There’s a movie coming out soon that features an actress who has typical Asian features, except that she has blue eyes. While I’m sure this is probably not her natural eye color, I wonder if anything like this is possible via breeding with a blue-eyed Caucasian.
If I understand how dominant and recessive genes operate, this isn’t possible, no matter how much admixture with blue-eyed Caucasians is performed. But I recall hearing somewhere that the whole dominant/recessive gene thing is much more complex than what’s taught in high school biology.
Could a person who was half white and half Asian have blue eyes? What if they were three-fourths white??
Also, if a person has blue eyes and one of their parents does not, does this mean that the non-blue-eyed person cannot possibly be their biological parent?
Eyes that appear pale blue have the least amount of pigment (relative to other colors), and very dark brown eyes have the most. So unless I misunderstand, there aren’t genes for blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes, etc. - just genes that produce different amounts of melanin. It’s more like blending than one-or-the-other. (That’s how you me, with green eyes even though that’s not what either of my parents have.)
I’m not sure exactly how recessive genes would play into it, but I think that would make it very unlikely for someone with ‘recent’ Asian (meaning Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) heritage to have blue eyes.
A simplistic explanation of the genetics behind eye color, pretending that blue and brown are the only possibilities:
Everyone has two genes for eye color, one from each parent. If the gene for brown eyes is present, it is dominant over the gene for blue, and you end up with brown eyes. However, you can pass on either the gene for brown or the gene for blue to your children. It is, therefore, possible for two brown-eyed people to have a blue-eyed child if they each possess and pass on a recessive gene. So if you’re assuming that the “Asian” parent has two dominant genes for eye color, the children born to that person and a blue-eyed person would have brown eyes. Each of those children, however, would carry one recessive gene and, if he or she had a child with a blue-eyed person, that child would have a three in four chance of being blue-eyed. I’d draw the graph for you, but I don’t have any idea how to express it in vB code.
IANAG (geneticist), so this is mostly WAG, but if your putative child were 1/4 asian and 1/4 caucasian on both sides of the family tree, it’s at least possible for him/her to be blue-eyed. For example, if the paternal grandparents were Chinese and Norwegian and the maternal grandparents were Japanese and Irish with Norwegian and Irish grandparents both having blue eyes. Then the child could receive the recessive gene from both parents and end up with blue eyes. Although the odds are still low. I am the only blue-eyed person in my family of seven (including parents), but I have (had) one blue-eyed grandparent on each side. Of course, none of us are even slightly asian unless you count the 1/64th Cherokee, which I wouldn’t.
I have brown eyes and have a blue eyed son, his mom comes from a blue eyed set of parents and my mom has light eyes (in the hazel range), he also has blonde hair to my brown. I blame it on my Irish ancestry.
I did have a student who was half chinese half white with smoke grey eyes, the first time I looked her in the eye up close I almost lost my train of thought, give her a few years and she will be breaking hearts everywhere she goes. I dont know how pure her ancestry was but her mom looked very much chinese and her dad was definitly white although probably the same american mongerel most of us are.
2 brown eyed parents have a 1 in 4 chance of passing on blue eyes IF they both have the recessive gene. As i understand it, if a child has brown eyes, and both of their parents have blue eyes, then that’s when you start looking suspiciously at the milkman.
Having really dark hair and light colored eyes is rare, since the genes determining the melanin amount for hair and eyes are grouped closely together and don’t sort randomly. For example, if a really fair person had a child with an asian person, their kid would most likely either look pure asian or have medium eyes and medium hair, with a tiny chance of being fair. Having dark hair and light eyes is extremely unlikely, though not impossible.
Not Asian, but there is a type of person usually from Cornwall in England who has jet black hair, very pale opaque skin that flushes pink easily, and piercing blue eyes. I had a boyfriend at college with this colouring and he was drop. dead. gorgeous. Yum…
My kids are half Japanese, with a dark father (I mean, dark even for a Japanese person). They both had blond hair as small children, little one still does, though it is darkening. Their eyes are a goldy yellow brown. I would think that one more generation of dilution would bring green eyes out.
A woman I worked with had a Japanese mother and a Dutch father, and she had the most amazing cat-like eyes which were green shot with flecks of gold. Not hazel but much more striking than that. She wore glasses so I am fairly sure they were not lenses!
I don’t think Asians have blue eye genes at all. I mean, I know that nobody is pure Asian, but every single one of my ancestors for about 4 generations (and probably more) is Han Chinese and from the same province to boot. This sort of thing is pretty much standard for a lot of Chinese people I know.
Now for the anecdote: I have a friend who is half Chinese and half British. He has dark brown hair, light skin and eyes that were very blue as a kid but have now become a medium brown. I don’t think it’s very likely for someone to get all the other Asian features but blue eyes.
Johanna, I once had a Pakistani boyfriend who was of the Pashtun tribe, which is also found in Afghanistan. They’re related to the Persians, and often have green or blue eyes. Sharbat Gula, the famous National Geographic covergirl, was Pashtun.
My niece is half American, half Asian. Her father had blonde hair and blue eyes. Her mother is pure ethnic Chinese-Thai* going back as far as anyone can document. This niece has blue eyes, although not the sort of blue color that you might think of normal, more like a smoky, dark blue. She also has a brownish-blonde or blondish-brown hair color.
Her older brother had dark, brown, almost black hair and dark brown, almost black eyes.
So to answer the OP, I’d say 50% at most.
*Her family is Thai, of Chinese descent. Their ancestors moved to Thailand about 500 years ago.
Slight hijack, but in the book Memoirs of a Geisha she actually has grey eyes. So I am not sure if her eyes are grey or blue in the movie as I haven’t seen it yet.
I’m a white dark brown/black haired blue eyed fella. My wife is black haired dark brown eyed Chinese woman. Both our daughters have black hair and brown eyes. So I’d say half ain’t gonna cut it.