Talk:Red hair

Spanish figures: Add them please

The spanish figure is 2-3% redhaired people according to data. I leave the link here https://www.elmundo.es/magazine/2003/183/1048874109.html#:~:text=Si%20s%C3%B3lo%20el%207%25%20de,tanto%20dorado%20por%20nuestras%20ciudades? (Si sólo el 7% de los españoles es rubio natural (el 57% es castaño, el 26% moreno, el 3% pelirrojo y el 10% restante moreno y castaño claros)

Edit Suggestion - Genetics

Under section 2.1 Genetics I propose the following addition:

A haplotype has been identified on the ASIP locus on chromosome 20 that is associated with red hair. The ASIP locus prevents the MC1R receptor from producing melanocyte-stimulating hormone. As a result, less eumelanin and more pheomelanin is produced. Pheomelanin has been linked to red hair and increased risk of skin damage due to UV light.

Tbechar Template:Reflist talk

Some irish people say irish have red hair because of the vikings?

I have heard some irish people say that some irish people have red or blonde hair because of the Germanic invasion(Vikings) of Ireland. Why do irish people say this?

Medieval antisemitism

The following proposition: Template:Quote is unsourced and it is contraddicted by the Bible. affirms king David "was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking." King David has been proclaimed saint for all the Christian Churches whi veretate the saints: his being ruddy couldn't have arisen any prejudice against rutilism.

Geographic Distribution

I don't think its accurate to say that Scotland has the highest number of red-haired people as said in this article because the 13% figure that is used to back up this claim is purely based on an estimation and is not supported by any study and therefore has been highly criticised by many experts in the field such as Dr. Jim Wilson who conducted one of the largest studies on red hair and found the percentage of Scots who are readheads to be only 6%. Dr Wilson's finding are backed up by the 1907 largest study on hair colour in Scottish history with over half a million participants and found the number of people in Scotland with red hair to be 5.3% nowhere near the 13% number cited in this article. If Wikipedia prides itself on presenting the most accurate information I think we should have an agreement as to getting the 13% figure removed. If for whatever reason you dont agree with me i will propose a compromise and say that both Scotland and Ireland have the highest number of red-haired people per capita and not say one has more or less than the other, but I don't belive it's fair to keep in a figure that's based on someone's guess and use it as a fact to back up the claim that Scotland has the highest number of red-haired people in the world especially when even the article contradicts this a few lines down. Billybob the third1244 (talk) 13:03, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Geographic distribution

Could you give me permission to change it to this as I think it would be more accurate for the page

Red hair is said to be most common in the Northern European coasts and islands of the Atlantic Ocean and in particular among Celtic people.

Ireland, has the highest percentage of people with red hair at over 10%,with 46% carrying the gene. Scotland also has high percentages of red hair with around 6% making it the second most ginger country in the world behind Ireland. There was a misconception that red hair occurrence in Scotland ran at around 13%, due to this figure appearing in reliable media sources, however this figure was only an estimate and has since been disproved by research. Dr. Jim Wilson of Britain's DNA has carried out the only large scale genetic study of Red Hair using a sample of over 2,343 people; and has found red hair occurrence of 6% in Scotland, this is concurrent with the largest ever study of hair colour in Scotland which analysed over half a million people and found red hair prevalence of 5.3%. A 1956 study of hair color among British army recruits also found high levels of red hair in Wales and the English Border counties. Billybob the third1244 (talk) 16:57, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

or I could change it to this

Ireland and Scotland have the highest percentage of red hair in the world per capita with around 10% of Irish people and between 5-13% of Scottish people being redheads Billybob the third1244 (talk) 17:47, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Why did you remove that well sourced Edinburgh cite? JJNito197 (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

@JJNito197 I'll re edit again and keep the part of Edinburgh would you be ok with that? It's not accurate to say Scotland has the highest percentage of red hair in the world as that 13% figure is just an estimation and actual studies such as the 1907 largest hair colour survey in Scotland's history and a more recent study from Dr Jim Wilson find less than 6% of Scots are ginger haired Billybob the third1244 (talk) 03:03, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

You changed the wording again, changing back to original. Not said to be found, is found. JJNito197 (talk) 08:41, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

@JJNito197 the claim that Edinburgh has the highest concentration of red heads is not definite so instead of "Is" I used "said to be". You have it your way just keep in the part of Ireland and Scotland both having the most red haired people as their isn't enough evidence to say one has more than the other although it's most likely Ireland if I had to decide as the only figure that supports Scotland having more is based off a wildly over exaggerated estimation Billybob the third1244 (talk) 10:02, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

@JJNito197 Its not definite that Edinburgh has the highest concentration of red heads so I replaced "is" with "said to be" Billybob the third1244 (talk) 10:04, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I'd remove the "red head capital of the world" comment completely. It's tabloidy nonsense. Hair colours do not have "capitals", they have areas of greatest concentration, as found by one particular study. Just to re-emphasis what I said below; we should be reporting these facts as the outcome of studies, with their own methodologies, strengths and weaknesses. We should not be attempting to get them to all agree, or preference one over the others. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 10:19, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Agree, we should mention Edinburgh having the greatest concentration of red heads carriers JJNito197 (talk) 10:25, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

