Most Dreaded Terror 8 first model
Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' illustrated by Gustave Doré
Dore “Raven”
https://hyperallergic.com/102457/rediscovering-the-dark-splendor-of-gustave-dore-with-edgar-allan-poe/   downloaded Feb 18, 2018

It is the 8th of March 2018. 

  1. Some days you have to learn a new word.  The three most important kinds of things in society are relationships, tools and words.  I kind of like the old ones and understand if you don’t want to learn one, but grit your teeth.  The word is “zygote” and we’ll be using in in two forms.  It means “yoke” as in a yoke of oxen.  But in histology (no you don’t need to learn that one) the word means a cell that has been formed by a sperm entering an egg (ovum):

   SPERM + OVUM           ZYGOTE

  1. When we speak of the mechanism of infertility, the first logical step is to distinguish “pre-zygotic infertility” from “post-zygotic infertility.”  Thus there are two forms of the word zygote we must know.  Pre-zygotic is what happens before the zygote forms and post-zygotic happens afterwards.  Since there is clearly a mechanism, as Sibly pointed out, for relative infertility brought on by lack of closer kinship, is it pre-zygotic, post-zygotic or both?
  2. The Icelandic data we looked at earlier showed lower kinship reduced the number of children and the number of grandchildren; to a first approximation, this suggest both pre-zygotic and post-zygotic mechanisms in action.
  3.  

I had written a computer program in C++ language.  The program modeled only a post-zygotic mechanism using an epigenetic process.   Eager to spread what I knew I had copies made on CDs.  I was not so eager but what I had the executable code locked on the CD.  I sent the master off to a place in Israel, the only service that offered to make protected discs of anything but music.  I got a prompt message saying that some of the things in included were in folders, and the disc could not be properly secured unless everything was out in the open.  If I had been paranoid before, that receded.  There could be no explanation but the were copying everything they were “protecting.” No problem.  If they wanted to try to steal it, the source code was copyrighted.  And any attention was welcome.
I still have a couple hundred copies. If you want one, I’ll send it to you for a souvenir.  Your current operating system may not work on it, and your security system may judge it dangerous.  With an old computer and no security, you might be able to make it work, but since it has been out of my hands I can’t swear there is no virus … although I have never had evidence for one.  If the discs prove so popular that the time and cost are significant, I may start asking you send a prepaid envelope.
But you don’t need it.  Go to nobabies.net and look at the source code.  If you think it’s safe, compile it and you’re off and away.  The posted version includes a pre-zygotic model.  Don’t turn that on, and you’ll have essentially the post-zygotic version. 

  1. So I tweaked the parameters (if you take interest you may do a lot of that).  Until I got this:

Does it look like damped oscillation to you?  Rapid rise and slow fall of fertility?  It does to me.  It seems beyond doubt that we are hot on the spoor of the mechanism.

  1. We see evidence for a post-zygotic mechanism but in the lab we don’t see a pre-zygotic process.  If there is one, it can only have limited power.  When the Spanish learned that Cortez had murdered Montezuma, they were shocked.  Giving the treasures of Mexico and the land back to the rightful owners was out of the question, but they Spanish court brought Montezuma’s children to Spain and made them part of the royal line.  The continue to this day.  Earlier contact between those who left Africa and went north and those who went east must have been quite limited.  How long had Spaniards and Mexicans been separated?  A thousand generations or so?  It seems clear that, post-zygotic fertility in both parents permitting, pre-zygotic infertility cannot be absolute.
  2.  We have seen damped oscillation in the lab and in the computer model, next we shall look at some animals in the wild. 

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