Why is the light-skin gene recessive?

Question

That is, only rarely does the child of a light-skinned person and a dark-skinned person come out light. And I've heard somewhere that whiteness is actually a recessive gene. If anyone has any information on this or could direct me to some good books or articles, it'd be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Dark, genetic traits are primarily a dominant gene vs. a recessive gene. Dark almost always dominates. However, if each parent shares a similar recessive gene then, this comes into play. Are you familiar with " Mendel's First Law" or the " Law of Segregation" ?? In addition, many traits are not discrete features (eg. purple or white flowers) but are instead, continuous features (eg. height and skin color). These " complex traits" are the product of interactions of many genes.
** My own personal input. My father was from Sweden and, he had jet black hair and brown eyes. My Mom is a blonde, blue-eyed woman. In my case, I'm fair skinned, blonde and blue eyed. Not all Swedes are blonde and blue eyed, a common misconception.
I hope that this is useful. Here's a web:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics

Answer 2

when you say '..only rarely..' you betray a comprehension of the issue more on the side of it being a probabilistic question...recessivity is not a question of the white 'coming up' less often ...oh,hell - it might be..(thinks)...hmmm...less-likely...less often...less likelihood...damn! My (left) brain hurts..its all of question of the chance of the right entanglement of the chromosomes..but why don't we get 'piebald' people, as we find in the dog world etc.?

Answer 3

http://www.biology-online.org/3/1_genetic_control.htm

http://genetics.suite101.com/article.cfm/when_caucasians_turned_white

http://humangenetics.suite101.com/article.cfm/complete_genetic_dominance

I hope these help.