Author's note: I really mean no disrespect to the original poster of of it and I really think it's neat thought exercise, but there's a post on tumblr going around about the Tracy brothers genetics and it's driving me crazy for a reasons I'll explain in the notes at the end.
The press conference ended with several tabloid, and few respectable, reporters facing lawsuits, Jeff Tracy grimly vindicated, and the Tracy Brothers developing a life-long aversion to any sort of journalists.
It started shortly after Lucille Tracy's tragic death. A scurrilous journalist started insinuating that not all of her children were Jeff Tracy's children. After all two blue-eyed parents couldn't possibly have two brown-eyed children – the genetics just didn't work. And then there was the range of hair colors! Even in the face of tragedy, the public ate it up
And unfortunately, it did not die down as Jeff hoped it would.
It came to a head when some talking heads called Virgil and Gordon bastards, and that John was probably one too.
The family, well, Jeff and his oldest sons, went public that there would be paternity tests from several different reputable firms picked by outside sources, and that the results would be announced publicly.
One reporter smugly asked Jeff what he would do if the tests came back and he wasn't the father. He looked them dead in the eye:
"They would still be my sons."
But all the tests came back with the result a 97 percent probability that all of the Tracy brothers were indeed the sons of Jeff Tracy by the late red-haired blue-eyed Lucille Tracy.
"Human genetics are too complex to be broken down into neat little boxes," was Jeff's last words on the matter.
End notes:
Okay, human genetics are absurdly complex, and there are recessive and dominant traits, but it isn't as simple as if XY + LB then XL or XB or YL or YB.
So now for the explanation as to why that post just knocked the wind out of me.
Last year a very dear friend at work ended up in a horrendous situation were his mother was accusing his wife of cheating on him because both their children had brown-eyes, while he and his wife both had blue eyes because his mother had gotten hold of the idea of simplified genetics in her head. The long and short of it was they ended up doing paternity tests to shut her up because it was becoming so unpleasant. Both children are most definitely his, and the reason I say definitely even when there is almost always a small percentage of wriggle room is both children inherited a genetic condition that he has that comes down from, wait for it, his mother.
Needless to say, relations with his mother are very chilly at that moment.
I initially missed an example of why those neat little squares just don't work and it was literally staring me in the face - I have brown eyes. Both my parents have green eyes but only my sister has green eyes, my brother and I have brown eyes, but my sister doesn't have the "broken" eyebrow trait that runs though my Dad's family, my brother and I do.