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Thu 29 Jan, 2015 09:07 pm
Suppose you live in state where it's illegal to marry a sibling but legal to marry a first cousin...
Suppose we have two sets of identical twins: Adam and Steve, and Adele and Eve.
Adam marries Eve, and they have a son, Seth.
Adele and Steve marry, and they have a daughter, Lilith.
In terms of their family tree, Seth and Lilith are first cousins.
However, they are as genetically similar as siblings,
since their fathers were clones of each other, as were their mothers.
Within the spirit of the law, should Seth and Lilith be allowed to marry?
father and mothers were NOT clones of each other. That's a flaw.
Yes, they could marry anyway.
@PUNKEY,
But they're pretty darn close genetically.
EDIT -- This is in reference to "fathers were not clones of each other."
@Pearlylustre,
This bothers me. From your link:
Quote:"It might be hard to believe, but incest among consenting adults is technically legal in New Jersey," Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini, R-Monmouth, said in announcing the legislation. "Obviously, these types of relationships violate our acceptable moral standards and should be banned."
Where does Assemblywoman Angelini get off equating her moral standards with "our moral standards"? Relationships between consenting, responsible adults are not and should not be the concern of third parties e.g. legislators. I personally believe that the behavior of the couple in the story is somehow unsavory and wrong. But I also understand that it is none of my damn' business.
@Lustig Andrei,
Okay, Lustig, but putting aside your feelings about whether incest should be outlawed, do you think (as I do) that Seth and Lilith in my example are as closely related to one another as a typical brother and sister might be?
I started this thread mainly because I was interested in how closely related the hypothetical pair would be, not because I really care about incest.
@Kolyo,
I'm not sure, Kolyo. That's a close call, I think.
@Kolyo,
Damn good question, Kolyo. I have only limited knowledge of genetics, but I can't find a flaw in your conclusion that Seth and Lilith are as genetically similar as siblings. Even considering that monozygotic twins aren't quite 100% genetically identical.
@FBM,
FBM wrote:
Damn good question, Kolyo.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
After gunga's posts I rather regretted
phrasing the question the way I did.
My question really wasn't about incest, but about degrees of relatedness.
@Kolyo,
The part about whether or not they should be allowed to marry is a legit question, too, I think, even though the chances of it ever happening are pretty slim.
@Kolyo,
The fallacy here is the assumption that
laws about "incest" and even its definition are rationalized on the basis of the avoidance of biological "problems". They are not. The history of incest laws involves property inheritance and religious and tribal rulings as the predominant issues, which certainly predate any concept of genetics.
@fresco,
But whether or not it's incest, would you agree the
coefficient of relationship between Seth and Lilith was 0.5 (or almost 0.5)?
It seems that way to me.
@Kolyo,
I have no reason to doubt your calculation.
As an aside, it has been reported that siblings who have been reared separately and meet in later life are often highly attracted to each other.
@fresco,
In that case, we can only hope Seth and Lilith never meet.
@Kolyo,
Kolyo wrote:After gunga's posts I rather regretted phrasing the question the way I did.
Gunga feels a need to point out how everyone else is so much more inbred than him. If he does it enough, he might be believed.
The most basic law of human genetics is that you don't want to marry anybody from your same village. Simplest absolute guarantee of avoiding problems is to marry somebody of a different racial background than yours.
In Iceland where you have people living on a remove island, they actually have a smart-phone app with info for the whole population which allows any two pepole who meet to instantly know if they have any business wanting to have children together.
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