Evaluating ethics 8 ������������������������������������������������

KEY SCIENCE SKILL – ANALYSE, EVALUATE AND COMMUNICATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS

Red hair extinction hoax

In 2007, news outlets began to report that the recessive allele for red hair would be extinct by 2100.

Read the following article from National Geographic and answer the questions. Red alert Does Britain’s Prince Harry have endangered roots? This year, news reports buzzed that true redheads will be extinct by 2100, since carriers of the carrot-top gene are less and less likely to pair up in an age of global intermingling (a child usually needs a copy from each parent to get the red result). But while redheads may decline, the potential for red isn’t going away. When a mutagen created the special gene in northern Europe millennia ago, its effect on hair and skin pigments – causing red to build up instead of brown – was beneficial, upping the body’s ability to make vitamin D from sunlight. Today, the gene’s carriers are often prone to skin cancer and, oddly, some are more sensitive to heat- and cold-related pain. Only about 4 per cent of people possess the gene, so fewer show the red trait. Still, it’s hiding in the genome, rearing up far from its frigid origins in far-flung places like Jamaica, a tip of the hat from a fiery Scottish forebear. Holland, Jennifer S. National Geographic Magazine, September 2007, Vol. 212, Issue 3.

1 This snippet from National Geographic has been used by many news outlets as proof that red hair is soon to be extinct. Choose a sentence in this article that refutes this claim. Use your knowledge of genetics to explain how the sentence you chose refutes the extinction of red hair.

2 This story has now been given the title ‘The red hair extinction hoax’ and is used as an example of why journalists should be more thorough with their fact checking.

Does National Geographic have more responsibility to report the facts correctly than a non-scientific news outlet?

Justify your answer.

3 Four per cent of people in the world carry the gene for red hair and 2% of people have red hair. Given the population of Earth is now 7 billion, how many people: a carry the gene for red hair?

b have red hair?