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From the article. Assortative Mating -- Mating between people who are alike made more prevalent through higher college attendance (choice based) and online dati

by daveguy 11y ago

From the article. Assortative Mating -- Mating between people who are alike made more prevalent through higher college attendance (choice based) and online dating tools combined with deeper urban dating pools. Also makes the (dubious?) claim that marginal increased cost of caring for an autistic child is less than marginal likelihood for increased combined salary. Moral of the story: make babies outside of your own ethnic group.

EliRivers 11y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again; incest is a spectrum, not an absolute :) Breed with someone who really doesn't look like you. More off-topic, I find it creepy when I meet couples who look like each other and have a string of identical children.
- rustynails 11y ago
  My wife doesn't look like me. We have reasonably different ethnic backgrounds (common Scottish ancestry maybe 5 generations ago, maybe 5% ethnic commonality at best). We have an autistic child. So, what's your conclusion?
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    My conclusion is that merging genes is essentially rolling the dice, and all you can do is try to stack the odds in your favour. There are a great many unfortunate genetic outcomes when it comes to breeding, and you can reduce the chances of many of them by reducing the level of incest in your breeding. I bet you already knew this is what I meant and didn't actually need me to spell it out for you. As an aside, I read elsewhere that you and your wife are both from Western Europe. That's actually a lot closer than I had in mind; I said breed with someone who really doesn't look like you. :)
  - daveguy 11y ago
    sigma > 0
- eplanit 11y ago
  > I find it creepy when I meet couples who look like each other and have a string of identical children. I'm [genuinely] curious: do you find it creepy only for similar-appearing couples in your own race/ethnic group? Assuming you're not Japanese, for example, would you have that reaction to the sight of such a Japanese family? This is not meant as a pejorative. My guess is that such a bias is probably common _within_ a race/ethnicity, but much less so when viewing couples/families of other races.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    People who know relatively many people of race A have more trouble distinguishing individuals of race B, than individuals of race A. When all members of a race look alike, there's less intrafamily similarity to notice.
thesz 11y ago
"make babies outside of your own ethnic group." No, you should not: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.ht... For example, for women born between 1800 and 1824, those with a mate related at the level of a third cousin had an average of 4.04 children and 9.17 grandchildren, while those related to their mates as eighth cousins or more distantly had 3.34 children and 7.31 grandchildren. For women born in the period 1925-1949 with mates related at the degree of third cousins, the average number of children and grandchildren were 3.27 and 6.64, compared to 2.45 and 4.86 for those with mates who were eighth cousins or more distantly related. The autism rates in the Iceland are not that high, being 1.2% (Korea has twice as much autists as Iceland with their 2.6%): http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/07/05/autism-prevalence-in-iceland-1-2/ http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/07/05/autism-prevalenc...
- cthalupa 11y ago
  Is your argument that you should not because you will have more children if you stay to those more closely related to you? I don't feel like that's necessarily a strong argument even if you don't think the world is going to have population problems, but if you do, that would be a pretty strong negative
  - thesz 11y ago
    The very probability of having a child is higher in the case of relatively distant relatives. So if you marry to have a child (parallel to other goals, of course), then you should not look very far. If you marry to not have a child, or your priorities structured rather differently, my argument is null.
- douche 11y ago
  Anecdotally, people that marry their cousins are not too keen on birth control, and they tend to get started on the project a few years earlier than other folks, so...
awl130 11y ago
> Moral of the story: make babies outside of your own ethnic group. That is absolutely the wrong conclusion to make from the source. The suggestion of the source is that if two people prone to systemized-thinking mate (regardless of ethnicity), then the likelihood of autism is higher. Your conclusion only makes sense if you believe certain ethnicities are more systemized than others. Thus, if you are from a systemized ethnicity, you should seek to mate outside your race. I don't think that is your intent. My inference is that your intent was to take this research and form some moral lesson out of it that fits your world view, or a world view that is fashionable.
mercer 11y ago
> Moral of the story: make babies outside of your own ethnic group I'm not so sure... I recall reading that there's a link between autism and parents of mixed ethnic background (sorry, don't have time to look up evidence right now).

