[Avodah] Gemara Chulin and the Science of Genetics

[Meir Rabi]

Intro
A Ben PeKuAh is a calf extracted from a slaughtered mother.
A calf born to parents that are both Benei PeKuAh is also a BP.
If before the cow's Shechitah the calf extends, for example, its right
hindleg into the "air of this world" then the entire calf other than its
leg, is a BP. That leg however, is not BP and can not ever be made Kosher.

Genetics (Apparently)
Chulin 69a explains that R Yirmiya (and all the other Sages) knew that if a
cow and bull both having this defective right hind-leg, produce a calf, that
calf will be irreversibly non-Kosher.
The explanation for this in the Gemara is that there are only two options:
A) there is a direct correlation between the limbs and organs of the parents
and the corresponding limbs and organs of their progeny; or B) there is no
such direct correspondence and the reproductive energies are a Bilbul a
mixture of the kosher BP component and the non-K leg component.

The Gemara then notes that since we do not observe EVERY calf born to
parents having a [congenital] defect to also bear that same defect; we must
conclude that the reproductive energies are all mixed and thus the calf of
the two "blemished" BP is completely and irreversibly non-K.

Would anyone like to comment on this Gemara? or my reading of it?


meir
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