In the tradition of other great games that I have co-invented, such as The Spitting Game and The Foldover Game, comes one with a slightly more intellectual basis. Although I thought of it independently, perhaps someone else has as well. The purpose of this game is to gain a better understanding of the Hardy-Weinberg Principle, which explains how genes, actually alleles, change or don't change in populations over time. According to the Hardy-Weinberg Formula, p^2 + 2pq + q^2 =1, represents the state when no evolution is detectable within a population within the time it is measured, where p=frequency of one allele and q=frequency of the other. This all sounds a bit complicated, which necessitates an easy game that demonstrates, in a very reductionalist way, how this works.

You will need a paper bag, 5 beads or buttons of one color and 5 of another (and a few more of each color to spare), as well as a piece of paper to do your math. You begin by drawing two beads at random out of the bag. Each bead represents an allele, and every drawing is a metaphor of sexual reproduction. Record which ones you drew. They'll either be homozygous recessive, represented by two light colored beads, homozygous dominant, two dark beads, or heterozygous, one of each. Do this ten times, giving a tally mark every time an allele/bead color, comes up. Now let p= one color and q = the other. Count the number of times each occured and divide in half. So, if you got 12 blue and 8 white, adjust the next "generation" so that there's 6 blue and 4 white. If you get an odd number, in this simplified game, you'll just have to round, but you're still getting the principle.

You may find that there's still 5 of each color, or there may be a slight change, and rarely, a larger change. Such variations represent forces such as genetic drift or mutation that alter allele frequency. Play for 10 rounds, each representing a new generation. The change is colors of beads is most likely not significant, but then again, detectable evolution usually doesn't happen that quickly. In the context of population genetics, this explains why unless admixture occurs, we don't find the proportion of individuals with a certain trait, changing drastically in a short period of time.

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