B Negative: more of a philosophy than a blood group

Characteristic reactions to milk bottles
associated with blood type A, B, AB and O

When we were apprised of the Japanese and Korean national obsessions with blood types as a guide to personality,* here at Riddled Research Laboratory we were swift to see the implications.

Obviously a temperament typology based on four blood groups is too narrow to accommodate the rich panoply of human variation. By examining departures from the four basic types we can therefore reconstruct the additional blood types and systems that are causing them (much as reverse astrologers predict the orbits of hitherto-unknown planets out in the Kuiper belt by examining biographies that have somehow been perturbed from the destiny laid down by the known planets).

These may or may not be among the 29 cross-cutting antigen systems additional to ABO that are already known to the Whackyweedia. These seldom show up on the radar because we do not have antibodies to them to complicate the business of blood transfusion.

At left: Jumping-off-cliff behaviour characteristic of ABH non-secreters (Le^a antigen in the Lewis system); hiding-things-in-boxes behaviour characteristic of secreters (Le^b antigen).

At right: Kp antigen in the Kell system associated with architectural hats and misuse of bellows.

Bottom centre: Rhesus factor.

It is worth noting that we also lack antibodies to A, B and AB blood groups. What we have are antibodies to molecules on the walls of gut bacteria, which are a close enough match to oligosaccharides on blood cells to respond to them too, unless of course we have that flavour of blood cell and so do not develop the antibody.

If this is 'Intelligent Design' then Harumph. I have used Micro$oft products that were designed more intelligently.

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* Depending on whom you listen to, this is a harmless entertainment on a par with horoscopes, or a pernicious pseudoscience that has inspired dating agencies to match couples by transfusion compatibility, kindergartens to segregate children by blood type, and employers to demand blood samples from job applicants for fear of hiring someone of Type B (any fule kno that Bs are impulsive and unreliable). Silly Japanese people, using blood type as an excuse to discriminate against an arbitrary sector of the population! Why not define the outgroup by clothing or accent or skin colour,** like we do in sensible countries?***

** Not to mention birth order.
The Management would like to state that Riddled is an open-minded equal-opportunity employer with a strong commitment to diversity. We have moved on from the sorry stage in New Zealand history when birth-order prejudice was rife, and first-borns and last-borns kept to themselves in gated communities and bohemian ghettos. We will now hire first-borns (who are NOT ALL complacent sense-0f-entitlement conservatives) and last-borns (who are NOT ALL disruptive anti-status-quo anarchists and contrarians), and we do not begrudge the expense of separate tea-rooms.

*** Don't start me on Myers-Briggs personality testing.