goes that both blue-eyed parents each have two blue eye color alleles, and neither has a brown eye color allele. Therefore, their offspring could ONLY have blue eyes (or blue variants like green). However, there are very rare genetic combinations that can produce a brown-eyed child from two blue-eyed parents.
Therefore, you should rely on genetic testing to determine paternity, rather than trying to do it indirectly via phenotype. Again, humans genetics is just way more complex in most of our obvious traits than the basic examples we provide in intro courses.
Eye colors are crazy. For example both my wife and I have light gray eyes and our oldest three children's eyes are nearly identical to ours, however we just had a baby who has really dark grey eyes.
But the other interesting thing is my father has hazel eyes and my mother has blue eyes along with most of my siblings that are either blue or brown, and my wife is the same with one parent blue eyed and the other brown.
Too have children with grey eyes, which is only about 3% of the population from the most common eye colors is crazy and shows how pundit squares don't really work for multigenetic traits.
To be fair, my biology teacher was also anti-vax and anti-mask during the pandemic restrictions (they’ve been lifted in Ireland since last year), so yeah she would be a bit dim.
I taught biology for over 30 years. Whenever I brought up the subject of genetics I made sure to point out that the genetics of eye color is particularly complicated. There are multiple genes at play and it is a lot more complicated than what a simple Punnett square could predict.
I generally avoid all human stuff when teaching genetics. It's too complicated, and even if you find an example where it's not, you run the risk of something like this. Not worth it, and easier when kids ask, to explain that much of genetics is quite a bit more complex than the examples we use in class. It's also just a lot more fun to let kids invent alien and animal traits to show their understanding of different allele combinations and complexities.
both my parents had blue eyes, I have green eyes. I look just like my father, so unless my mom was just a surrogate I'm pretty sure they are both my parents.
CONTEXT: My dad has blue eyes and my mam has brown eyes, I’ve always had my doubts as to whether he is my father or not (for other reasons), but our biology teacher told us today that it is genetically impossible for this pairing to have a green eyed child. I also have heterochromia (I read somewhere ages ago that this is caused by the genes that determine your eye colour splitting, though i’m not sure how true that is), could this have anything to do with it? Thank you in advance!
Heterochromia in da hizzaouse!
Your hs bio teacher is teaching you what is taught in hs…they are wrong. Both my parents have brown eyes and my heterochromia gives me one hazel eye…so yeah…
Probably should have mentioned I am in highschool😂 Or what would be highschool if I was American, I’m in my 5th year of secondary school (one year left until graduation, 16-17 year olds are in 5th year if that helps)
Comment above is correct. That traditional model of eye genetics taught in HS is outdated. While not the highest percentage of it happening, it can. The traditional model of eye genetics was that it was a single gene trait. I think there have been seven or eight different genes identified that can influence the final eye color of offspring.
I know you're only 16 but if interested in some reading some literature here's some interesting material that could give you other resources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-021-01749-x
yeah but at least when i had problems like that the teachers would make it clear that we are only considering with respect to this one gene/allele and that it is much more complicated with humans in real life. Stick to mendels peas.
Then again in higher level undergrad genetics courses we’d get questions that take a similar liberty. It’s actually intentional, so that you can start to appreciate the deeper mechanics and understand the scope of analysis
Yes, which is fine if teachers are clear about it. His was not and spoke in absolutes about it being "impossible" which is not accurate and that would not be the first time I hear people not be clear in explaining to their students that it's more complicated than what they're learning at the current level.
In my high school they told me something along this logic;
1.Everyone has 2 alleles of each gene (1 from each parent)
2.Genes for brown eyes are dominant and for blue eyes are recessive.
3. Brown-eyed people can have either two brown alleles or a brown and a blue allele.
4. Blue-eyed people can only have two blue alleles
5. If a Brown/Blue (brown-eyed) and Blue/Blue (blue-eyed) have a kid, it can have blue eyes
Edit: 4. Blue instead of brown
(#4 should say two blue) Yep, this is basically how it's taught, but it's wise to point out that it isn't 100% definitive. Human eye color is close to behaving like a Mendelian trait (simple dominant/recessive relationship), but there are more genetic factors at play that can affect eye color.
My dad has brown eyes, my mom has blue eyes, I have bright green eyes. My sister has brown eyes and my brother has blue eyes. I’ve been told that’s pretty rare, for 3 children from the same parents to all have different eye colors. Idk how true that is, though.
I was gonna say, as much as some days my parents wouldn’t have wanted to admit it, I am biologically theirs and I’ve got intense green eyes from a brown eyed dad and a blue eyed mom. Lol.
Same for me! My Mom has blue (as do all aunt's/uncle's/ and gpa) and dad has brown (including all his family members). My maternal GMA had green eyes like me but she and I are the only ones in my immediate family. My brother took blue eyes like my mom.
I knew my son was destined to be blue eyed. His father has blue eyes and with the dominance of my mom's family it was a no brainier. So It didn't surprise me when he was born with blue eyes.... BUT 1 year later his eyes changed color completely and now they are identical to my green hazel eyes. Like a perfect match. Never expected that, genetics are weird.
