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Kasz216 on 14 December 2010
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Mr Khan said:
Reasonable said:
Kasz216 said:
Reasonable said:

Morally I couldn't care less - genetically it's bad news so I'd actually object on those grounds: bad for the species.


Doesn't it take like... dozens of generations of inbreeding to show effects?

The only real issue is genetic diseases becuase your basically guranteeing it will strike

Yeah but so what?  It's still going to happen.  It's not like people will say "well, we'll just have a couple of generations of incest then stop'.  The risk will be there.  Also, a lot of evolution theory indicates that changes can be pretty quick.  Certainly if we're talking people with genetic diseases you're going to see very quick effects, as you say.

Note I'm not talking about sex that's protected but reproduction.  You're basically increasing the odds per generation of weaker, more disease prone children.  I know I wouldn't feel too happy if I was a tenth generation incest child with a lot of physical issues.

It's just not a good idea from any genetic perspective.

Why not, if your extended family or whatever has *good* genes, lacking any particular recessive traits, though that veers dangerously close to the old arguments for eugenics (which then bound into racism, state racism, holocaust, etc etc)

Does it veer anymore near eugentics then banning incest because of fear of inferior genes? 

Plus it's a lopsided law since it ignores the fact that there are a lot of people with negative recessive genes who marry each other that doesn't qualify as incest.

The real "logical" version of a law that prevents incest on genetic means would be...

"Before reporoducing (or I guess having sex in general) you must be tested for genetic diseases, and if you have these you can not have sex with anyone else who has one of those recessive genes."


Would such a law be benefical to the human race?  I could see it being so, but it's awfully damn restrictive.

You see it happen all the time with non-related families, people who keep having kids they know are gentically likely to have mental disorders.  You can't just tell them to NOT have kids.  Then again, you may be for such a thing, what with the afore mentioned authortarian liberal stance and in such a thing does cost the state. (Much like the healthcare arguement for the personal mandate.)