It should also be noted that everything on this article that is ultimately sourced to the work of BritainsDNA, ScotlandsDNA and Alistair Moffat (a journalist with no scientific qualifications) should be treated with caution. That includes those newspaper stories. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 10:37, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Indeed - I remember issues with the "survey conducted by Dr Jim Wilson" such as - the quoted sample size was every customer of BritainsDNA regardless of nationalty or location; it was not a random sample; the redheadedness "study" was a crude database search of the DNA found in those samples, not a survey of those exhibiting red hair in Scotland; identification of people as Scottish was according to an ad hoc metric of the number of grandparents or great-grandparents that customers had listed as Scottish on their forms; the exercise was a promotion for a service telling couples who bought BritainsDNA sample analyses whether their children might have red hair and was a low-effort way of gaining press attention too, which it did. It was a time when eager entrepreneurs thought there was easy money in DNA testing, but BritainsDNA went bust. NebY (talk) 12:40, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I'd have a preference for something more along the lines of;

Studies on the prevalence of red hair, using different methodologies, have reached differing conclusions, but indicate the highest population percentages in Ireland and Scotland. A DNA survey in 2015 in Scotland indicated .. where as a recent study in Ireland... etc .. etc

All the sourced figures could be included, but things like sample size and limitations discussed in sources would be included. This provides an explanation as to why the numbers may differ, and also discourages ranking seperate studies against each other. It should not be suggested that any one study trumps the others. And care is needed to make a clear distinction between possession of the gene and possesion of the hair. They are not the same thing. Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 23:33, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

@Escape Orbit I honestly want to remove the 13% figure as it isn't based on the number people who have red hair but rather the number of people who carry the copy of the MC1R gene variant associated with it and not the proportion of people who actually are redheads. I know their isn't a whole lot of reliable data out there when it comes to this topic but the closest we got to the true number is probably around 6% Billybob the third1244 (talk) 14:45, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

You need to consider the single source you used for Ireland actually is not a percentage of Ireland as a landmass, it's a percentage of Irish people. Also 'IrelandsDNA', from where the 10% figure comes from is equally unreliable as a company. JJNito197 (talk) 15:18, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

@JJNito197 I know the 10% figure for Ireland isn't 100% reliable and has its limitations but nonetheless is definitely far more reliable than the 13% Scottish figure as it atleast is based on people who actually have red hair unlike the Scottish study which is based on MC1R variant carriers but not people who have red hair. Theirs not a study on this topic that isn't flawed but we most go with what seems most accurate Billybob the third1244 (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree that Escape Orbits proposal is better to stop this competition dynamic. We can use the 1907 cite for Scotland, but what reliable cite can we use for Irish people? If we establish that the 10% figure for Ireland is reliable, then we have to include the 13% of Scotland as it is in the same citation. JJNito197 (talk) 16:20, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

@JJNito197 to my knowledge the Ireland study is based on actual red haired people unlike the Scottish study which is based on MC1R variant carriers but not people who have actual red hair making them both not as reliable as each other despite coming from the same source Billybob the third1244 (talk) 16:43, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

By "the Irish study", do you mean Earnest Hooton's one published in 1940? (Sorry for losing track a bit.) That one's problematic. It's drawn from two samples, 8,800 "which we believe to represent adequate samples of every part of the Irish population in every area with the exception of the large urban centers" (my emphasis) but excluding 800 Protestants, and 2,000 women mainly from western Ireland; how significant are those gaps? He separates red-brown from red; is that what we want? Before going into hair colour, he tabulates the cephalic index, described in our article as "once used to categorize human beings in the first half of the 20th century, but today ... used to categorize dogs and cats." Our Earnest Hooton article discusses his use of anatomy to divide people into races and his belief that intelligence testing would eventually demonstrate a race's mental superiority, mentions his 1943 article "Breed War Strain Out of Germans", and comments that "Hooton's work [on Ireland] was not quoted after 1945." I think we would need more modern WP:SCHOLARSHIP reviewing Hooton's 1940 article and guiding us as to what in it might be considered reliable; as it is,as a WP:PRIMARY source and one of which we can be particularly wary, we shouldn't be relying on it. NebY (talk) 18:47, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2025

Template:Edit semi-protected Change A DNA study has concluded that some Neanderthals also had red hair, although the mutation responsible for this differs from that which causes red hair in modern humans.[60]

to: A DNA study of Neanderthal Genomes determined that not only was the Mc1r found in modern humans not present in Neanderthal but if 'any  variants contributing to red hair were present in Neanderthals, they were probably not at high frequency as none were found in the genomes sequenced'

Source-The actual Study done: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929717303798#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20Neanderthals%20appear%20not%20to%20carry%20any,PCR%20amplification%20of%20MC1R%20in%20two%20Neanderthals. 24.210.113.46 (talk) 00:20, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

I think the study cited in the article, and the one you cite above, are different studies. However, yours is more recent, being 10 years younger. So I've updated the article to reflect what it says. They do seem to reach different conclusions, with the latter study almost discounting the former. But someone more knowledgeable about genetics might be able to give a better summary than me.--Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 06:28, 24 May 2025 (UTC)