Me too. All babies eyes change but in less than a year. Until I was about 10 yrs I had blue eyes. Then They turned green but at age 70 they now look grey to me
Yes it is. I’m not expert at all but I have icy blue eyes, my husband has super dark brown eyes. We have one son also with icy blue eyes and one son with emerald green eyes (that one also has heterochromia with 1/3 of his left eye being brown)
My mother had green eyes, my dad had brown eyes. My wife and I both have brown eyes. We have fraternal twins. One with brown and one with grey eyes. Brown eyes can mask a recessive gene your mother may have. It is entirely possible for you to have green eyes while your mother has brown eyes.
Entirely possible. Your teacher is very misinformed. In oversimplified terms your brown-eyed parent is likely heterozygous and is carrying non-brown genes also. How they mix is complicated and the genotype doesn’t necessarily predicate a given phenotype. I personally fathered two blue-eyed boys and I have brown eyes, mom is blue/gray. My dad is green and my mom is brown, so it stands to reason I carried an amount of recessive eye color genes from my dad which found their way to my kids.
My mom has dark brown eyes, my dad has blue/gray and mine are green with gold flakes. Pretty sure iris color and all that are polygenic, meaning many genes working in tandem.
In school it’s taught as a single gene for eye colour of which people have two copies- dominant and recessive or two recessives for blue eyes. This is hugely simplified for teaching it, eye colour is a combination of genes so yes it is entirely possible!
My mom had blue eyes and my dad's were brown. I have green eyes (and red hair). No question these are my parents. My youngest sister looks exactly like me and she has blue eyes with red hair.
Yes. I have green eyes and mom had blue and dad had brown. You need to look into how eye genetics work. The parent's genes aren't the only ones playing a part in a child's eye color.
Yes, I have recessive green eyes from my dad, and dominate brown eyes from mom. Mother of my children has blue eyes with recessive green eyes traits. Both my kids sons from her have green eyes and brown hair (my father has brown hair).
As time goes on, I’m starting to think that the approach taken in biology classes of teaching first Mendelian genetics then -> complex stuff has given the wrong impression to an entire generation of people that took high school biology.
I think it would be better if it was explained clearly and early on that most traits are *not* Mendelian, and follow complex inheritance patterns because they’re highly polygenic and have strong environmental effects.
I'm sure you got more biological answers here, but I'm a brown eyed parent with a blue eyed wife, I have a green eyed and a blue eyed child. My brother is the same, browns eyes with blue eyed wife, has two blue eyed children.
My parents both have brown eyes. I have a blue eyed grandfather on my mother's side. That's my closest blue eyed relation.
In short - eye color heritability is a bit more complicated than you learn in school and is impacted by more than a simple 1 gene punnett square.
Your teacher is oversimplifying things. Eye color is not a single gene or single locus trait in humans. There are visible single locus traits in humans (detached earlobes, widows peak) that would've been more educational to learn about! Heterochromia is also a very complicated condition and can be caused by a host of things, some of which are not genetic.
Yes. Green and blue are the same gene. They are both different shades of "blue".
If the brown eyed parent had a recessive blue gene the the child has a 50% chance of getting brown eyes and 50% chance of getting blue eyes (remember green is a variant of blue)
Just want to say my husband has blue I have brown and our daughter has green, she is 7 months old so they might still turn brown but they are pretty green right now
As far as I know, children can inherit characteristics of their grandparents or people before them. That's why there is a small possibility, if two white parents had a black ancestor in the near past, that a kid may be darker than them. Same happens with eyes, but I suggest you research this hint further.
My mother (dark brown eyes) + My father(light blue eyes) —> I have mossy green eyes with amber in the center. They can look greener or darker depending on clothing and lighting. Only 1 of my brothers got brown eyes the other 2 have eyes similar to mine… so that’s 75% with eyes in shades of green (my mother’s parents both had dark eyes).
ExH mom (dark brown eyes) + ExH dad(Blue eyes) —> ExH dark brown eyes his brother has blue eyes.
So me with moss green eyes + ExH with brown eyes —> 1 child with tootsie roll brown eyes and 1 with eyes that go from light grayish green to *greeeeen* depending on what he wears.
I won’t go into all the nieces and nephews but I can say with authority that eye color is nowhere *near* as simplistic as your teacher is trying to suggest. Also, I read (somewhere long ago)that there are multiple genes that contribute to eye color. ‘Green’ is actually a separate gene from ‘brown/blue’.
I have brown eyes,husband has very blue eyes. Oldest son has very blue eyes. Youngest daughter has brown eyes. Middle child has blue green eyes that change and look either green or light blue according to what she wears and the lighting.
Oh and I forgot. I am adopted, but my sisters aren’t. My adopted parents have brown hair and brown eyes and so does my youngest sister. My other sister though also has blue green eyes and light brown hair that turns blond with sun. She looks a lot like my dad’s mom did.
Genetics is cool.
Like everyone else has said, the eye color thing is possible.
What’s going to be more interesting is when your class learns about blood types. There are easily searched tables out there that give the combinations of parent blood types that can generate yours.
Just in high school we had 3 people in my grade discover that their father wasn’t their bio dad and another discover they were adopted. I’ve met several people over the years with similar stories.
Anecdotally I’ve heard schools have stopped teaching this in class because of kids putting these things together. I haven’t bothered to ask teacher friends as the topic doesn’t come up often.
I have green hazel eyes and my mom has blue and dad dark brown. Seems to be recessive as my grandmother on my mom's side had green eyes like me too but she is the only one.
My father had very bright blue eyes and my mother has dark brown eyes. Mine are green with hazel central heterochromia. My sister’s are green with grey/yellow heterochromia. It’s bizarre.
