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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1997-10 > 0877890686


From: "D. Spencer Hines" <>
Subject: Re: Female adultery rates in the English royal family
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 08:31:26 -1000


Panshin wrote:

<snip>

> If you want to say that even a single adultery messes up any line
> of descent, that makes sense. I've always figured we were calculating
> lines of inheritance, anyway -- not lines of heredity.

This is an unconvincing dodge --- and red herring. Do you seriously
think that Genealogy is a discipline concerned with "lines of
inheritance" rather than "lines of heredity." Nonsense and balderdash.

> But to try to
> figure the numerical likelhood of a true descent after X generations
> makes no sense at all.

It makes perfect sense. You apparently have little or no knowledge of
the Mathematics of Probability. I've covered all this before, in
significant detail. My posts, previously referenced in this thread, are
at Deja News. You'd be wise to bone up on probabilistic analysis,
before making such wild and unsupported statements.

<snip>
--

D. Spencer Hines --- "The final happiness of man consists in the
contemplation of truth....This is sought for its own sake, and is
directed to no other end beyond itself." Saint Thomas Aquinas,
[1224/5-1274] "Summa Contra Gentiles" [c.1258-1264]

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