Hardy-Weinberg law

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Har·dy-Wein·berg law

(här′dē-wīn′bûrg)

A fundamental principle in population genetics stating that the genotype frequencies and gene frequencies of a large, randomly mating population remain constant provided immigration, mutation, and selection do not take place.

[After Godfrey Harold Hardy (1877-1947), British mathematician, and Wilhelm , Weinberg (1862-1937), German physician.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in periodicals archive ?

The analyses of differences between the observed and the expected values for MC4R/NcoI genotype groups (Table II), as based on the Hardy-Weinberg law, showed that the differences were statistically significant for all color variations with the exception of the Sapphire cross.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism of Melanocortin-4 Receptor Gene in American Mink (Neovison vison)

The book touches on numerous topics, from the highly technical (such as the relevance of Hardy-Weinberg law for understanding natural selection, the importance of Hox genes for development of particular organisms) to the rather speculative (such as the would-be implications of Darwinism for fatalism or the philosophical problem of evil).

Michael Ruse: Darwinism and its Discontents

He begins with genetic variation, describing the Hardy-Weinberg law, and variation in Drosopila.