The Wright-Fisher model of Genetic Drift and the Hardy-Weinberg principle explained
F.Borgonovo, DEIB, Politecnico di Milano.
This note is addressed to
students and other inquisitive people that want to approach the field of
Population Genetics browsing the Web to learn basic ideas and results.
Unfortunately, the many Web pages that deal with the Hardy-Weinberg
principle, the Wright-Fisher model and Genetic Drift, are often plagued by
misinterpretations, bad
language/exposition and lack of accuracy that can ingenerate confusion. In
fact, Population Genetics has developed, for historical reasons, a
language and denominations that sometimes are in conflict with the terms used
in probability theory, whom the cited topics use in large measure. Here we address such topics detailing the
underlying framework with the correct probabilistic assumptions and terms, show
how the main results are derived, provide the correct interpretations and
underline the critical misinterpretation points.