[gurps] BioTech-- Eugenics Question

[Emily Smirle]

midnightwind at comcast.net wrote:
> My inclination is to take the Bio-Tech recommendations, but use the attributes of my base genetic stock (that is, the attributes of Steve Young) as the starting point.  One would sift the best offspring off the top for pairing with other candidates from the larger gene pool (to avoid inbreeding) and go again.  After 10 generations, I get Steve Young plus 10cps for attributes/advantages at a minumum, or Steve Young plus 10 advantages at best...
I think to realistically get those kinds of results, you wouldn't want 
Steve Young, you'd want Steve Young, all of his brothers and sisters, 
and his parents, and perhaps some of the kids from his mom's family 
(Because presumably some of the good genes are in there)... and then 
you'd ruthlessly inbreed them until you got rid of all the recessive 
genes, very carefully introducing outside stock perhaps to 
counterbalance any flaws you found after four or five generations, but 
only after you were sure you had "fixed" the traits you wanted OR after 
you were sure you had a potentially destructive trait being passed around.

Or you clone Steve Young and his ideal mate a couple of hundred times 
and use them as your population starter, for similar effects.

The question is, it runs in the family (perhaps) but is it genetic? Or 
is it that the family culture has been to raise the children in just the 
right way, eating the right foods, living in the right region, drinking 
the right water, etc etc etc, and the genes are merely 
"acceptable-to-good" in quality, rather than excellent? You don't know 
that, even in an adult expressing all of the traits you want, unless 
you're 100% sure the traits you want are genetic in origin, and ONLY 
genetic in origin.

-- 
Emily Smirle - Gal Dynamo
<smirle4498 at rogers.com>