Both the dairy and the beef industries have used EPD’s (Expected Progeny Differences) to greatly enhance the quality of the cattle they’re raising. Which raises the question, why don’t we have EPD’s for humans? Maybe if we did we could gradually lower the divorce rate and get more people, like Congresspersons, off welfare.
Here’s what I’m thinking. Suppose a man gets on bended knee and pops the question but the woman says something like, “Gee Mike, You know how much I love you but in looking at the data I see that your EPD for yearly salary ranks in the bottom half of all men. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to turn you down because I don’t want our kids to be on food stamps their whole life.”
I realize that many of you may be reading this in a weekly paper or farm publication and may have no idea what an EPD is. Basically it is a prediction of the breeding value of an animal that helps you compare one animal with another.
In the Angus bull sale catalog I have in front of me I count 31 different traits for which there are EPD’s. These range from calving ease to the shape of the foot. I don’t think the size of the scrotum or the shape of the foot should be a real deal breaker when it comes to two people getting married, but there are many cattle EPD’s that would be applicable for humans. Take “stayability” for example. With cattle this is an estimate of how long an animal will stay in the herd. Consider how helpful this might be when it comes to humans. Says Mary, “George I don’t know if you realize this but your EPD for stayability is the bottom one percentile. I’m not going to marry you and have sons who go on frequent “business trips” and come home to their wife smelling like Obsession by Calvin Klein.
I think we could also use birthweight, yearling weight, milk, docility and fat EPD’s. We don’t want granddaughters who look sleek and sexy when they’re 25 but end up sad and lonely because they weigh 400 pounds at 45. And can you believe all these grossly obese men eating the all-you-can-eat pasta at Olive Garden? We have to start fighting the obesity problem in America somewhere and human EPD’s could be a good place. In fact, I think I should get a Noble Prize for merely mentioning it.
Just think how EPD’s could be applied. If you’re weak in one trait you should breed with a person who has a good EPD in that area. If you are tall and want your son or daughter to play professional basketball you should breed with a person in the top one percent for height. Maybe they’d appreciate the start you gave them and buy you a house when they’e making millions in the NBA.
The only drawback I see for human EPD’s is that cattle EPD’s have been calculated using data from several generations and this kind of data is not readily available for humans so we’d have to start immediately collecting this information. To do that everyone in the country would be forced to answer screening questions such as, was your father a member of AA before he died of cirrhosis of the liver; was your grandfather the town drunk; How about your great-grandfather?
Progress would be slow at first but over time people could know in advance what they were getting themselves into. I’d suggest we start with the most important traits first such as propensity to bounce checks, temperament, and performance in the bedroom.
Unfortunately, we can’t fix the mess you’ve already gotten yourself into, we are talking here of breeding for the next generation. In no time we’d begin to breed the faults out of future people. Of course this is gonna’ need a policing body such as a new federal agency that will okay marriages while not permitting others. It probably won’t shutter the doors of all the wedding chapels in Vegas because some people will tie the knot while they’re in a drunken state even if they know there’s a good chance they’ll have to visit their grandchildren in a federal prison, or have three lazy generations all living in their house.
