Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Originally posted by Amaterasu
First, virtually all creatures can inbreed for generations before abnormalities spring up. All except humans. Why would it be that evolution awkwardly constructed one species to have the highest awareness (by far!) than any other and yet have such restrictions in inbreeding, with good probability of issues in the first generation, and high odds in the second?
I am going to have to spend some time digesting the entire post, and I hate to pluck a single paragraph from it for a comment, but I need to do it here. If all life were equal in measures of finite details, then what you are saying here would have merit. However, this isn't the case in any way. A dog, for example, can potentially be the canine equivalent of retarded and yet few people would notice it. The dog would be considered stubborn, hard headed, or just plain goofy... but then again, how many of us haven't seen a dog that fits these descriptions?
Humanity is very different. Developmental milestones have been set by so-called "experts" and if a child doesn't hit them, they are quickly considered as having some form of defect. Humans are essentially the only creatures on Earth who can have this applied to them. While animals can inbreed and appear to produce "normal" offspring, with humans even a tiny glitch in the system is quickly observable... be it a retardation, minor physical defect, or other developmental issue. I think Hollywood has largely contributed to this falacy that one generation of inbreeding humans will magically produce The Hills Have Eyes mutants with humpbacks, stubb arms, and 5 lb tongues. It is only because of how fine our motor skills and appearance is on average that the minor defects seen within that single generation of shared genetics are so noticable.
I want to point out that it takes many generations for physical deformities to appear in animals such as dogs. I’m not speaking merely of mental capacity. In humans, the physical manifestations are warped in relatively high percentages in as little as two generations, with higher percentages manifesting with each successive generation. Hundreds of generations have led to hip issues in certain breeds of dogs, for example, though many breeds still have no issues after an equal number of generations.
Humans alone manifest such issues in small numbers of generations.



