Pokeyouindaeye wrote:Art Vandelay wrote:Alright, so I emailed a former bio instructor of mine about this and this was his reply:They're called "polygenic traits" and s*** as simple as eye color is controlled by them. Mendelian Genetics was based on the existence of one gene for one trait, which we know now isn't the case (hence polygenic). For you to produce significantly compromised offspring with your relative, you would both need to be heterozygous recessive for enough of the polygenic traits to dictate a serious change, and then have all of those recessive genes become homozygous in the offspring which, statistically speaking, is staggering. While its indisputable that generations of inbreeding can f*** your shit up significantly, the fear of retard mutant babies is not what causes the taboo of brother/sister f***ery.
From the sources I've been able to find online, and this, it seems to me that only multi-generational inbreeding significantly improves the chances of birth defects.
edit: I guess I should censor that.
Even though multigenerational inbreeding has a higher chance of producing birth defects, I still wouldn't condone it on a singularly generational model. Retard/mutant babies just really aren't that high up on my list of things to deal with in my lifetime, no matter how low the possibility.
I also wish I was on such frank speaking terms with my earlier bio profs.
haha...his classroom manner was about the same, only with a little less swearing. He was actually very funny and engaging, it was about the only science course I could stand.