Sunday, August 24, 2008

Woman Stymied In Drive For 'Beautiful Viking Baby


Listen to Scott Simon's description of a woman who insists on using the same Norweigan sperm donor for her second child because she wants her first child to have a full-sibling.

I agree with Simon's view that it is laudable when someone wants to parent a child of a different race. But Simon might be interested to learn about a study (presented at last weekend's APA conference) showing that full-siblings have less conflictual relationships (less sibling rivalry) than half sibs. The authors claim this indicates that kin selection is at work: we are more altruistic to those who share more of our genes.

See:

Michalski, R. L., & Euler, H. A. (2007). Evolutionary perspectives on sibling relationships. In C. A.
Salmon & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Family relationships: An evolutionary
perspective (pp. 230-256). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press


I wonder how the children know who is a half sib. Any thoughts, readers?

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