I was reading a comment in a blog about why incest is bad and I had a thought that i've kicked around for awhile. This is another one of my, "whether you believe in creationism or evolution it doesn't matter," arguements. Scientists have blamed birth defects on lots of things including the shots we give children. Well I have a theory that I call the Ancestrial Incest Theory.
What my theory pertains to is that we are all are related to each other somehow. So as time goes on we are all having sex with someone we're related to in an offhand kinda way. An odd theory? Greatly, but still. Those genes that carry the defects are hidden in everyone, so when you make a kid with someone, well you have a child with birth defects. I could be greatly wrong here, but hey, it was just a thought. Basically it's genetic survival of the fittest.
Tell me what you think? Criticism is welcome, just don't crucify me. Actually I've always wanted to hang with Jesus, bahaha.
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You bring up a very interesting discussion point. I just finished a course called Dramatic Literature and the Moral Life, and we read a bunch of plays and talked about the moral issue. The last play we read was called 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and in it a brother and sister fall in love, have sex, and conceive a child. There are other issues in the play, like revenge and murder, and they are both dead before the baby is born, but it was the same thing.
The question is, Why are we so anti-incest? Don't get me wrong, I dislike it as much as the next person, but why? Well, its in the Bible or something. But did it end up in the bible because people saw that incestuous relationships caused birth defects, aka punishments by God (in their pre-genetic science eyes)?
Basically, in the play we ended up looking past incest, because the incestuous girl was one of the most moral characters in the whole play, leading a reader to believe that there are more important issues to be inflamed about, like murdering an unborn child or torturing someone and putting their eyes out.
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
Personally I think if you're both into that go for it. Whether or not it causes birth defects, I doubt that's why it's illegal. It's most likely illegal because people back in the day thought it was sexually deviant, like homosex and masturbation.
I was jaded before I was even born.
Actually, back in the day, incest was a lot more common.
Especially for high up people who wanted to keep power in the family.
----
If You Swear That There's No Truth And Who Cares, How Come You Say It Like You're Right? [Bright Eyes]
http://progressiveu.org/143541-how-to-survive-the-2008-elections
True.
Look at the Hapsburg Empire. We once saw a lineage chart which was the lineage of the emperors by portrait, and as you progressed in the years their features became more prominent--big nose, protruding jaw, stuff like that. The extremes got emphasized because of the interbreeding!
Hug a musician, they never get to dance.
I know. I didn't mean the WAY back in the day. I meant the modern old days, like the 50's. Although I think in Texas you can marry your first cousin. So maybe some places incest is limited to siblings and parents.
I was jaded before I was even born.
According to the link I posted below, around half of the states in the US actually allow first cousins to marry.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I've always thought that we're all related one way or another. Even so, I'm sure incest love is more common than we expected. People just don't talk about it because they don't wan to hear it, just like what homosexuality used to be like (or still is?). But bothers me the most is that scientists keep on bringing the argument that incestuous sex will lead to birth defects (if they manage to get the girl pregnant). Are they saying that if the baby comes out perfectly fine like you and me, then incest would be alright?
Most incestuous relationships lead to birth defects since people in the same family are more likely to carry either a active or dormant gene that has the defect.
It's kind of a shame you didn't go into more detail on your theory. I'd like to hear more about what you think about the matter.
Perhaps I'll detail my thoughts on that and some of the other "alternative" relationships in my own blog.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I'm still fuzzy on the theory, but I do need to edit the blog tomorrow so it's be updated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest
While a little shaky in regards to sources, it's pretty much the only thing I found about incest that doesn't also include sexual abuse/assault (I even checked WebMD and everything that returned had a header of "sexual abuse," "sexual assault," or some other similar term).
Check out the Genetics section. It explains how children born from incestuous relations are far more likely to have chromosome-based defects (I'm not completely crazy in that regard).
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I think I remember reading in one of those weird fact books that the farthest you can ever be from any human on earth was like 6th or 7th cousins. This could be a corruption of the "six degrees of seperation" idea though.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memento mori, mahalo.
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principles."
Well, it doesn't really corrup the "six degrees of seperation" idea because you still are within six degrees of someone. You just happen to be related in an offhand way.
I think that's true...some crazy archaeologists dug up bones and whatnot and have come to the conclusion that everyone on earth is descended from a single woman who lived 200,000 years ago or so. Her descendants just kind of overran the Earth, killing and raping. Nasty but it's who we are, I suppose. Source: Larry Gonick, "Cartoon History of the Universe" Book 1. The man is a genius.
--Samus
(if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention)
Every person has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-granparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, etc. It is a geometric progression that grows very rapidly. If one thinks about their family tree only going back as far as their great grandparents there are 30 spots for relatives (16 + 8 + 4 +2) = 30 . And that is only 4 generations. Think about how that number grows if we go back 100 generations.
A human generation is about 20 years. Therefore, 100 generations takes us back roughly to the time of Christ.
The mathmatical expression for this geometric progression of 2 people having children for 100 generations would be:
2 ^ 100th power (I don't know how to do a superscript 100).
Or:
2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 ...... x 2 x 2) 100 times
The answer is:
1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376
That is a much bigger number than I know how to say using english words. For each human being there are that many spots at the base of their family tree if one goes back for 100 generations.
But of course in the entire course of human existence there have never been that many people how have lived and died. That means that many of those spots on your family tree when you get back a few generations were filled by the same person. The great-great-great -great grandmother of your great-great-great-great grandmother was also the great-great-great-great grandmother of your great-great-great-great grandfather on one of the other branches of your family tree. When you get back a few generations there is tons of incest going on.
This is made even more true by geographical isolation. When we consider most people's family trees going back a few generations we are not talking about the pool of possible relatives being the population of the earth but just the population of their local geographical area. There was always some travel but it was pretty minimal until the last few centuries. Most people's family tree might in a tiny way be influenced by a stray rape from the invading mongul hoard but it is heavily weighted by the repeated in-breeding over centuries of whatever population was indigineous to a particular area. That's how local things like blond hair tend to get reinforced.
All of that said though, I am not sure to what extent this type of incest has on your gene pool. The geometric progression works the other direction too with each generation farther back contributing a tinier fraction of your genes and therefore less likely to have inflicted a defective gene on you. For example only 1/16 of your genes came from each of your great-great grandparents and only
1/ 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376 th of your genes came from your
great-great-great-96 more times great-grandparents which is probably not significant even if a big fraction of these spots were filled by the same person which is almost certainly the case.
FYI--marriage of second cousins is legal everywhere in the U.S. and marriage of first cousins is legal in roughly half of the U.S., including New york, New Jersey and Alaska. So it\'s only kind of illegal to marry in the family.
--Samus
(if you\'re not outraged, you\'re not paying attention)
maybe my beloved found out he was related to me........... O.o i kid, i kid..
why do you always have to go off puting creepy thoughts in my head... lol i love you for it, none the less.
-velvet
wow, that would be creepy.
I found a more concrete source about the genetic implications of family members (closer than first cousins) reproducing.
http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=243
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Sweet