Alleles and Hardy Weinberg

Enter into the evolution debate, the Hardy-Weinberg law,  which is an algebraic equation that describes the genetic equilibrium within a population. It was discovered independently in 1908 by Wilhelm Weinberg, a German physician, and Godfrey Harold Hardy, a British mathematician and codified into a set of algebraic laws used primarily in population genetics.

 

The idea is, that in a large, random-mating population, the proportion of dominant and recessive genes tend to remain constant from generation to generation unless outside forces act to change it. This means that even the rarest forms of genes, from long ago in the ancestry of the species are preserved.

So if we know the number of individuals in any given population,looking back at the SvartHona example we know that they took 12  samples from their whole population.  Then the Hardy-Weinberg equation is applied to calculate the allele frequency over a period of time.

It is that last bit, that is always problematic, as you need the same starting point, which is why they often grow their specimens and start their calculations from that point.  With eggs like seeds, that is easy enough to do as they have relatively short incubation periods.