From Newsgroup: alt.fan.heinlein

On 2/13/2026 11:34 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 15:09:16 -0500, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/12/2026 3:49 AM, Charles Packer wrote:

On Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:29:21 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein wrote:

In <mv4vf3FetaaU1@mid.individual.net> ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
<tednolan>) writes:

[snip]

_Time Enough For Love_

Thanks! The Wiki writeup pretty much matches my memory (except they
were even more closely related..)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_for_Love

"The Tale of the Twins Who Weren't"

Coincidentally this was published by The Guardian yesterday:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/12/one-in-14-children-who-
die-in-england-have-closely-related-parents-study-finds
Shortened:
https://tinyurl.com/3x44tnu7

In the UK, by far the highest rates of genetic diseases are among
children of immigrants from Pakistan, where over 60% of marriages
are consanguineous. Cousin marriages are common in Muslim countries.

The article says this.

But does that mean that we /know/ this? Is the source, perchance, a
wee bit biased here?

Will you accept Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middle_East

While I have a lot of issues with the Catholic church, its
extreme takes on how close a relative could marry (7 degrees of
separation) had the good effect of avoiding this inbreeding,
and also flattening society by destroying the 'hereditary clan'
or 'tribal' layer of social organization, and encouraging far
flung social connections.

Except, of course, for the nobility and the royalty. Hemophilia and
the Habsburg chin are notorious examples of the result.

The notion of an elite above the law is very old, and still with us.

pt

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