[CITATION][C] The curse of Prometheus is laid upon the immune system

S Ohno, JT Epplen, T Matsunaga… - Differentiated Lymphocyte …, 1981 - karger.com
S Ohno, JT Epplen, T Matsunaga, T Hozumi
Differentiated Lymphocyte Functions, 1981karger.com
Zeus assigned the task of creating living creatures to the two Titan brothers, Epimetheus and
Prometheus. Upon the completion of their task, Zeus punished not Epimetheus for his
hindsight, but Prometheus for his foresight. The moral of the above Greek mythology is very
profound, for in this Darwinian world of evolution by natural selection, foresight is indeed the
forbidden fruit. Consider the following example: Almost any colony of domesticated rabbits
contains a good number of individuals whose occular pupils do not dilate in response to …
Zeus assigned the task of creating living creatures to the two Titan brothers, Epimetheus and Prometheus. Upon the completion of their task, Zeus punished not Epimetheus for his hindsight, but Prometheus for his foresight. The moral of the above Greek mythology is very profound, for in this Darwinian world of evolution by natural selection, foresight is indeed the forbidden fruit. Consider the following example: Almost any colony of domesticated rabbits contains a good number of individuals whose occular pupils do not dilate in response to locally administered atropine. The above is due to the polymorphism of a certain esterase locus that confers an atropine esterase allele to certain individual rabbits as already known in 1943 [29]. A high gene frequency of this atropine esterase
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