4 ms·

There was inevitable inbreeding between ancestors too.

by tomkwok 12y ago

bitserf 12y ago
Did the DNA test through 23andme.com, some interesting East Asian and African skeletons were discovered for a family supposedly of purely European lineage :)
- bdowling 12y ago
  I don't think you should read too much into a statistical matching of your DNA markers with statistical samplings of populations in which individual samples also vary widely. It's the modern version of those occupational survey systems (Kuder?) that really just tell you what population your answers are most similar to, with very little useful insight.
jacobolus 12y ago
The way you phrased that shows some bias toward contemporary European family structures. Inbreeding was standard accepted practice pretty much everywhere until 1500 years ago, and still is in many parts of the world. (In many Arab countries, for example, marriages between first cousins make up 15+% of all marriages, and marriages between first or second cousins make up 30+% of all marriages.) It’s especially in Western Europe where cousin marriages out to 2nd, 3rd, or further cousins were taboo, and universal “outbreeding” was/is the enforced norm. (Primarily because the Catholic church wanted to break the political power of extended families, and divert more inheritances to the church instead of to people’s kin. In similar vein they discouraged/disallowed divorce, adoptions, marriage of widows, etc.) I did a google search to look for quick sources just now. This page has a summary: http://www.collective-action.info/_DEB_MAP_RelationMarriagePatternsExchangeInheritance http://www.collective-action.info/_DEB_MAP_RelationMarriageP...
- peterfirefly 12y ago
  Which is one of the reasons why Arabs are less intelligent than Europeans. It is also one of the easiest things to fix :)
  - wrongc0ntinent 12y ago
    Charles Darwin (pretty intelligent European) married his first cousin.
    - peterfirefly 12y ago
      He did. And we have lines of inbred mice we use for experiments. That doesn't change the fact that inbreeding tends to be bad. (And Arabs /are/ by and large less intelligent than Europeans. That's quite unfortunate for them, for the Arab countries, and -- given the current migration patterns -- for the Europeans. Inbreeding is one of the preventable reasons for their general lower intelligence. Infectious diseases is another. Lack of certain micronutrients a third. The latter two are fixed by moving to Europe, the former not so much.)
- tomkwok 12y ago
  I'm sorry for the confusion. I just thought when the human population was still small long ago, when there wasn't even a concept of 'incest', inbreeding between ancestors was more common and expected. So we all descended from incestors in today's context. Is that right?
  - jacobolus 12y ago
    Yep. If you go back 10–20 generations in anyone’s family tree, you’ll find we’re all the product of sexual relationships between first cousins, siblings, parents and their children, etc.

There was inevitable inbreeding between ancestors too.

by tomkwok 12y ago

There was inevitable inbreeding between ancestors too.

Did the DNA test through 23andme.com, some interesting East Asian and African skeletons were discovered for a family supposedly of purely European lineage :)

bdowling 12y ago
I don't think you should read too much into a statistical matching of your DNA markers with statistical samplings of populations in which individual samples also vary widely. It's the modern version of those occupational survey systems (Kuder?) that really just tell you what population your answers are most similar to, with very little useful insight.

jacobolus 12y ago

The way you phrased that shows some bias toward contemporary European family structures. Inbreeding was standard accepted practice pretty much everywhere until 1500 years ago, and still is in many parts of the world. (In many Arab countries, for example, marriages between first cousins make up 15+% of all marriages, and marriages between first or second cousins make up 30+% of all marriages.) It’s especially in Western Europe where cousin marriages out to 2nd, 3rd, or further cousins were taboo, and universal “outbreeding” was/is the enforced norm. (Primarily because the Catholic church wanted to break the political power of extended families, and divert more inheritances to the church instead of to people’s kin. In similar vein they discouraged/disallowed divorce, adoptions, marriage of widows, etc.) I did a google search to look for quick sources just now. This page has a summary: http://www.collective-action.info/_DEB_MAP_RelationMarriagePatternsExchangeInheritance http://www.collective-action.info/_DEB_MAP_RelationMarriageP...

peterfirefly 12y ago
Which is one of the reasons why Arabs are less intelligent than Europeans. It is also one of the easiest things to fix :)
- wrongc0ntinent 12y ago
  Charles Darwin (pretty intelligent European) married his first cousin.
  - peterfirefly 12y ago
    He did. And we have lines of inbred mice we use for experiments. That doesn't change the fact that inbreeding tends to be bad. (And Arabs /are/ by and large less intelligent than Europeans. That's quite unfortunate for them, for the Arab countries, and -- given the current migration patterns -- for the Europeans. Inbreeding is one of the preventable reasons for their general lower intelligence. Infectious diseases is another. Lack of certain micronutrients a third. The latter two are fixed by moving to Europe, the former not so much.)
tomkwok 12y ago
I'm sorry for the confusion. I just thought when the human population was still small long ago, when there wasn't even a concept of 'incest', inbreeding between ancestors was more common and expected. So we all descended from incestors in today's context. Is that right?
- jacobolus 12y ago
  Yep. If you go back 10–20 generations in anyone’s family tree, you’ll find we’re all the product of sexual relationships between first cousins, siblings, parents and their children, etc.