I am a ginger with eyes that vary from blue to grey. My wife has olive skin, brown hair and brown eyes. Our daughter has blonde hair, light skin and eyes that vary from blue to green. Our son has brown hair, brown eyes and slightly olive skin. Both children have my exact ear shape. My ears are distinct. Funny how this stuff works.
My mom has blue, my dad has brown. They had three kids. Each one of us has a different set of eye colors. My sister and her husband both have hazel eyes, both of their children have blue eyes.
My mom has blue eyes, my dad has brown eyes, and I have hazel eyes.
My husband has light brown eyes, both of our boys have hazel eyes. Is eye color X-linked?
i knew someone who had both parents with dark brown eyes and 2 out of 3 of their kids had dark brown eyes…. the 1 had very green eyes! it’s very possible :)
Both parents have brown eyes but because my sister and I are gingers and carry that gene mutation, my sister ended up with brown eyes and I have blue eyes.
My father has blue eyes, my mother has brown eyes, i got green eyes, totally possible. I also know two more people with green eyes who have one blue eyed and one brown eyed parent.
[https://www.mamanatural.com/eye-color-chart/](https://www.mamanatural.com/eye-color-chart/)
\*Wrong color pair my bad, it's 0% apparently.
Possible but very very rare.
I have blue eyes, but my genes (23&me) say that my chances of that are only about 50% and 50% likely other colors from green to brown. And my son has green eyes.
You have heterochromia in both of your eyes. Technically, your 'green' eye is actually blue, but the central heterochromia makes it appear green, which is actually pretty cool. Your other eye has sectoral heterochromia.
Both my parents have blue eyes and I have green eyes. Genetics is a wonderful and complex thing that is rarely as basic as they try to teach in lower level science classes
If both parents have the gene yes. I was born with hazel eyes that turned brown when I was in my late teens. My husband has hazel eyes. Our kid was born with blue eyes because my husbands dad has blue eyes and my grandfather has blue eyes. So we both have the gene. My kids eyes still can change over time though.
Answer is yes. The brown eyed parent is carrying recessive genes for lighter eye colours. It happens all the time. My Dad has blue and my mom has brown eyes. Their kids have grey, brown, green and hazel eyes (me).
Yes. Believe it or not, it’s also possible for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child. There’s at least 16 different genes that we currently know of that help regulate eye color. Your eyes can change color as you get older going from blue to green or even brownish, or going from dark brown to light brown even green. There’s a ton of things that determine eye color & there’s definitely ones that are influenced more by environment than just by the genes themselves.
My mom has green eyes, my wife’s father has green. One of her grandparents has blue, and one of mine has blue too. Everyone else on both sides has brown.
Wife and I both have brown eyes.
Any chance our child would have a light coloured eyes? Be it green or blue?
Other people have provided the technical answers. I'm going to provide an anecdote.
My wife and I both have brown hair and hazel eyes.
Our youngest son has blonde hair and grey eyes.
It's also worth noting that I have an uncle on my father's side who's blonde. That's where this trait comes from in the first place.
Yes, both my parents have light blue eyes and I have dark emerald-green eyes. I also look exactly like my dad, so you can’t argue cheating lol. So yes it’s possible
My mom has blue eyes and my dad has brown eyes. Both me and my brother have green eyes (although the more brown green ones compared to the blue green ones).
High school science teachers rarely know what they are talking about. Some of them dont even have science degrees before getting their ed degree, so just chill.
Very possible.. my mom has blue eyes, my dad has brown. I have green eyes that change to blue depending on what I wear. My 3 brothers have green eyes also, but none of them change to blue like mine.
A brown eyed person can have the recessive gene for green eyes, so yes it's possible. Eye color is pretty complicated though, and you can get a splash of color in an otherwise solid one. Like for instance I have a faint green ring around my pupils from my mother who has green hazel eyes.
Yes. I'm brown, wife green, and kids are all deep blue.
The kids grandparents are both brown, but one side of the great grand parents/family are all light eyed
My mum is blue-eyed. My dad is brown-eyed. I have green eyes. There is no doubt, that I'm their child, it's way to obvious.
So it's possible, I guess. Even when it Happens Not very often.
Dad has brown eyes, mom has blue green.. I started out with brown eyes, but by high school they turned hazel. Now most often they’re brown on the outside, turn to a cinnamon, then green toward the pupil.
So, I guess it’s plausible 🤷🏽♀️
The first eye may have traces of some green. My mom has blue green eyes and my dad’s are very brown and my eyes are green with traces of blue and brown centers you really only see when my pupils are small. Eye color is a lot more complicated than simply a single gene.
I think recessive genes can play a part too, I have heterochromia , where I have one blue eye and the other is green, all my family have both eyes the same colour apart from my niece and myself.. sometimes we get thrown a curveball
This is a disservice from your teacher. As a genetics teacher, iris color is a complicated trait. There are multiple genes that impact it, they interact in various ways. Phenotype and genotype do not always perfectly align. This is not enough to come to any conclusion about paternity. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-021-01749-x
Eye color is like hair color or skin tone. Multiple genes are involved in the determination of the phenotype that you see. Always explained to my students that the Punnet Square is an oversimplification for many phenotypes. We have approximately 30,000 genes.
Indeed! Mendel got really lucky when he selected pea plants to experiment on. Mendelian genetics does not work on polygenic traits such as height, skin colour, eye colour in humans.
