Meeting the Taino
In the comments below a few days ago someone expressed concern at the diminishing of genetic diversity due to the disappearance of indigenous populations. My response was bascally that it depends. The issue here is whether that disappearance is due to assimilation, or extinction. If a given population is genetically absorbed into another, obviously their genetic diversity is by and large maintained. What disappears are the specific genotypes, the combinations of gene pairs, which are distinctive to that given group. This is the same dynamic at the heart of the 'disappearing blonde gene'
meme. Unless there is selection at the loci which encode or predispose one to blonde hair the 'gene' isn't going anywhere. Rather, the implicit issue here is that blonde people are intermarrying with non-blonde people, and if the genetic variant has a recessive expression then the frequency of the trait will decrease. Populations with ...
