From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Sunday, May 11, 2014 6:18:18 PM UTC-6, William Vetter wrote:   
   > Screen for known inherited disease carriers (accepting that I might   
   inadvertently screen *out* a genetic issue that could have saved the whole   
   colony)    
   >    
   >    
   >    
   > What do you think that would be?   
   >    
   > In crappy movie Species 2, I think, the monster leaves the black astronaut   
   alone as host for its progeny because he's carrier for sickle-cell anemia.   
      
   Well, that's the point isn't it?  If it was something known then it wouldn't   
   be inadvertently screened out of the colonial population.     
      
   Someone (or ones) setting up a colony might seize the chance to screen out   
   carriers for every possible thing they could think of, even stuff that we know   
   fairly well have a survival benefit in extreme environments (like diabetes),   
   or conditions that aren'   
   t a disease but sometimes involve medical complications (say, dwarfs or   
   albinos) or pigeontoedness or colorblindness or a tendency to develop an   
   underbite or a too narrow birth canal.  A eugenic impulse would be hard to   
   resist... take genetic material    
   only from people with perfect genes, high IQs, who can carry a tune...   
      
   Personally, I think it would be a mistake.   
      
   For stories, though... it doesn't have to be as dumb as the alien monster   
   being able to sense you're a carrier of a disease... but any number of   
   unlikely things could make albino genes or some other genetic thing into a   
   survival plus.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)