Originally Posted by
David Hasselhoff
This is something I've seen you post before but I disagree with it.
You're right about more and more generations increasing the ill effects of inbreeding. However, I think that populations which don't have mechanisms against inbreeding had a high chance of being an evolutionary dead end should any remote change in environment. One sign of a dying population of animals is one which has been drastically reduced in number and then if the genertic diversity is far too low they might die off. The level of genetic relatedness equals that of the general population when it comes to having sex with third cousins. Existing human populations which practice consanguinity or even just tend to breed closely such as Ashkenazi Jews or the Mennonites have disproportionately higher levels of diseases because of the allowance of recessive genes to be expressed and not diluted down, genetic diseases which affect each population such as Tay-Zachs or Crigler-Najjar syndrome respectively. Also, it's not just a cultural crusade against inbreeding either, there is an observed effect known as the Westermarck Effect in which people who grew up closely together become desensitised or incapable of sexual attraction towards those they were raised with.
Gahh. Her first visit to the vet tomorrow too. 