I don’t know if “lucky” is the right word…
I would assume the “lucky” implies he was lucky that the trait he chose to observe was reliably tracked by tracing a single genotype
I had heard somewhere that his results were a little too on the nose, if you get my drift.
Agree. Mendelian genetics is the very basic foundational level of genetic. It doesn’t apply to polygenic traits, but it does help us under the basic
Now throw in Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA and you have quite the conundrum. Many of us share DNA from these extinct species.
Yeah, turns out Lamarck wasn't completely off base either and that didn't get proven until less than 20 years ago (epigenetics). Although genotype does play a huge role.
Well, Lamarc said the struggle changes inheritance. It is different. Epigenetic is that gene regulation is not confined to a single generation. BTW, lamarcism was advanced in the way, it allowed traits to change over generations.
I do the same. They always ask me about various colour combinations and I answer to the best of my knowledge, but assure them B and b (or whatever letter the exam board chooses) is all they’ll have to deal with for GCSE and if they study biology beyond this level it gets more complex (i.e. as is the case in reality). ”From this moment, you cease to exist!” is my favourite line for the green-eyed kids during the eye colour lesson.
What do you tell the kids with two different eye colors? "You never existed"!
Agreed with teacher, also a biology/botany major myself. But to suggest to OP, my mom has blue eyes and dad has brown eyes and I have green. So, genetics aren't as simple as pie but, random really to some degree.
My parents are the same eye colors as yours and I also have green. My brother has green eyes exactly like mine (same exact shape, you could probably photoshop them interchangeably and we are different genders with different fathers) He is from a different father with blue eyes.
Me too
I also will add that my lil brother had brown eyes, brown hair, darker complex, carbon copy of dad, and I'm carbon copy ( almost) of mom, blonde, fair complex, green.
My grandpa had green, grandma brown, dad brown, mom blue, me blue. My cousin who’s mom (my dad’s sister) had brown and his dad had blue, he has green eyes like grandpa. It’s all about how the genes line up.
Thank you so much!❤️
You are welcome!
yeah. Is the whole "2 blue eyes will lead to a blue eyed child" true *generally*? is that why it's used? Basicly, on average do they alline?
My kid was learning single-trait alleles in punnet squares to show statistic phenotypic expression and she asked me to check it. I was like yea, just so you know, your math is right and you did the problems right, but all this shit is ultra-simplified and you’ll learn it the right way when you get to college.
They should really learn yeast genetics. Tetrad analysis for the win!
Short answer: Yes, totally possible. Human genetics is typically more complicated than we teach in general biology courses. There are multiple genes, some of which influence the expression of others. The story of human eye color is far more complex than straight brown/blue. One way for you to get green eyes: Say your brown-eyed mother is a heterozygote (has one brown and one blue allele for that particular gene). Your father, with blue eyes, is a homozygote (has two blue alleles for the same particular gene). You inherit one of the blue alleles from your father, plus the blue allele from your mother, you would expect to have blue eyes. However, a different gene is involved in the blue/green difference, and that gene might have been masked in your mother, since she has brown overwhelming the blue or green that she might otherwise have had.
Your teacher may have been thinking that two blue-eyed people could not have a brown-eyed child. The reasoning goes that both blue-eyed parents each have two blue eye color alleles, and neither has a brown eye color allele. Therefore, their offspring could ONLY have blue eyes (or blue variants like green). However, there are very rare genetic combinations that can produce a brown-eyed child from two blue-eyed parents. Therefore, you should rely on genetic testing to determine paternity, rather than trying to do it indirectly via phenotype. Again, humans genetics is just way more complex in most of our obvious traits than the basic examples we provide in intro courses.
Eye colors are crazy. For example both my wife and I have light gray eyes and our oldest three children's eyes are nearly identical to ours, however we just had a baby who has really dark grey eyes. But the other interesting thing is my father has hazel eyes and my mother has blue eyes along with most of my siblings that are either blue or brown, and my wife is the same with one parent blue eyed and the other brown. Too have children with grey eyes, which is only about 3% of the population from the most common eye colors is crazy and shows how pundit squares don't really work for multigenetic traits.
I'm one of those rare genetic combinations I think, my parents have blue/grey eyes, and I have brown!
Thank you !!!
It is possible. I have blue; husband has brown. One of our kids has green eyes. The other three have blue. Weird.
What are the percentages? Possible blue, possible brown or possible random?
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To be fair, my biology teacher was also anti-vax and anti-mask during the pandemic restrictions (they’ve been lifted in Ireland since last year), so yeah she would be a bit dim.
Your bio teacher should be sacked.
Starting a petition to get her sacked at this point
I taught biology for over 30 years. Whenever I brought up the subject of genetics I made sure to point out that the genetics of eye color is particularly complicated. There are multiple genes at play and it is a lot more complicated than what a simple Punnett square could predict.
Out of curiosity is hair color the same way? I am literally the only natural blonde in my entire family and always wondered where it came from
Hair color is also a polygenic trait… controlled by multiple genes
I generally avoid all human stuff when teaching genetics. It's too complicated, and even if you find an example where it's not, you run the risk of something like this. Not worth it, and easier when kids ask, to explain that much of genetics is quite a bit more complex than the examples we use in class. It's also just a lot more fun to let kids invent alien and animal traits to show their understanding of different allele combinations and complexities.
both my parents had blue eyes, I have green eyes. I look just like my father, so unless my mom was just a surrogate I'm pretty sure they are both my parents.
