Inbreeding

[MattyG]

This thread should be renamed "inflammatory and provocative hand-waiving to detract, just a version of the red-herring fallacy".

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like it's never been published.

 

Hi offended. Nice to see you posting in this thread. Well, there is probably no science published to indicate that "Most of the odd things tied to recessive genes in humans are defects," but no one on this thread, save OP, has posted a claim to that effect. However, a number of scholarly articles have been posted that indicate evidence of inbreeding leading to higher proportions of harmful and negative recessive genes in the inbred population. If you'd like, you should feel free to discuss the actual topic of the effects of human inbreeding, but I really don't see how renaming the thread is on topic.

[offended]

a number of scholarly articles have been posted that indicate evidence of inbreeding leading to higher proportions of harmful and negative recessive genes in the inbred population.

And a number of scholarly articles have been posted that indicate evidence of inbreeding leading to higher proportions of helpful and positive recessive genes in the inbred population; and here's an article showing that outbreeding leads to higher proportions of harmful and negative recessive genes in the outbred population: http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.html.

[MattyG]

And a number of scholarly articles have been posted that indicate evidence of inbreeding leading to higher proportions of helpful and positive recessive genes in the inbred population; and here's an article showing that outbreeding leads to higher proportions of harmful and negative recessive genes in the outbred population: http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.html.

 

There was one article posted relating to cousin-cousin inbreeding in Iceland leading to slightly more fertile relationships, but actually reading the article from start to finish reveals that they are unable "to offer a concrete biological explanation for these findings," and acknowledges that "What gene experts do know is that nookie between closely related people, such as first or second cousins, increases the chances of passing down a recessive gene for a detrimental condition to their offspring." When OP was claiming that this article claimed that outbreeding causes infertility, he was clearly misunderstanding the findings of this research. Clearly, non-inbreeding couples having over three children on average in not infertility. Infertility would be having zero children on average. And the studies don't necessarily indicate that the couples had less ability to have offspring. The article noted that there was a possibility that the non inbreeding couples were just having less sex than the inbreeding couples. And, I'm no expert and I don't know the sample size they were looking at, but I wouldn't think that inbreeding couples have less than one more child than non-inbreeding couples is that significant. Also, one could easily argue that increased fertility is not necessarily a desirable trait in our modern, overpopulated world. Aside from that article, no one else has posted evidence of the inbreeding leading to higher proportions of helpful and positive recessive genes in the inbred population.

 

As to the article you just posted, it is an analysis of hybrid plants, as in one plant being bred with a different species of plant. No one is arguing that it is beneficial to breed with separate species. The article is not comparing plants that are inbred to plants that breed outside of their direct lineage. It's also important to note that, while many plants have the ability to reproduce asexually, producing exact clones (which is more or less what inbreeding attempts to do), the vast majority have also developed methods of sexual reproduction in order to create greater genetic diversity and avoid mass inbreeding.

Edited September 12, 2012 by MattyG

[MattyG]

As to the article you just posted, it is an analysis of hybrid plants, as in one plant being bred with a different species of plant. No one is arguing that it is beneficial to breed with separate species. The article is not comparing plants that are inbred to plants that breed outside of their direct lineage. It's also important to note that, while many plants have the ability to reproduce asexually, producing exact clones (which is more or less what inbreeding attempts to do), the vast majority have also developed methods of sexual reproduction in order to create greater genetic diversity and avoid mass inbreeding.

 

I've actually just read that paper more carefully. That Mendel's original study that determined that traits are either Dominant or Recessive. At no point did he look at the effects of inbreeding or make comments on the value of the traits from a survival standpoint. He looked at

• Color and smoothness of the seeds (grey and round or white and wrinkled)
• Color of the cotyledons (yellow or green)
• Color of the flowers (white or violet)
• Shape of the pods (full or constricted)
• Color of unripe pods (yellow or green)
• Position of flowers and pods on the stems
• Height of the plants (short or tall)

That's all. You'll notice that none of these traits are particularly detrimental to the plants' survival. Once again, high school level material. If you're going to post articles in an attempt to prove your point, at least make sure you know what they're about.