by daveguy 11y ago

EliRivers 11y ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again; incest is a spectrum, not an absolute :) Breed with someone who really doesn't look like you. More off-topic, I find it creepy when I meet couples who look like each other and have a string of identical children.

rustynails 11y ago
My wife doesn't look like me. We have reasonably different ethnic backgrounds (common Scottish ancestry maybe 5 generations ago, maybe 5% ethnic commonality at best). We have an autistic child. So, what's your conclusion?
- EliRivers 11y ago
  My conclusion is that merging genes is essentially rolling the dice, and all you can do is try to stack the odds in your favour. There are a great many unfortunate genetic outcomes when it comes to breeding, and you can reduce the chances of many of them by reducing the level of incest in your breeding. I bet you already knew this is what I meant and didn't actually need me to spell it out for you. As an aside, I read elsewhere that you and your wife are both from Western Europe. That's actually a lot closer than I had in mind; I said breed with someone who really doesn't look like you. :)
- daveguy 11y ago
  sigma > 0
eplanit 11y ago
> I find it creepy when I meet couples who look like each other and have a string of identical children. I'm [genuinely] curious: do you find it creepy only for similar-appearing couples in your own race/ethnic group? Assuming you're not Japanese, for example, would you have that reaction to the sight of such a Japanese family? This is not meant as a pejorative. My guess is that such a bias is probably common _within_ a race/ethnicity, but much less so when viewing couples/families of other races.
- gohrt 11y ago
  People who know relatively many people of race A have more trouble distinguishing individuals of race B, than individuals of race A. When all members of a race look alike, there's less intrafamily similarity to notice.

thesz 11y ago

"make babies outside of your own ethnic group." No, you should not: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.ht... For example, for women born between 1800 and 1824, those with a mate related at the level of a third cousin had an average of 4.04 children and 9.17 grandchildren, while those related to their mates as eighth cousins or more distantly had 3.34 children and 7.31 grandchildren. For women born in the period 1925-1949 with mates related at the degree of third cousins, the average number of children and grandchildren were 3.27 and 6.64, compared to 2.45 and 4.86 for those with mates who were eighth cousins or more distantly related. The autism rates in the Iceland are not that high, being 1.2% (Korea has twice as much autists as Iceland with their 2.6%): http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/07/05/autism-prevalence-in-iceland-1-2/ http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/07/05/autism-prevalenc...

cthalupa 11y ago
Is your argument that you should not because you will have more children if you stay to those more closely related to you? I don't feel like that's necessarily a strong argument even if you don't think the world is going to have population problems, but if you do, that would be a pretty strong negative
- thesz 11y ago
  The very probability of having a child is higher in the case of relatively distant relatives. So if you marry to have a child (parallel to other goals, of course), then you should not look very far. If you marry to not have a child, or your priorities structured rather differently, my argument is null.
douche 11y ago
Anecdotally, people that marry their cousins are not too keen on birth control, and they tend to get started on the project a few years earlier than other folks, so...

awl130 11y ago

> Moral of the story: make babies outside of your own ethnic group. That is absolutely the wrong conclusion to make from the source. The suggestion of the source is that if two people prone to systemized-thinking mate (regardless of ethnicity), then the likelihood of autism is higher. Your conclusion only makes sense if you believe certain ethnicities are more systemized than others. Thus, if you are from a systemized ethnicity, you should seek to mate outside your race. I don't think that is your intent. My inference is that your intent was to take this research and form some moral lesson out of it that fits your world view, or a world view that is fashionable.

mercer 11y ago

> Moral of the story: make babies outside of your own ethnic group I'm not so sure... I recall reading that there's a link between autism and parents of mixed ethnic background (sorry, don't have time to look up evidence right now).