Sex or marriage with a cousin. Opinions wanted.

[Tiay]

I always thought that quote thing was open to abuse.. ¬.¬

ok now i'm REALLY going to sleep. well.. maybe i'll listen to some podcasts first.. and floss. ...I might as well photograph the sunrise .. did you know that it's been shown that sleeping when it's dark is much better, and if you stay up in the evening regularly for more than 20 years you're almost bound to develop some kind of illness or problem, directly or indirectly from staying up late? .. I do. Yet I still stay up. Aren't I logical?.. :/

[Gigabitch]

You're delightful, Tiay. Your arguments are well thought out and you back them up. You actually consider other peoples' opinions. It would be a shame to lose you to some kind of illness or problem...

so go to bed!

[Tiay]

Aw, thank you, Giga that means a lot to me.
Maybe I should move to a more convenient time zone- Or somewhere where it's always dark.. Iceland in winter?

edit;
and hey, you're delightful too I always enjoy reading your posts.

[Zyx]

According to your theory there's nothing wrong with incest as long as you didn't grow up together. And genetically the aversion comes from wanting to mate with someone better as yourself and family usually isn't.

[Tiay]

just because the quote was limited to that particular type of kin-regocnition does not mean there aren't other ways in which humans- and indeed animals - guard themselves against breeding with relatives that are too closely related.
Research shows that we can even gather clues from the smell of someone else's sweat whether they are genetically suitable mating material.

Basically, by showing in my argument that there is a very strong kin-regocnition system in us to prevent us from mating with family, I am also supporting the argument that most people's disgust at sex with cousins is more deeply rooted than a cultural or religious taboo.

so.. you're saying the only reason there's a genetic aversion to mating with family is because family isn't good enough socially. In saying this you defy all accepted genetic facts.

edit:
also, the end of the quote which I highlighted ( "an overwhelming body of research now shows that evolutionary biology and evolved human psychology plays a central role in human aversion to incest.") was a broader statement not just referring to sex with those you grew up with, but the human aversion to inbreeding in general.

[Blix]

People don't mate with family because mostly their "smells" (Actually deeper genetic stuff, hormones and all that) are to closely related.

Your body wants to mate with another person who has different strengths than you do (On the inside, not the outside) that's what the sent is for.

Now if someone in a family DOES find someone not closely related enough to be attracted to them genetically (Which will be a rare thing to happen) then it will make sense.

Oh and another point...

If say a girl is adpoted into a family at 2 years old and a boy was already in that family, 2 years old. They live together for the next ~16~ years in the same house as Brother and Sister. They then fall in love and live together.

Doesn't your brain tell you this situation is weird, even though they actually aren't related at all?

It's a bit more of what is behind the words Brother/Sister/Cousin etc.

~Blix

[Tiay]

yeah, you are more likely to be attracted to people who genetically compliment you. That is, they're not too close, AND not too far away either.

smell-wise (lol ?) I suppose a person raised as a sibling who isn't actually related would be okay dating-material, genetically at least.... but it would feel super weird. Maybe the logical mind can overcome the chemistry, but as the quote from before said, arranged marriages where the unrelated couple was raised together found it hard to see each other in a romantic light. Maybe this is simply a side-effect of eliminating sibling sex, ie the person is falsely identified as a close relative. Or maybe this also keeps the family unit together, which may be more important for survival.

[Blix]

Yay! You just furthered my point that the taboo is on the Brother/Sister/Cousin etc titles.

~Blix

[Zyx]

I don't believe there's any reason at all to be disgusted by a relationship between family. And all that research stuff is bull-crap. I'm just not buying it. I believe in Darwin and if you were unwilling to mate with family you'd have less chance of getting childeren and so people who ARE willing to mate with family pass that on and that is why any aversion from mating with family must be non-genetical.

p.s. any possible birth-defects with mating between family must have already been in the family and enhanced by the fact that both parents had that gene. If your family is healthy there's no chance anything can go wrong.

[Blix]

Think about it this way, too. What if a man and a women never knew they were cousins. They meet at 20 as strangers, fall in love, marry, live together for 50 years and never learn they are related. IF they do have a child and by chance it does come out with some disease (Which is propbably a pretty minimal chance from what we've gone over) still know one will actually know. Or better yet one child who is perfectly normal and another who has something wrong.

It only gets weird when I add that elemental word "cousin".

~Blix

[Zyx]

exactly, as long as no one knows they're family it doesn't matter which means that it must be just the word family that makes it disgusting, TABOO

[vashti]

Think about it this way, too. What if a man and a women never knew they were cousins. They meet at 20 as strangers, fall in love, marry, live together for 50 years and never learn they are related.
~Blix

yeah, it happens that way all the time.

[Blix]

Fine, they get divorced after 5 years. Still doesn't really vary the point.

I thought you wanted it to die? You just bumped it.

~Blix

[vashti]

[Tiay]

Yay! You just furthered my point..

what have I said about this not being a winning/loosing thing? I don't think I have moved much from my original stand-point, and if you do make me think enough to make me reconsider an opinion, it is not a 'victory' for anybody, rather a strengthening and refinement of knowledge. Does nobody get proper discussions anymore?

I don't believe there's any reason at all to be disgusted by a relationship between family

they result in crippled children? would you have sex with a sibling?

you were unwilling to mate with family you'd have less chance of getting childeren and so people who ARE willing to mate with family pass that on and that is why any aversion from mating with family must be non-genetical.

Why, then, are all animals unwilling to mate with close family? as I have said before; animals don't have a society or religion, so how can it be a taboo?

p.s. any possible birth-defects with mating between family must have already been in the family and enhanced by the fact that both parents had that gene. If your family is healthy there's no chance anything can go wrong.

if you inbreed, you pass on the good genes, but also the bad ones. In order to get healthy offspring, new genes must _always_ come in; this passes on the good genes on both sides, complimenting each other's weak points.
I am not enough of a geneticist to really argue back with technical terms. I can however tell you that simply this is not true. It is a proven fact that inbreeding results in much much higher chances of birth defects. For instance, if you buy a "purebred" dog, you are more likely to get defects; deafness, hip problems, etc. In fact, many breeds have their own trademark illnesses.
This is because in order to make a dalmation with dots, a doberman with the right markings, whatever, the breeders had to inbreed a little to propagate those chosen traits. Whereas mongrels are usually much healthier; proven fact. This basic principle is the same for all animals.

As I have said before, some "light" inbreeding can actually be good for preserving useful combinations of genes. This is why I presume that cousins having sex would be ok if there was enough variety.

What if a man and a women never knew they were cousins. They meet at 20 as strangers, fall in love, marry..

what i'm saying, though, is that they wouldn't have to know the emotinal word 'cousin' to smell the incompatible genes. Well, that, or they happened to be compatible, in which case they most likely wouldn't get birth defects anyway.

exactly, as long as no one knows they're family it doesn't matter which means that it must be just the word family that makes it disgusting

has it occurred to you guys that maybe it is not just a word? "family" is not just a combination of letters, it means something. Say, an extreme example, a brother and sister are estranged. And they meet not knowing they are family. I'd say the chemistry would be wrong right off the bat and they wouldn't get together anyway, but let's assume that they both can't smell or something. You're saying that when he finds out she's his 'sister', it's the WORD that puts him off, not the revelation that if their future children would probably be defect, thus making their gene line much more likely to end?

Making sure that your genes survive is a very very strong instinct in all animals, because, after all, all those who ensured that their line continued are still around.

Bear in mind that unrelated couples who find out that they are both carriers of the same illness usually decide not to risk having more children because of this.