What would be the main disadvantage to a population in a state of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

Question

What would be the main disadvantage to a population in a state of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

Answer 1

Not clear why there would be any disadvantage.

A population is in a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium only as long as there are no selection pressures - i.e. that there are no mutations or a different distribution of alleles that give the population as a whole a better chance of survival.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/synthetic/synt...

One of the implications of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is that dominant genes do not drive out recessives. That this benefits the population is demonstrated in the classical example of sickle-cell anemia, where being heterozygous wins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell...

Answer 2

that the person with the recessive allele would be at disadvantage since p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1.