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Why do you think you have such certain knowledge of these things? It seems like knowledge of human genetics and diseases is in a very early stage. As far as I
by formulaT 11y ago
Why do you think you have such certain knowledge of these things? It seems like knowledge of human genetics and diseases is in a very early stage. As far as I can tell the idea that inbreeding is bad is primarily political.
- mikeash 11y agoThe action of recessive genes is well understood, as are various diseases caused by them. Don't forget that European royalty conducted a long-running experiment on the effects of inbreeding, and the result was a great deal of deformities and disabilities. A whole genetic disorder is named this way: just look up "Habsburg jaw." Lots of other experiments on human inbreeding have been run on islands like the one in the story. Your post sounds an awful lot like, "I don't understand, therefore it is not understood."
- formulaT 11y agoMore like no one would ever write about the need for Jews to outbreed, and if they did they would be rebuffed with a bazillion qualifications about the science being uncertain. You only get to make sweeping statements when politics are on your side.
- mikeash 11y agoThe Jews are several orders of magnitude more numerous than these small island populations, and even then there are genetic diseases that are far more common among them.
- formulaT 11y agoSo since the science of recessive genes is so well understood, how big does the population need to be before scientists instruct the group to start outbreeding?
- mikeash 11y agoScientists typically don't outright instruct, but merely describe the consequences of various options. Sometimes (e.g. with global warming and the "keep dumping massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere" option) the consequences are "lots of people die horribly." But outright instructions are typically left up to the nice men with large guns.
- formulaT 11y agoMy point was that the quantity of the effect matters. If the science can't quantify how bad having a population of 150 is, then we can't say we understand things well enough to recommend "outbreeding", as the original post did.
- mikeash 11y agoWhy do you think it can't be quantified?
- formulaT 11y agoLet me put it another way: Can you or anyone else provide scientific studies that would directly back the claim The level of inbreeding on that island is quite scary. Although if they purged a lot of the deleterious alleles from the population, if they outbred with others, they could produce much healthier offspring and a lower likelihood of various genetic ailments. And not the general statements that have been made in this thread, but something that would pin down a specific numeric relationship between population size in humans, and health. EDIT: and for reference, the prevalence of Asthma may be purely due to the founder effect, not an effect of inbreeding per se. Two or three of the original settlers suffered from asthma[0]. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2222.1974.tb01373.x/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2222.1974....
- defen 11y agohttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v397/n6717/abs/397344a0.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v397/n6717/abs/397344a0... Rougly 1.5 new deleterious mutations per diploid genome per generation. If you have closely related individuals having children, there is a greater chance that the deleterious mutations will overlap.
- collyw 11y agoCome on, show your faith in science here on HN.