Should we use eugenic reasons forbid the marriage of women over 40 planing on having babies as well? The defect rate in children is the same just so you know. In the Western world most people are pretty out-bred, one generation of inbreeding does very little damage and very few Westerners will choose to marry their cousins generation after generation.
Should we use eugenic reasons forbid the marriage of women over 40 planing on having babies as well?
Yes. We should also encourage the use of sperm donors as resulting in 1⁄5 the birth defect rate. (On a large scale, this advantage would erode, but that is easily dealt with by encouraging men to donate more and treating them less like crap; we can think of it as ‘sperm banking’, akin to existing practice of ‘egg banking’.)
In the Western world most people are pretty out-bred, one generation of inbreeding does very little damage
Do you know this, or are you guessing? If I were to go looking for any studies in out-bred populations, at how many points of average IQ damage would you concede the point?
In the Western world most people are pretty out-bred
By “the Western world” you mean the Americas or some subset thereof? Because I doubt there’s that much genetic diversity in, say, Iceland (and in Italy there are some small towns where one or two family names comprise the majority of the population).
The Western world. You need to keep in mind that inbreeding is the human norm. Europe, at least any part that was under Catholic influence for a few centuries is a massive outlier in its low rates of consanguineous marriage.
Europe, at least any part that was under Catholic influence for a few centuries is a massive outlier in its low rates of consanguineous marriage.
They might not marry close relatives (say, those with common ancestors from 200 years ago), but when it’s customary to only marry people from your own town with a population of 1000, this means that lots of your ancestors from 500 years ago are your spouse’s ancestors too, so you still share lots of genes.
Urbanization in the 19th and 20th century mean this is very seldom still the case. How many people live in such small towns? And those who more often find spouses via work or in the course of their education, which seldom takes place in such small towns.
In any case the defect rates for such towns are only very seldom a problem. A better point in your favour might be the relative close relatedness of say the Aksenazi Jews.
Should we use eugenic reasons forbid the marriage of women over 40 planing on having babies as well? The defect rate in children is the same just so you know. In the Western world most people are pretty out-bred, one generation of inbreeding does very little damage and very few Westerners will choose to marry their cousins generation after generation.
Yes. We should also encourage the use of sperm donors as resulting in 1⁄5 the birth defect rate. (On a large scale, this advantage would erode, but that is easily dealt with by encouraging men to donate more and treating them less like crap; we can think of it as ‘sperm banking’, akin to existing practice of ‘egg banking’.)
Do you know this, or are you guessing? If I were to go looking for any studies in out-bred populations, at how many points of average IQ damage would you concede the point?
Ok you win eugenics is a good idea. But after designer babies are the norm, this rationale becomes obsolete.
By “the Western world” you mean the Americas or some subset thereof? Because I doubt there’s that much genetic diversity in, say, Iceland (and in Italy there are some small towns where one or two family names comprise the majority of the population).
The Western world. You need to keep in mind that inbreeding is the human norm. Europe, at least any part that was under Catholic influence for a few centuries is a massive outlier in its low rates of consanguineous marriage.
They might not marry close relatives (say, those with common ancestors from 200 years ago), but when it’s customary to only marry people from your own town with a population of 1000, this means that lots of your ancestors from 500 years ago are your spouse’s ancestors too, so you still share lots of genes.
Urbanization in the 19th and 20th century mean this is very seldom still the case. How many people live in such small towns? And those who more often find spouses via work or in the course of their education, which seldom takes place in such small towns.
In any case the defect rates for such towns are only very seldom a problem. A better point in your favour might be the relative close relatedness of say the Aksenazi Jews.