 This leads naturally to the following question. What is the probability that the allele will become fixed in the population, rather than going extinct? The Wright-Fisher model yields a very simple answer to this question. If a given (neutral) allele has a frequency \(p(t)\) in generation \(t\) , then the probability that it eventually fixes is simply \(p(t).\) This is a fairly intuitive result. For if the allele is rare, it is quite likely that it will be lost from the population by chance. Conversely, if the allele is common, it is most unlikely to be lost from the population, as this would require an improbable series of chance events to occur together. An immediate consequence of this result is that the probability of fixation of a novel (neutral) genetic variant, that has arisen in the population by sporadic mutation, is \(\frac{1}{2N}\) – since initially there is one copy of the novel variant in the population. Thus for appreciable \(N\), it is overwhelmingly likely that any given novel variant will be lost to genetic drift. This illustrates the general fact that genetic drift has a homogenizing tendency over many generations, reducing the genetic variation in a population.