Re: Incest taboos
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au)
Wed, 10 May 1995 02:27:53 GMT
In article <3ohc1m$g5s@triton.unm.edu>, Bryant (mycol1@unm.edu) writes:
> Firstly, don't mind Gil. Although useless, his response was
>pretty mild compared to his previous rants. Actually, I think I detected
>some vague compliment in his post.
Are you telling us, Bryant, that my mild response to such utter crud
nonsense as taking "incest" into account in writing a genetic program
is somehow inappropriate?
Or are you asserting here that incest might have something to do
with genetics in the first place?
Excuse me, but incest is the crime of carnally knowing one's sister
or mother (and so on). It has nothing whatever to do with any child
which might have resulted from the coupling.
Else, we would refer to all inbreeding as incest, which we plainly
do not.
> Secondly, your research sounds very interesting. Most cultures
>do have some form of incest taboo, but what is considered "incest" is
>variable. Sometimes, first cousins on one's mother's side are not to be
>married (or had sex with), while paternal first cousins are not
>considered close kin. That sort of thing. I do not know of any cultures
>that allow sibling mating, save royalists in relatively recent European
>history.
None of this is new, Bryant. In fact if you persist I shall stand
accusing you here of plagiarising my earlier posts in reply to the
question. That you would seek to steal my work, and then proceed to
proclaim your own "version" correct because it has been rewritten
into an evolutionary theoretical framework, while mine is little more
than rant because it is derived directly from primary sources in the
field, is really quite preposterous.
I demand that you cease and desist this instant!
Else do please explain to us how the crime of incest can be committed
inside of a computer program!
[remaining irrelevant crud deleted . . . ]
>Bryant
>Evolution/Ecology
>
Oh dear yes. HOOT! WEEP! *Sob* BBBBAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFFFFF
Evolution/Ecology indeed!
I wonder where all the police and the law courts have disappeared to?
The outraged community, the hullabaloo and bruhaha?
That we can avoid incest because natural selection has now made our
sister-rooting gene subordinate to our law-and-order gene. I wonder
how much longer it will be before we find our stealing gene and our
murdering gene both similarly subordinate, that we might finally find
true bliss and live in Paradise On Earth!
I doubt the lawyers are going to like that, Bryant old bean, being
on such a nice healthy wicket as they are. Maybe they'll take sides
with me and ban this evolution, except for the quite different motive
of avoiding mass unemployment in the legal profession.
Where I merely view it as the utter nonsense it is in fact.
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