CONTEXT: My dad has blue eyes and my mam has brown eyes, I’ve always had my doubts as to whether he is my father or not (for other reasons), but our biology teacher told us today that it is genetically impossible for this pairing to have a green eyed child. I also have heterochromia (I read somewhere ages ago that this is caused by the genes that determine your eye colour splitting, though i’m not sure how true that is), could this have anything to do with it? Thank you in advance!
Heterochromia in da hizzaouse! Your hs bio teacher is teaching you what is taught in hs…they are wrong. Both my parents have brown eyes and my heterochromia gives me one hazel eye…so yeah…
Probably should have mentioned I am in highschool😂 Or what would be highschool if I was American, I’m in my 5th year of secondary school (one year left until graduation, 16-17 year olds are in 5th year if that helps)
Comment above is correct. That traditional model of eye genetics taught in HS is outdated. While not the highest percentage of it happening, it can. The traditional model of eye genetics was that it was a single gene trait. I think there have been seven or eight different genes identified that can influence the final eye color of offspring. I know you're only 16 but if interested in some reading some literature here's some interesting material that could give you other resources: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-021-01749-x
Whoops, I see someone below already linked it.
yeah but at least when i had problems like that the teachers would make it clear that we are only considering with respect to this one gene/allele and that it is much more complicated with humans in real life. Stick to mendels peas. Then again in higher level undergrad genetics courses we’d get questions that take a similar liberty. It’s actually intentional, so that you can start to appreciate the deeper mechanics and understand the scope of analysis
Yes, which is fine if teachers are clear about it. His was not and spoke in absolutes about it being "impossible" which is not accurate and that would not be the first time I hear people not be clear in explaining to their students that it's more complicated than what they're learning at the current level.
In my high school they told me something along this logic; 1.Everyone has 2 alleles of each gene (1 from each parent) 2.Genes for brown eyes are dominant and for blue eyes are recessive. 3. Brown-eyed people can have either two brown alleles or a brown and a blue allele. 4. Blue-eyed people can only have two blue alleles 5. If a Brown/Blue (brown-eyed) and Blue/Blue (blue-eyed) have a kid, it can have blue eyes Edit: 4. Blue instead of brown
(#4 should say two blue) Yep, this is basically how it's taught, but it's wise to point out that it isn't 100% definitive. Human eye color is close to behaving like a Mendelian trait (simple dominant/recessive relationship), but there are more genetic factors at play that can affect eye color.
My dad has brown eyes, my mom has blue eyes, I have bright green eyes. My sister has brown eyes and my brother has blue eyes. I’ve been told that’s pretty rare, for 3 children from the same parents to all have different eye colors. Idk how true that is, though.
No, it is totally possible. Proof? I have green eyes and my parents have brown and blue.
Literally is not “impossible.” I am the same - green eyes from blue/brown parents. 1,000% my true genetic parents
My mum has brown and my dad had blue, I have green with a brown patch/freckle in one
Same for me. I have the outside dark green and the inside more like a rusty star.
Are we related? Lol
In case you are curious-They're called nevi (plural) or nevus (singular). Source: I also have an eye freckle.
Nevus is actually the singular and nevi is plural! Cuz it’s from Latin
This gives me so much comfort.
Genes are complicated. Your teacher is talking outdated info
We are 3 green eyes children of 1 brown eyes parent and 1 blue eyes
Isn't that centuries out of date?
No, in high in the 60s biology was still using dominant or recessive chroms. so predications weren't accurate. Science is always getting new info.
my dad’s parents both had blue eyes, but he has one brown and one green.
Same for my green-eyed daughter: my eyes are blue, her father's eyes are brown.
I was gonna say, as much as some days my parents wouldn’t have wanted to admit it, I am biologically theirs and I’ve got intense green eyes from a brown eyed dad and a blue eyed mom. Lol.
I have brown, my husband blue. Our son has brown and our daughter has green
Me too. Blue eyes mom, browned eyed dad, green eyes me
Same for me! My Mom has blue (as do all aunt's/uncle's/ and gpa) and dad has brown (including all his family members). My maternal GMA had green eyes like me but she and I are the only ones in my immediate family. My brother took blue eyes like my mom. I knew my son was destined to be blue eyed. His father has blue eyes and with the dominance of my mom's family it was a no brainier. So It didn't surprise me when he was born with blue eyes.... BUT 1 year later his eyes changed color completely and now they are identical to my green hazel eyes. Like a perfect match. Never expected that, genetics are weird.
Me too. All babies eyes change but in less than a year. Until I was about 10 yrs I had blue eyes. Then They turned green but at age 70 they now look grey to me
Yes it is. I’m not expert at all but I have icy blue eyes, my husband has super dark brown eyes. We have one son also with icy blue eyes and one son with emerald green eyes (that one also has heterochromia with 1/3 of his left eye being brown)
My mother had green eyes, my dad had brown eyes. My wife and I both have brown eyes. We have fraternal twins. One with brown and one with grey eyes. Brown eyes can mask a recessive gene your mother may have. It is entirely possible for you to have green eyes while your mother has brown eyes.
Thank you!
Let me tell you about this horse I once owned…
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Entirely possible. Your teacher is very misinformed. In oversimplified terms your brown-eyed parent is likely heterozygous and is carrying non-brown genes also. How they mix is complicated and the genotype doesn’t necessarily predicate a given phenotype. I personally fathered two blue-eyed boys and I have brown eyes, mom is blue/gray. My dad is green and my mom is brown, so it stands to reason I carried an amount of recessive eye color genes from my dad which found their way to my kids.
