• Question: Will the gingers get wiped out?

    Asked by russewil to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB on 26 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 26 Jun 2013:


      That’s racist. Watch out for the ginger ninjas!
      Seriously “ginger” is a recessive gene mix, which means as gingers migrate and marry non-gingers, they will tend to have non-ginger children. The result will be a world ginger shortage. For me, that’s a tragedy. As to why, 2 words, Karen Gillan!

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 26 Jun 2013:


      As the gene pool of gingers gets ‘diluted’ into the worldwide pool of non-gingers (as Peter said, by marrying non-gingers and having non-ginger children – because the ginger gene is recessive), the number of people with ginger hair will decrease. But at the same time, the number of half-ginger children will increase (they have a copy of the ginger gene even if it doesn’t show up in their hair), and when two half-gingers have children there is a fair chance they will be fully ginger again! So yes, there will be fewer of them around, but they won’t completely disappear I don’t think!

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 26 Jun 2013:


      Hi russewil- best question yet! We don’t tend to see many gingers because non-ginger DNA is more dominant.
      If a ginger marries a non-ginger (or ‘ninger’) then the children will be ningers too.
      However, if they in turn were to marry a ginger then there is a good chance that the ginger hair would return in their children.
      Most of us are ningers, so I think gingers will decrease, but they won’t become extinct!
      P.s. my wife’s a ginger!

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