This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.43.40.79 (talk) at 22:30, 30 May 2002 (anything related to marriage is irrelevant and stuff weeded out). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 22:30, 30 May 2002 by 24.43.40.79 (talk) (anything related to marriage is irrelevant and stuff weeded out)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Some biologist should add some numerical information about likelihood of birth defects after incest, say between brother and sister. Also some general information about why mixing is good would be useful. --AxelBoldt
At the level of brother and sister the probability of birth defects goes up noticeably, but not enormously if the gene pool is fairly healthy. Maybe it almost doubles. Some of the more common birth defects (hare lip etc) are probably not due to genetic causes. For first cousins, the increase is down in the noise. Inbreeding can have advantages (ask any plant or animal breeder), but breeding individuals who are not closely related also has advantages (again ask any plant or animal breeder). The best way to get a healthy population seems to involve a mixture of both.
As to why, that is a very complicated thing that is not quite fully understood yet. It would take a very knowlegeble geneticist writing a very long article to explain even what we now know.
I am not sure how this relates to incest for humans. A lot of people would not want to think about humans in these kind of terms, of deliberately breeding to improve the species. Also incest is not quite the same as inbreeding, since in most juristicions it includes various relationships without close blood relationship, and it also includes sexual relationships that do not produce children.
True, but that's just a result of confusion by priests and jurists. It's clear that the incest taboo is there because of genetic reasons.
In Germany for instance, it is legal for a sister to have oral sex with her brother, but penetration is illegal. That makes eminent sense. But the article should explain why.
Bullshit. There is no such thing as an "incest taboo" except in modern societies. It certainly didn't arise due to genetic reasons or evolution.
Is it really clear that the taboo is for genetic reasons? The fact that most traditional versions of it are not very precise in preventing genetic trouble, should be a hint that other reasons should be considered. The genetic reasoning may well be a modern rationalisation for an old custom. It is unlikely that the ancients in the cultures where the taboo existed did the detailed and careful statistical analysis needed to show that inbreeding can increase short term genetic risk. They certainly did not have the theory needed to understand why.