From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Apr 29 2002 - 21:29:24 MDT
At 07:48 PM 4/29/02 -0700, E. Shaun wrote:
>It reminds me somewhat of Heinlein's _Time Enough For Love_
>where a set of genetically identical twins (male and female) are raised
>without any taboos about incest. Eventually, once under the guidance of
>Lazarus Long, who determines that there probably shouldn't be much risk in
>procreation, he lets them do as they please.
This is a somewhat trivial clarification, but as I recall the precise point
Heinlein was making in the tale is that the `monozygotic twins', being the
result of a painstaking genetic procedure, had *no* alleles in common. This
allowed Heinlein to unpeel the social element of the incest taboo
comprehensively from any biological rationale. (I'm not certain that
genomic imprinting would permit this to be done, in reality.)
That kind of apparent casuistry might become increasingly important as we
modify genomes.
Damien Broderick
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