melon_collie

If I'm not mistaken, marrying one's cousin is still quite common, or at least not as heavily frowned upon. I know that you can get special permission from the Vatican to marry a first cousin in the Church, so I assume it's allowed if not actively endorsed. Both of my parents come from a relatively small rural European town, so I guess it's possible that previous generations intermarried and maybe got hitched to a cousin or two.

I'm pretty dim when it comes to genetics, but does inbreeding affect the sex of the offspring? Even though his only surviving son was sickly, he did manage to produce 2 healthy, capable daughters.

street serenade

This is quite an odd and colorful conversation taking place in the Mark F/Scout thread.

melon_collie

^I know, right? I felt kinda bad after my last post. To make up for it:

I LOVE SCOUT CALHOUN!

street serenade

No, I totally found the subject interesting and all, I just find it funny that Scout's storyline led to the discussion.

Random Scout picture.

lovea

I remember that from theology class about impediments to matrimony. The Church disallows marrying someone up to the third degree of consanguinity (blood relation). First degree is sibling, 2nd degree is first cousin, 3rd degree of consanguinity is second cousin.

About the random Scout picture -- really good one of Scout. But .... seen out of context (by someone not in on YA like us), easily subject to misinterpretation.

melon_collie

Actually, most YA fans would interpret it that way too Ah, Scout & Will...

lovea

I actually thought that too -- that YA fans would interpret this as such. I'm no exception.

melon_collie

I like the idea of Scout/Will a lot better than Scout/Bella. Scout & Bella just never jived with me, and that's not even considering the possible sibling relation thing.

s e r e n i t y

OK, not to go back on the whole colourful OT topic on the Mark F thread but marrying your cousins is allowed here and some traditional families actually consider it right to marry within the family (not letting a stranger in the family, blah blah), my dad has studied genetics so he sees a lot of couples for gentic testing before they get married and they're mostly related thinking their kids will turn out to be retards and even though most of the times that isnt the cae the chances are more if you're related by blood since you both probobly have the same genetic problems and illnesses and they will be passed on to your kids.
Oh and as for effecting the sex of the kids, yeah thats also possible, there are some genetic diseases that are only passed on to the girls or to the boys while the others are completely healthy.

Anyways, Ill stop talking now

I liked Bella/Will and also Will/Scout more than Bella/Scout and Will/Anybody else

lovea

Same goes for traditional Chinese families here but more about not sharing the wealth outside.
I saw on the Discovery Channel that people are instinctively attracted (via pheromones) to someone with a different set of genetic antibodies to help complete the disease fighting mechanism in their offspring. So based on biological instincts, siblings or relations should not be attracted to each other.
If the series was longer I thought it was inevitable that Will and Bella would get together. Although that's a bit too Dawson's Creek.

melon_collie

I think I hated Scout/Bella because it was shoved down my throat. With Jake & Hamilton, the friendship & their feelings evolved for the viewer and it got to the point where I was screaming at my screen for Ham to kiss her! him! JUST DO IT!

Whereas with Scout & Bella, they had to tell me that they were in love and bla bla bla. I felt trite and more than a little annoying.

And I would have seriously lost it if Will & Bella hooked up. I'm still convinced Will is asexual, and is packaged like a Ken doll. And I wanted Bella to be alone for a while, maybe get a personality that didn't center around her interaction with teenage boys, maybe get me to stop hating her!

Far be it for me to knock science but something about that doesn't rub me the right way. I think I'm reading it wrong? Is it saying that you're not attracted to people who will help you spawn genetic freakshows (which I totally get) or is it saying that you're only biologically attracted to people who you can make healthy babies with?

lovea

We're going along with you on that one.
We're going along with you on that one too.
The latter but in a blind test kind of way. More on you're more biologically attracted than you're only biologically attracted. The experiment went like this: the scientist dude made the test subject wear the same shirt to sleep in for a week. She's not supposed to shower before wearing the shirt. There were 10 women test subjects. After a week he collected the shirts and put them in individual sealed bags. The scientist then got a guy to sniff the shirts and rank them according to which was most attractive to least. The scientist had blood work up on all participants. According to his findings, the man inadvertently chose the woman whose genetic antibodies thingy was most opposite to him.

melon_collie

Ok. I get it now. So like, none of the women were even related to him, it just so happened that their anitbodies were the opposite of his. Am I getting that right? Because the whole "sexual attraction is only a precursor to making babies" is a bit of a problem, imo.

lovea

Attracted in a biological way meaning his body blindly recognizes what it needs for the next generation and sort of establishes a preference for one over another.

wolkenfuehlen

...onto something completely different. I watched Terminator 3 over the weekend and I really thought Mark did a great job in it (even if his screentime was rather limited). Plus, I found it highly amusing that his character was called "Scott", and that Claire Danes, at least in their first scene, pronounced it more like "Scout". Who else has seen it? What did you think?