Deep Thoughts.....

POSTED BY: Wishimay
UPDATED: Monday, July 16, 2012 21:50
VIEWED: 6023
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WISHIMAY

Friday, July 13, 2012 5:02 AM

Ok, so, you've just been promoted to GOD.... It's the end of the world or just the beginning(aka Adam and Eve) and there are just two people left, male and female, of breeding age in the same vicinity left on the planet, say.... 18 years of age, and there is no electricity.

Would you see them never breed and the human population die off, or gentically speaking there are only two possibilities: either produce as many children as possible and have them breed with each other, or have a parent eventually breed with it's OWN children?

Because if the bible were true, God put just two people on the planet, knowing it was gonna get fugly, genetically.... (Wouldn't that whole Eating of the Tree thing be completely irrelevant either way???)

This kinda goes back to the whole "More genetic mutations recently" thing which I'm not sure I believe anyway, but wouldn't we have seen at least half of the population have serious terminal flaws from inception, or is this a case of "Life finds a way?"

By the way

Children of unrelated parents having serious or life threatening deformities
3-4%
Children of cousins through one line
5-6%
Children of cousins through two lines
6-7%
Children of full siblings
7-9%
Percentage of pregnanies that are thought to be naturally terminated before birth...
10%
I would think that those would be dramatically higher if we were all the product of incest??
Also, I would think there would be other incidences of incest in just about EVERY persons lineage, wouldn't you? (scary thought!)

This is all theoretical discussions for me anyway, but something in my head is better than nothin'....

WISHIMAY

Friday, July 13, 2012 5:13 AM

hey this was supposed to go in RWED... Oh welll.....

WISHIMAY

Friday, July 13, 2012 5:52 AM

Hey, maybe I just solved the whole "More genetic mutations thing that may or may not exist"

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG9393537/Fashion-for-tight-je
ans-is-increasing-testicular-problems-among-men.html

ZEEK

Friday, July 13, 2012 2:13 PM

This assumes that Adam and Eve were like us. Maybe the reason we have such high birth defect rates with close relatives is because of the massive inbreeding in the first few generations. Maybe with the DNA of Adam and Eve it wasn't as big of a problem and slowly developed into a problem as the gene pool went on. I don't think we can retroactively apply what we know about current humans to humans that were probably at a very different stage of evolution.

If it came down to the last two people on Earth I would most definitely have their offspring breed with each other. The stigma of that is totally man made. They're just two humans. Granted the stigma does have some medical backing in the birth defect rate, but the feeling that it's gross is just social norms.

TWO

Friday, July 13, 2012 8:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
.... and there is no electricity. ....

The world population is very likely to drop to one before it could increase to three. Genetic defect problems solved. For how difficult living without electricity can be for those without the right knowledge, see the movie Hunger Games or the TV show Walking Dead.

On a happier note about genetics, today's entry -- Blogging the Human Genome: How a mutation on chromosome 16 gave Elizabeth Taylor her amazing double eyelashes.
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/chromosomes/features/2012/bl
ogging_the_human_genome_/blogging_the_human_genome_elizabeth_taylor_s_double_eyelashes_.html

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

WISHIMAY

Friday, July 13, 2012 9:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zeek:
They're just two humans.

Couldn't that same argument be made for a parent and a grown child? In each there would still be the same potential amount of the duplicated DNA pattern to cause dominate representations of harmful and positive traits to show up?

It seems that DNA doesn't really seems to mind whether it is shallow or complicated, just that there is two sets present, and that it doesn't even mind very similar sets?

We had bunnies when I was a kid and once a male bunny bred with it's own mother, and I had always thought that was a potentially very bad thing, but the offspring were still functioning healthy bunnies, and as a kid that really suprised me... That and with all the articles in the last few years about men keeping their daughters locked up and breeding with them I never saw any mention of severly deformed children... and if anything they gave the impression that the children were normal looking enough.

WISHIMAY

Friday, July 13, 2012 9:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
The world population is very likely to drop to one before it could increase to three. Genetic defect problems solved. For how difficult living without electricity can be for those without the right knowledge, see the movie Hunger Games or the TV show Walking Dead.

I've read several primitive survival novels, and have books on what you can and can't eat in nature. I'd like to think I'd be ok. I have not read Hunger Games, nor have I seen the movie, as a reputable source for things I'd like recommended I watch paint dry instead

Well, maybe if it actually IS the end of the world and I have nothing else better to do...

It's nice to know they figured out the Liz Taylor thing, I hope they figure the rest out before we mess up the rest of the planet and our DNA....

TWO

Friday, July 13, 2012 11:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
It's nice to know they figured out the Liz Taylor thing, I hope they figure the rest out before we mess up the rest of the planet and our DNA....

It is all chance and circumstance. If humanity gets down to two, humanity survives based on which defective genes, and how many, the two share:

Quote:
Human genetics started with a black diaper. Around 1900, the English doctor Archibald Garrod began studying cases of alkaptonuria, a disorder that turns people’s urine black when exposed to air. Garrod noticed clusters of alkaptonuria in certain families, and assumed something in their environment or diet caused it. Then, in 1901, a mother brought in her newborn baby, whose diapers looked like an octopus had used them. Garrod realized that someone so young had almost certainly inherited alkaptonuria. Further digging revealed that the child’s parents were first cousins. Certain he was onto something—but unsure of what—Garrod published his findings. He soon got a letter from English biologist William Bateson.

The year before, three biologists had rediscovered Gregor Mendel. Mendel, a monk, had uncovered the first hints of genes (in pea plants) in the 1860s, but had died unappreciated—better known for his showdowns with local sheriffs than his science. Bateson had not been among the trio to rediscover Mendel, but he made up for that by becoming the most zealous “Mendelist” in Europe. He preached the monk’s doctrines tirelessly, and even took up cigars and chess because Mendel liked them.

Bateson’s letter explained to Garrod that alkaptonuria fit the pattern for recessive genetic disorders, which are caused by inheriting two defective copies of a gene. . . .
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/chromosomes/features/2012/bl
ogging_the_human_genome_/blogging_the_human_genome_how_genetics_nearly_killed_off_darwinism_.html

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

ECGORDON

Saturday, July 14, 2012 10:05 PM

First off, anyone who reads Genesis as anything other than an allegory is fooling themselves. There was no one pair at the beginning, Adam and Eve, or whatever you choose to call them. The Bible is a very culture-centric document, detailing the lives of tribal people from the Mesopotamia region of the Tigris-Euphrates delta. It is also only about their lives from the time their civilization developed a common tongue and written language. It is only one area where civilization began, it is not where homo sapiens originated.

I know next to nothing about genetics, but I'd venture a guess there are times when certain recessive genes stay recessive for several generations, so there will be times when incestuous relationships result in healthy offspring. There has been breeding between close relations in all societies at one time or another, and I see no reason that wouldn't continue in some post-apocalyptic future. You seem to be asking whether we think it would be okay for that to happen. If there is any purpose in life it is to live, regardless of the circumstances. If there were only one man and one woman in existence it wouldn't matter their familial relationship. They either breed (or clone themselves) or homo sapiens becomes extinct.

WISHIMAY

Saturday, July 14, 2012 11:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
You seem to be asking whether we think it would be okay for that to happen.

They either breed (or clone themselves) or homo sapiens becomes extinct.

I know I'm close to the Kentucky border, but....not even.

I just spend a lot of time thinking about genetics and how the hell mine got soooo messed up.

And- That's easy for you to say...If it came down to me breeding with a relative, sorry BYE BYE HUMANITY...

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