According to about 12 seconds of googling this article feels borderline. This article specifically references a 2010 study that says 12% of women carry the gene however the article fails to mention what the study specifically says. In the opening paragraph if the study it says “However, the existing evidence is sparse and inconclusive.” & “Our results suggest that most carriers of color anomaly do not exhibit four-dimensional color vision, and so we believe that anomalous trichromacy is unlikely to be maintained by an advantage to the carriers in discriminating colors.”

I found three different studies regarding this. One said that it was about 15% of women, one said it was 50% of women and 8% of men. Another said that women with color vision defficiency and mild color blindness might have tetrachomacy effectively rendering the extra cones pointless. ANOTHER study showed that only one person EVER had been diagnosed with Tetrachomacy.

While I really appreciate media that brings to light conditions that the average person might not know about I really dislike articles and media that make things seem way more common then they are and/or portray things as fact that are far more nuanced. We already have enough people self diagnosing themselves or self identifying with abilities/disabilities

There is a lot of misinformation about tetrachromacy and sadly this article perpetuates some of it. 12% of women are dormant tetrachromats, which means they have extra sets of cones but don’t actively use the extra ones. And the article suggests men are “less likely” to be tetrachromats, which is technically true, but misleading, since men cannot be tetrachromats at all.

(person points to blue)

Me: blue.

(Person points to purple)

Me: blue-ish?

(Person points to aqua)

Me: blue but like… Different?

(Person realizes I just suck with colors)

And red/green color blindness isn’t less colors, you get more shades of brown.

Which sounds shitty, but invaluable for hunters.

My dad legitimately didn’t know what other people saw for “red” but he could spot a deer in the middle of the woods like it was neon yellow.

I believe the downside to tetracheomacy is less rods because the extra cones are taking up more space. Which I think translates to really bad night vision.