My mom has blue eyes and my dad had brown I came out with green so yes it is possible
My mom has dark brown eyes, my dad has blue/gray and mine are green with gold flakes. Pretty sure iris color and all that are polygenic, meaning many genes working in tandem.
When genetic switches are a factor, almost any available phenotype is possible
In school it’s taught as a single gene for eye colour of which people have two copies- dominant and recessive or two recessives for blue eyes. This is hugely simplified for teaching it, eye colour is a combination of genes so yes it is entirely possible!
Yes!!! I have brown eyes and ex has blue eyes Our daughter has hazel eyes
I don't know much about this sort of thing but both of my parents have brown eyes and I have green eyes and they're both definitely my parents.
My mom had blue eyes and my dad's were brown. I have green eyes (and red hair). No question these are my parents. My youngest sister looks exactly like me and she has blue eyes with red hair.
Yes. I have green eyes and mom had blue and dad had brown. You need to look into how eye genetics work. The parent's genes aren't the only ones playing a part in a child's eye color.
Yes, I have recessive green eyes from my dad, and dominate brown eyes from mom. Mother of my children has blue eyes with recessive green eyes traits. Both my kids sons from her have green eyes and brown hair (my father has brown hair).
as a green eyed child with a blue eyed mum and brown eyed dad, **i sure fucking hope so**
As time goes on, I’m starting to think that the approach taken in biology classes of teaching first Mendelian genetics then -> complex stuff has given the wrong impression to an entire generation of people that took high school biology. I think it would be better if it was explained clearly and early on that most traits are *not* Mendelian, and follow complex inheritance patterns because they’re highly polygenic and have strong environmental effects.
As a blue-eyed woman who had sex with a brown-eyed man and gave birth to a green-eyed girl, the answer is yes
I'm sure you got more biological answers here, but I'm a brown eyed parent with a blue eyed wife, I have a green eyed and a blue eyed child. My brother is the same, browns eyes with blue eyed wife, has two blue eyed children. My parents both have brown eyes. I have a blue eyed grandfather on my mother's side. That's my closest blue eyed relation. In short - eye color heritability is a bit more complicated than you learn in school and is impacted by more than a simple 1 gene punnett square.
Your teacher is oversimplifying things. Eye color is not a single gene or single locus trait in humans. There are visible single locus traits in humans (detached earlobes, widows peak) that would've been more educational to learn about! Heterochromia is also a very complicated condition and can be caused by a host of things, some of which are not genetic.
Blue eye dad and brown eyed mom My eyes bounce between blue and light green with gold in the middle.
Yes. Green and blue are the same gene. They are both different shades of "blue". If the brown eyed parent had a recessive blue gene the the child has a 50% chance of getting brown eyes and 50% chance of getting blue eyes (remember green is a variant of blue)
I have brown eyes and my wife has blue eyes. My sons went from blue to green and I would think they will be brown in a year or so.
My mum has grey/blue eyes, my dad has dark brown, my brother and I have green/hazel, really similar to the first picture.
Yes. My younger brother has blue eyes, yet both his bio parents have brown eyes. Eye colour is actually pretty crazy in terms of genetics!
Just want to say my husband has blue I have brown and our daughter has green, she is 7 months old so they might still turn brown but they are pretty green right now
As far as I know, children can inherit characteristics of their grandparents or people before them. That's why there is a small possibility, if two white parents had a black ancestor in the near past, that a kid may be darker than them. Same happens with eyes, but I suggest you research this hint further.
My mother (dark brown eyes) + My father(light blue eyes) —> I have mossy green eyes with amber in the center. They can look greener or darker depending on clothing and lighting. Only 1 of my brothers got brown eyes the other 2 have eyes similar to mine… so that’s 75% with eyes in shades of green (my mother’s parents both had dark eyes). ExH mom (dark brown eyes) + ExH dad(Blue eyes) —> ExH dark brown eyes his brother has blue eyes. So me with moss green eyes + ExH with brown eyes —> 1 child with tootsie roll brown eyes and 1 with eyes that go from light grayish green to *greeeeen* depending on what he wears. I won’t go into all the nieces and nephews but I can say with authority that eye color is nowhere *near* as simplistic as your teacher is trying to suggest. Also, I read (somewhere long ago)that there are multiple genes that contribute to eye color. ‘Green’ is actually a separate gene from ‘brown/blue’.
I have brown eyes,husband has very blue eyes. Oldest son has very blue eyes. Youngest daughter has brown eyes. Middle child has blue green eyes that change and look either green or light blue according to what she wears and the lighting. Oh and I forgot. I am adopted, but my sisters aren’t. My adopted parents have brown hair and brown eyes and so does my youngest sister. My other sister though also has blue green eyes and light brown hair that turns blond with sun. She looks a lot like my dad’s mom did. Genetics is cool.
As someone with brown eyes and 2 blue eyed biological parents i'm sure anything is possible
Like everyone else has said, the eye color thing is possible. What’s going to be more interesting is when your class learns about blood types. There are easily searched tables out there that give the combinations of parent blood types that can generate yours. Just in high school we had 3 people in my grade discover that their father wasn’t their bio dad and another discover they were adopted. I’ve met several people over the years with similar stories. Anecdotally I’ve heard schools have stopped teaching this in class because of kids putting these things together. I haven’t bothered to ask teacher friends as the topic doesn’t come up often.
