From: "Alberto Monteiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >My fellow rat-bastards Alberto and Bemmzim mention that one must have a dwarf > >parent to be a dwarf. > > > >That sounds false. I mean, in the old times, dwarfs would have had a less > >chance to have children, > > > Why? Maybe they had _more_ chance to have children, if their number > was small wrt the total population.
Dwarfism is a dominant genetic trait, so if someone has the genes for it, then they will have the condition. If dwarfism were a recessive trait, a couple where both parents have the condition could not have children without the condition, but there is evidence of couples with dwarfism having children of normal stature. It is not a shared dominance trait because the person either has dwarfism or not, there is not a middle state where the person grows to a height half way between dwarfism height and "normal" height. > > >and so would have died out by now, unless someone > >deliberately kept dwarfism alive. > > > But this was precisely what happened. Yes, people with dwarfism have always peaked the curiousity of "normal" people. They have not been rejected by the whole of "normal" people, thus, though frequently discriminated against, they have not been totally selected against. > >That seems fine in dogs, because dogs > >don't care if they're dwarfs or epileptic or not [well they do boss if it > >causes them pain], but people certainly do care if they're freaks or > >perceived as freaks. > > > Yes, people are aware of freakness, and each freakness has > people that love it. Very true. Michael Harney [EMAIL PROTECTED]
