Guessing the visual look of your future offspring is the dream of many parents. And while there are many softwares available that utilize deep learning and artificial intelligence to develop a suitable image, the accuracy of these software is average. However, that does not mean that it is a futile venture. So, can we guess what your child is going to look like?
Scientifically speaking, the short answer to this question is yes—most of the time. Using the power of biology, humans can be reduced to stats and compounds on a sheet. From there on, trying to piece together the future offspring is purely based on probability and permutation, and combination.
To elaborate further in layman’s terms, suppose we have a red flower and a white flower. We all know that flowers reproduce by pollination. So we allow these flowers to reproduce. The question that now arises is what would be the color of the daughter flower.
From experience, we know that when red and white are mixed, we get pink. So the color of the offspring could lie from solid red to the actual white, through all the shades of pink. Let us make it even simpler- we consider that only one gene lends the red and white color. In that case, the offspring can have only three possible outcomes- red, white, and pink.
Similarly, humans have multitudes of characters that differentiate us from everyone else and make us unique. But in essence, we are all just proteins and carbohydrates. And with a good set of conditions, we can easily determine what mixing of two characters will give rise to.
A man with blue eyes and a woman with hazel eyes can have kids that would have either blue eyes or hazel ones, or, in some sporadic cases, both (heterochromia). Similarly, suppose we classify all human traits, such as facial structure, genes, the color of skin, heritage, etc., into structural records. In that case, finding out the result of intermixing any of these traits is very much possible.
Furthermore, by taking heritage and ancestry into account, we can also determine how these traits react to each other and learn about exceptions and their cause. When put together with the sheer amount of data present, all these would lead us to the offspring’s visual identity.
But the problem lies with accuracy. Having such a large amount of dataset gives rise to a considerable number of outcomes. Pinpointing a specific outcome amongst all that is almost impossible. So we might have to rephrase our answer a little bit.
While science may not be able to deduce what your child is going to look like exactly, it can venture a guess which won’t be very far from the actual result.
Founder and a 36-year old mother of one who has gone through the usual problems of parenting herself and shares her own experiences through this blog. Ruby is a great writer who researches well before putting forth facts in the articles.