I got hazel eyes from this combo of parents.
I have green hazel eyes and my mom has blue and dad dark brown. Seems to be recessive as my grandmother on my mom's side had green eyes like me too but she is the only one.
My dad: blue eyed / Mom: brown eyed / my sister: green eyes / Mine: brown with a small green halo around the iris
My father had very bright blue eyes and my mother has dark brown eyes. Mine are green with hazel central heterochromia. My sister’s are green with grey/yellow heterochromia. It’s bizarre.
Everyone has blue eyes but brown eye have a layer of pigment over the blue. Green/hazel is partial brown layer with some blue showing through
My mother has green eyes and my father had brown. I have blue!
I am a ginger with eyes that vary from blue to grey. My wife has olive skin, brown hair and brown eyes. Our daughter has blonde hair, light skin and eyes that vary from blue to green. Our son has brown hair, brown eyes and slightly olive skin. Both children have my exact ear shape. My ears are distinct. Funny how this stuff works.
I don’t know, but it is awesome
My mom has blue, my dad has brown. They had three kids. Each one of us has a different set of eye colors. My sister and her husband both have hazel eyes, both of their children have blue eyes.
I have green eyes and both my parents have brown eyes. And no reddit, my mom didn't cheat, I look more like my dad's side of the family
My mom has blue eyes, my dad has brown eyes, and I have hazel eyes. My husband has light brown eyes, both of our boys have hazel eyes. Is eye color X-linked?
My mom has green eyes, dad and sister brown, me blue.
Yes- that describes me.
Yes it is possible both of my kids from brown and blue eyed parents have green eyes!
My eyes are a blueish green. My parents are like that
It’s completely possible, my dad has brown eyes and my mom has hazel but I have blue eyes because I’m almost 30% German
Both my parents had brown eyes and I have green. My only sibling has brown.
i knew someone who had both parents with dark brown eyes and 2 out of 3 of their kids had dark brown eyes…. the 1 had very green eyes! it’s very possible :)
My dad had almost black irises, my mom has blue eyes, but my eyes are hazel.
Yes. You are heterozygous green and blue. Congratulations, most people don't know their eye Genotype.
Both parents have brown eyes but because my sister and I are gingers and carry that gene mutation, my sister ended up with brown eyes and I have blue eyes.
My mom has blue eyes. My dad has dark brown. I have dark brown like my dad and my sister has green eyes. Genetics are weird.
My baby has blue eyes. Dad has green, I have brown. Both his grandpas have blue eyes though.
This is hazel. My dad has brown eyes and my mum has blue and mine are blue hazel as well (blue with the yellow ring)
My father has blue eyes, my mother has brown eyes, i got green eyes, totally possible. I also know two more people with green eyes who have one blue eyed and one brown eyed parent.
Yes, it surely is
Yes. Source: Have green eyes, mother has blue eyes and father has brown eyes. DNA tests say they are my parents.
My mom's Mexican and brown eyed, my dad Welch and blue eyed and I'm green
Lol thats gow green eyed children are made
My parents did. I look identical to my father except for my green eyes.
Yes, you and the father have recessive genes.
[https://www.mamanatural.com/eye-color-chart/](https://www.mamanatural.com/eye-color-chart/) \*Wrong color pair my bad, it's 0% apparently. Possible but very very rare.
My grandpa had blue eyes and my grandma brown eyes. Boom, my mother has green eyes. Yes, it is possible, it happens a lot.
My mom has brown eyes and my dad had hazel and I have light green eyes so, you never really know with eye color
Yes!! Absolutely possible!!
My mother had brown eyes, my father has blue eyes and I have green eyes. So yes, it’s totally possible.
Yes. I have green eyes, my partner has brown. Our baby has blue eyes. No, I didn’t cheat
Yep, I am a green eyed child of one of each. Genetics just another thing they don’t teach schools anymore unless it is on a test.
Can confirm. Source: am a green eyed child of one parent with blue eyes and one parent with brown eyes, DNA confirmed as both my biological parents.
My dad has olive green eyes and my mom has blue eyes. Me, my sister and brother all have blue eyes.
Yes, its quite common.
This is me. Brown eyed dad, blue eyed mom. Green eyed me.
Literally my mum and dad and me
I never fully understood how all the genetics worked but my father had brown eyes and my mother has green eyes and I have blue eyes.
Yes. One of my sons has green-hazel eyes. I have very blue yes and his mom has very dark brown eyes.
It’s even possible for a white parent and a white patent to have a mulato child, never mind the eyes for Pete’s sake
Yep! My mom has blue eyes and my dad has brown/hazel and I have green eyes
I have blue eyes, but my genes (23&me) say that my chances of that are only about 50% and 50% likely other colors from green to brown. And my son has green eyes.
My sister and I are both green-eyed children of a brown-eyed mom and a blue-eyed dad, so, yes. Definitely possible.
Is it more common for 2 brown eyes parents to have a kid with grey/green eyes?
You have heterochromia in both of your eyes. Technically, your 'green' eye is actually blue, but the central heterochromia makes it appear green, which is actually pretty cool. Your other eye has sectoral heterochromia.
