Laws of Genetics…

Laws of Genetics

“The 1st law of genetics: ‘Like begets like.’ The 2nd law – ‘Like does not beget like.’” This witticism, popular among biologists, is actually true. A child may look like one of its parents, but it is just as likely not to look like either of them. People were never surprised either way; they had millions of years to get used to it. (*)

It gets trickier when the baby comes out looking like the neighbor. The ancients, rather than jump to unpleasant conclusions, invented the concept of ‘craving’. The gist of it is this: If a pregnant woman looks at someone while ‘craving’, the baby may turn out to resemble that someone. (In modern-day terminology, that would mean DNA transfer by just looking.) So, if the baby looks like Mr. neighbor, it is because that neighbor was coming and going within the sight of the craving mother (and not what you think.) Case closed. No need to ruin a perfectly good family, (or two).

In the old days people really believed that stuff, at least in my hometown. (And my hometown wasn’t any more gullible than the next.) Pregnant women were even forbidden from visiting the zoo, lest the baby comes out looking like a monkey, (although, in some cases, that would have been a definite improvement.)

There is a delightful Biblical story about how Jacob used ‘craving’ to defraud his uncle Laban of a lot of goats. (You can find it in Genesis 30 toward the end of the chapter.) It goes like this: Jake was herding his uncle’s flock, and thought it was unfair for Laban to reap the benefits of his labor. (A socialist before it was fashionable.) After some negotiations, Laban cunningly offered that any goats born spotted would be Jacob’s, and the “monochromatic” ones would be Laban’s.

Laban made the offer knowing that goats are rarely born spotted. And Jacob accepted it knowing that he had something up his sleeve. From that point on, whenever the goats mated, Jacob put in front of them a striped tree branch. Nearly all the kids were born spotted, and Jacob made it big.
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*) With modern genetics we understand clearly why this happens.

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