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Genetic Equilibrium: the Hardy-Weinberg Law
An English mathematician, Godfrey
Harold Hardy and a German physician, Wilhelm Weinberg concluded
that gene pool frequencies
are stable but that evolution should occur in all populations almost all
of the time. This law was developed in 1908 and is known as the
Hardy-Weinberg Law.
Population geneticists who followed these studies agreed that seven conditions were necessary for evolution not to occur. They are
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Evolution will occur as long as one of the
conditions above are not met and thus the gene pool frequencies
will remain unchanged. This principle is known as the
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, or genetic equilibrium. However, in the
real world, it is highly unlikely that any of the seven conditions
would occur let alone all of them.
Therefore, the main message that the Hardy-Weinberg Law aims to
tell us that the occurance of evolution varies with the gene pool
frequencies, which are inherently stable. They are not able to
change by themselves.