the.com/dominant gene
The allele loud enough to run the show even with only one copy.
means A gene version that determines a visible trait whenever it's present, even if only one copy is inherited (the other copy's effect gets masked).
from From Latin 'dominari' meaning 'to rule or have mastery over' — the same root that gives us 'dominate' and 'dominion.' The genetics sense was coined in the 1900s as scientists rediscovered Gregor Mendel's pea-plant experiments from decades earlier; Mendel himself had used plain German terms, but as his work was translated and formalized into the vocabulary of modern genetics, 'dominant' was chosen because the trait it produces effectively rules over, or masks, its 'recessive' counterpart.
- not 'stronger'
- dominant just means it masks the other allele
- common myth
- dominant traits are not automatically more frequent
- brown eyes
- classic dominant example, but polygenic in reality
- recessive still lurks
- carriers pass it on silently, unexpressed