Monday, May 24, 2004
On incest and rape
Most of societies in existence today consider incest to be a sin/bad practice.
Western thought claims that incest is bad for society and they provide us with two reasons.
1) The bad traits gets expressed.
2) Since the genetic material is similar, one single disease is enough to wipe out the whole society with out much genetic variation [presumably because of incest or inbreeding.]
Taking the first point, If the bad traits gets expressed easily during the incest, so should the good traits,
in fact the chances of the good traits getting more expressed in the society are high since the concentrated bad trait would cause the unfitness or demise of the member carrying it.
Now looking at the other side, If the breeding occurs in a large group, the chances for the bad traits to become concentrated or the good traits to become concentrated are lower, which means that the capacity of the population fluctuates around a mean. [Remember that there is a lower cutoff level for bad traits --death or no-mating] which means that the smaller groups go higher up [i.e. evolve positively] from the mean faster than a larger group. [Both due to the non reduction of bad traits and due to non (or reduced) selection of good traits due to insufficient strength of expression.]
This effectively gives you a preference for small groups which are self-sustainable [the smallness of the group is counteracted only by the need for self sustenance and the need for redundancy -- if a member is killed, then it should not result in discontinuation of the whole group].
Now let us see what would happen if this preference continues,
here the second objection comes into force, that is a disease that is able to take advantage of the genetic makeup of a particular individual will be able to claim the whole group. and if there are no inter fertilization of the diverse groups, then the good genes of the group will be lost if the group is decimated, since no other group will have that particular gene. Thus it becomes in the group's interest to pass the genes to other groups. This kind of transactions will be rare and forced as the group receiving the genes will have no interest in having it as it would affect the expression of the good genes of the group.
thus I believe that inbreeding and incest [for there is no reason to distinguish between both from an evolutionary point of view] actually help in making the group competitive and forced-mating [rape] is a way of the nature to make sure that the genetic pool is mixed from time to time.
We find multiple examples of incest in nature, the members of the same brood in animals most often live together after the separation from their parents, and they are partners in everything including sex until a better reason comes along (which has to defeat the member of the brood first) thus it seems that incest is the default in nature.
What you can't say
[This Idea's seeds happened to grow from Isac Asimov's Foundation Series.] ¶ 2:58 PM
Western thought claims that incest is bad for society and they provide us with two reasons.
1) The bad traits gets expressed.
2) Since the genetic material is similar, one single disease is enough to wipe out the whole society with out much genetic variation [presumably because of incest or inbreeding.]
Taking the first point, If the bad traits gets expressed easily during the incest, so should the good traits,
in fact the chances of the good traits getting more expressed in the society are high since the concentrated bad trait would cause the unfitness or demise of the member carrying it.
Now looking at the other side, If the breeding occurs in a large group, the chances for the bad traits to become concentrated or the good traits to become concentrated are lower, which means that the capacity of the population fluctuates around a mean. [Remember that there is a lower cutoff level for bad traits --death or no-mating] which means that the smaller groups go higher up [i.e. evolve positively] from the mean faster than a larger group. [Both due to the non reduction of bad traits and due to non (or reduced) selection of good traits due to insufficient strength of expression.]
This effectively gives you a preference for small groups which are self-sustainable [the smallness of the group is counteracted only by the need for self sustenance and the need for redundancy -- if a member is killed, then it should not result in discontinuation of the whole group].
Now let us see what would happen if this preference continues,
here the second objection comes into force, that is a disease that is able to take advantage of the genetic makeup of a particular individual will be able to claim the whole group. and if there are no inter fertilization of the diverse groups, then the good genes of the group will be lost if the group is decimated, since no other group will have that particular gene. Thus it becomes in the group's interest to pass the genes to other groups. This kind of transactions will be rare and forced as the group receiving the genes will have no interest in having it as it would affect the expression of the good genes of the group.
thus I believe that inbreeding and incest [for there is no reason to distinguish between both from an evolutionary point of view] actually help in making the group competitive and forced-mating [rape] is a way of the nature to make sure that the genetic pool is mixed from time to time.
We find multiple examples of incest in nature, the members of the same brood in animals most often live together after the separation from their parents, and they are partners in everything including sex until a better reason comes along (which has to defeat the member of the brood first) thus it seems that incest is the default in nature.
What you can't say
[This Idea's seeds happened to grow from Isac Asimov's Foundation Series.] ¶ 2:58 PM