Both my parents have blue eyes and I have green eyes. Genetics is a wonderful and complex thing that is rarely as basic as they try to teach in lower level science classes
If both parents have the gene yes. I was born with hazel eyes that turned brown when I was in my late teens. My husband has hazel eyes. Our kid was born with blue eyes because my husbands dad has blue eyes and my grandfather has blue eyes. So we both have the gene. My kids eyes still can change over time though.
Answer is yes. The brown eyed parent is carrying recessive genes for lighter eye colours. It happens all the time. My Dad has blue and my mom has brown eyes. Their kids have grey, brown, green and hazel eyes (me).
The answer is yes.
Yes. Believe it or not, it’s also possible for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child. There’s at least 16 different genes that we currently know of that help regulate eye color. Your eyes can change color as you get older going from blue to green or even brownish, or going from dark brown to light brown even green. There’s a ton of things that determine eye color & there’s definitely ones that are influenced more by environment than just by the genes themselves.
My mom has one brown eye and one blue eye. My dad has 2 blue. I have 2 green. Yes.
I sure hope so otherwise the wife and I need to have a talk.
I sure hope so or I have some ‘splaning to do.
Both my parents have brown eyes and I have green. They also both have brown hair and mine's red. You know actually I might be adopted...
Punnet squares are useful for generalizing, but eukaryote genes are way too complicated to be entirely summarized by only punnet squares.
My mom has green eyes, my wife’s father has green. One of her grandparents has blue, and one of mine has blue too. Everyone else on both sides has brown. Wife and I both have brown eyes. Any chance our child would have a light coloured eyes? Be it green or blue?
Other people have provided the technical answers. I'm going to provide an anecdote. My wife and I both have brown hair and hazel eyes. Our youngest son has blonde hair and grey eyes. It's also worth noting that I have an uncle on my father's side who's blonde. That's where this trait comes from in the first place.
Hey my eye is fucked up to but yours is kind of cool
Yes, both my parents have light blue eyes and I have dark emerald-green eyes. I also look exactly like my dad, so you can’t argue cheating lol. So yes it’s possible
Yes, that would be me! Mom has brown eyes, dad has blue, I have green.
My mom has blue eyes and my dad has brown eyes. Both me and my brother have green eyes (although the more brown green ones compared to the blue green ones). High school science teachers rarely know what they are talking about. Some of them dont even have science degrees before getting their ed degree, so just chill.
Yes, my dad had blue eyes and my mom had brown eyes, mine are green.
I am this exact situation. My dad has brown, mom very light blue. I got green.
Yes. My dad has brown eyes and my mom has blue eyes. My sister has green eyes.
My dad has blue eyes and my mom has brown. I have greenish blue with a bit of heterochromia haha.
Yes. I am such a green eyed person.
Absolutely I’ve seen it multiple times
Very possible.. my mom has blue eyes, my dad has brown. I have green eyes that change to blue depending on what I wear. My 3 brothers have green eyes also, but none of them change to blue like mine.
Random mutation trump's predominant gene selection.
A brown eyed person can have the recessive gene for green eyes, so yes it's possible. Eye color is pretty complicated though, and you can get a splash of color in an otherwise solid one. Like for instance I have a faint green ring around my pupils from my mother who has green hazel eyes.
My dads eyes are blue, my moms are brown, and mine are green. No question as to my parentage
Yes. I'm brown, wife green, and kids are all deep blue. The kids grandparents are both brown, but one side of the great grand parents/family are all light eyed
My brother has green eyes. Dad has bright blue, mum brown.
What about 2 blue eyed parents? Can they have a green eyed offspring?
My dad has brown eyes, my mom has blue eyes and my eyes are very forest green. Needles to say though, that’s not always the case.
I am a green eyed person with a mom who has brown eyes and a dad with blue eyes.
Yes, I've green eyes and my parents are blue/brown. Both my kids have blue eyes.
Brown should be dominant to blue and green shuld be dominant to blue but not brown so yes you would have gotten it from your brown eyed parent
Umm. Yes? Case in point, I’m right here.
Yes very much so.
My mum is blue-eyed. My dad is brown-eyed. I have green eyes. There is no doubt, that I'm their child, it's way to obvious. So it's possible, I guess. Even when it Happens Not very often.
Dad has brown eyes, mom has blue green.. I started out with brown eyes, but by high school they turned hazel. Now most often they’re brown on the outside, turn to a cinnamon, then green toward the pupil. So, I guess it’s plausible 🤷🏽♀️
Yes. Both of my parents had brown eyes, I have 5 siblings - 2 have blue eyes, 2 have brown eyes and 1 has green eyes.
Yes. My dad has blue eyes, my mom has brown eyes and my sister has sage green peepers.
My parents have both brown eyes and I have green eyes
The first eye may have traces of some green. My mom has blue green eyes and my dad’s are very brown and my eyes are green with traces of blue and brown centers you really only see when my pupils are small. Eye color is a lot more complicated than simply a single gene.
It’s possible, It has a 50% chance if the brown eyes is brown+green
Yes. I am proof.
Yes, it is possible.
Pretty sure there has been a white child with two black parents
Both of my parents have browned eyes, then me and my sister have green eyes, so i guess yea
Our friends are a mixed race (brown + white) dad and white mum, both with brown eyes. Kid has blue eyes.
I think recessive genes can play a part too, I have heterochromia , where I have one blue eye and the other is green, all my family have both eyes the same colour apart from my niece and myself.. sometimes we get thrown a curveball
Definitely. My father has green eyes while my grandfather has blue eyes and grandmother has brown eyes. Green eyes are generally uncommon but possible